planted city

From Inter Press Service: 

Berlin is a big capital city of a country famed for making excellent automobiles, but it can no longer afford roads and is now moving people by transit, bike and especially through walking.

Berlin is not alone. Paris, Tokyo, Seoul, Bogotá, New York City and other major cities simply cannot afford the cost, the pollution, the noise and the congestion of more cars. They are embracing a new concept called EcoMobility - mobility without private cars. 
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EcoMobility is defined as moving people and goods in urban areas using combinations of walking, cycling (including electric bikes) and wheeling (roller blades), public transport, and light electric vehicles. 

The concept is being widely embraced by cities looking for affordable and effective forms of sustainable transport. 

“Cities should focus more on moving people rather than moving vehicles,” said Stephen Yarwood, mayor of Adelaide, Australia. 

The fact is, cars are not very good at moving people. A standard 3.5-meter-wide city street has a maximum capacity of 2,000 people in cars per hour. The same road can carry 14,000 cyclists or 19,000 pedestrians each hour. 

Light rail in the same space can move 22,000 people, and a double lane of bus rapid transit will move 43,000 people, said Manfred Breithaupt, director of the GIZ Sustainable Urban Transport Project, a German NGO. 

The transportation sector is one of biggest contributors of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, responsible for 25 to 30 percent of the emissions causing climate change. 

Check out the rest of the article here.

(Infographic credit: City of Münster via Lunchover IP)

From The New York Times:

IT’S a lot like one of those math problems that gave you fits in sixth grade: a salesman leaves home in Denver and drives his electric car to a meeting in Boulder. At the same time, a physicist driving the same model electric car sets out from her loft in Los Angeles, heading to an appointment near Anaheim.

For both, the traffic is light, and the cars consume an identical amount of battery power while traveling the same number of miles. Being purely electric, they emit zero tailpipe pollutants during their trips.

The test question: are their carbon footprints also equal?

The answer may be a surprise. According to a report that the Union of Concerned Scientists plans to release on Monday, there would be a considerable difference in the amount of greenhouse gases — primarily carbon dioxide — that result from charging the cars’ battery packs. By trapping heat, greenhouse gases contribute to climate change.

The advocacy group’s report, titled “State of Charge: Electric Vehicles’ Global Warming Emissions and Fuel Cost Savings Across the United States,” uses the electric power requirements of the Nissan Leaf as a basis for comparison. The Leaf, on sale in the United States for more than a year and the most widely available electric model from a major automaker, sets a logical baseline.

The California part of the story is upbeat: a hypothetical Los Angeles Leaf would be accountable for the release of an admirably low level of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, about the same as a gasoline car getting 79 miles per gallon. But the Denver car would cause as large a load of greenhouse gases to enter the atmosphere as some versions of the gasoline-powered Mazda 3, a compact sedan rated at 33 m.p.g. in combined city and highway driving by the Environmental Protection Agency. In simple terms, the effect of electric vehicles on the amount of greenhouse gases released into the environment can span a wide range, varying with the source of the electricity that charges them. California’s clean power makes the Leaf a hero; the regional mix of coal-dependent utilities serving Denver diminish the car’s benefits as a global-warming fighter.

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According to 2010 data from the United States Energy Information Administration, 45 percent of the country’s electricity is generated by burning coal, the dirtiest fuel. Natural gas, a much cleaner fuel, accounts for 24 percent of electricity production, a figure that is shifting rapidly with price swings. Nuclear plants generate 20 percent of the nation’s power, while wind, solar and geothermal sources provide 3 percent.

While the report puts hard numbers on the current situation, it also points out the need for fundamental changes.

“To prevent the worst consequences of global warming,” the report concludes, “the automotive industry must deliver viable alternatives to the oil-fueled internal-combustion engine — i.e., vehicles boasting zero or near-zero emissions.”

Check out the rest of the article here and a map of the GHGs associated with driving an electric car in specific regions of the U.S. here.

(Infographic credit: Union of Concerned Scientists)

A paragraph from the Atlantic Cities article, ‘How More Expensive Housing Can Actually Cost You Less’, which highlights the growing economic benefits of living in walkable/ “location efficient” neighborhoods.

The website for the ‘Housing and Transportation Affordability Index’ explains that:

People who live in location inefficient places are auto-dependent, have high transportation costs, and are more susceptible to fluctuations in gas prices. 

This trend is projected to only get stronger (e.g. here, here, and here) as gas prices rise in response to the “the end of the petroleum era.” 

(Graphic credit: The Housing + Transportation Affordability Index)

Getting Animated: ‘Food Rules’ by writer Michael Pollan

From Vimeo:

Based on Michael Pollan’s talk “Food Rules” given at the RSA, this animation was created in the context of the RSA/Nominet Trust film competition. Using a mixture of stop-motion and compositing, our aim and challenge was to convey the topic in a visually interesting way using a variety of different food products. We made a little table top set up at home and worked on this a little over three weeks. 

