As soon as we arrived in Austria after spending 2 weeks in Athens and 3 months in Thailand before that, we were blown away by the fantastic public spaces. Playgrounds & cycle paths & public art everywhere. This post highlights some of the cool things spotted as we cycled the EV6.
Solar PV panels were a common sight:
Municipal compost pick up:
Recycling bins are large and accept household and public materials. This is very helpful for travellers, people out & about and tenants (so they don’t have to depend on landlords to participate).
There are so many playgrounds and each one is unique:
The Spitz Airbnb that I mentioned in the last post (with the bike storage room) also had what I think are ground sourced heat pumps:
Having drinking water accessible to all is so important. Why not make it beautiful?
Retractable bollards allow pedestrian/rolling streets to let in vehicles when necessary.
This is an insect hotel to support biodiversity. We first saw these in Toulouse, France.
This is a waiting area to catch a shuttle across the Danube River (Donau).
Clean and free public washrooms are vital.
I love this apartment building courtyard in Linz. Dryers are not a thing in Europe. Tons of communal space to dry your laundry here, plus extra bike storage!
This pipe has a new life (?) as a place to sleep for the night. There were also toilet & shower rooms made using concrete pipes.
On demand electric hot water in a grocery store bathroom. Electrification of everything puts us on the path to net zero.
And last, but definitely not least, an electric robotic lawn mower. We saw a few of these in action.
Carbon conscious COVID dodging family travel 
Awesome! Ultimately, it is a lifestyle changes that I hope will really add up.
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