(Photo credit: Michael Pollan)

From The Economist:

For years urban planners have emphasised the needs of the motorist over those of the pedestrian. Thanks partly to greenery, partly to a greater understanding of how pedestrians behave, and partly to concerns about social cohesion, priorities are changing.

London provides two good example of this shift. On February 1st Exhibition Road, a landmark street near many of the city’s museums, is being formally reopened after a three-year construction project to turn it into something that transport engineers like to call a “shared space”. Kerbs have been stripped out, along with the usual road markings, to create a thoroughfare that is designed to be shared by cyclists, pedestrians and cars alike. The idea, adopted from continental Europe, is to create an area which is not just more pleasant for people on foot but also safer because it encourages drivers to pay closer attention to their surroundings. 

Less experimentally, big improvements have already been made to Oxford Circus, one of the city’s busiest intersections. The junction between Oxford Street and Regent Street sees as many as 40,000 people pass through every hour, and only 2,000 vehicles. Until 2009, however, pedestrians came well down the pecking order. In the language of planners, pedestrians were unable to follow their desire lines, the paths they want to take as opposed to the ones they are meant to. At Oxford Circus, giving rein to people’s desire lines has meant ripping out guard railings that hemmed pedestrians in and allowing people to cross the junction diagonally as well as from side to side (a feature known as a pedestrian scramble). 

Check out the rest of the article here. The Independent’s ‘Walk on the wild side: Pedestrians could soon be on equal footing with cars’ and the Guardian’s ‘Exhibition Road, London - review’ both profile the pedestrianization project and are worth a look.

(Photo credit: The Guardian)

A quote from the New York Times article, ‘The Dutch Way - Bicycles and Fresh Bread’, which highlights the cycling culture in the Netherlands in search of lessons for building more robust cycling cultures in North American cities and towns.

(Photo credit: Amsterdamize)

From The National Post:

Following recent high-profile cycling deaths in Ontario, results of a poll suggest four in five Canadians think until more cyclists respect the rules of the road, they won’t be able to gain the respect of motorists.

“What Canadians are saying is that there needs to be more understanding between motorists and cyclists,” Ipsos Reid associate vice-president Sean Simpson said.

Simpson pointed to Europe as an example of co-operation because bicycles are more common and both parties are accustomed to each other on the road.

The poll’s results also indicated Canadians are vastly in favour of more bike lanes.

Findings of the poll, conducted by Ipsos Reid exclusively for Postmedia News and Global News, show four in five (or 81 per cent) of those surveyed think Canada’s cities don’t have enough lanes devoted to cyclists, while nearly three in four (73 per cent) feel cyclists are right for demanding more respect from drivers.

Simpson said ordinarily, when a large number of people support an issue, more of them will say they somewhat agree, instead of strongly agree. In the case of bike lanes, the situation is reversed, with 43 per cent strongly supporting additional bike lanes, and 38 per cent of respondents saying they somewhat support the proposal.

More than half of all university graduates surveyed said they strongly supported bike lanes, with another 34 per cent said they somewhat supported them. The results show that younger people are more likely to support bike-lane expansion, but only by a margin of five per cent.

Check out the rest of the article here.

(Photo credit: Globe & Mail; infographic credit: Globe & Mail)

From Atlantic Cities:

New research from Southern California has found that residents of neighborhoods with a central core of shops and services – a pattern typically found in older, traditional communities – walk nearly three times more often than do residents of neighborhoods whose nearest shops and services lie along a major arterial roadway, a pattern typically found in newer suburban development.  Residents of traditionally styled and centered neighborhoods also drive less than their counterparts residing in the newer pattern.

This is true even when the data are controlled for individual and household economic and demographic characteristics.

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Notably, the residents of the centered neighborhoods were found to take shorter trips, suggesting that walkable proximity – both closeness and a safe, direct walking route – to shops and services is also important. It may not do much to encourage walking, for example, if the dry cleaner’s is a quarter mile away as the crow flies but you have to travel two or three times that far navigating busy roads around the subdivision to get there.

Check out the rest of the article here.

(Photo credit: Calgary Herald)

From The City Fix:

The “Millennial” generation is quickly adopting car sharing as a mainstream transportation solution, according to results from Zipcar’s second annual study of the personal transportation and car ownership behavior of 18- to 34-year-olds. The study found that 55 percent of this influential generation have made an effort to drive less, which is a 10 percent rise from 2010. “Millennials are increasingly embracing access over ownership,” Zipcar explained. This is an interesting development, especially since vehicle ownership has been viewed as a “rite of passage” for many Americans.

Among the factors persuading Millennials to refuse car ownership are environmental concerns, which have led this generation to consciously reduce road travel. Other concerns include the total cost of vehicle ownership and the perceived advantages of “collaborative consumption“ programs. “Compared to older generations, Millennials participate in and are more open to collaborative consumption programs, such as media, car and home or vacation sharing,” Zipcar explained. “More than half of Millennials, or 53 percent, indicated they would likely partake in a car-sharing service, like Zipcar.”’

Here are some key findings from the study:

• 55 percent have actively made an effort to drive less, compared to 45 percent in the same 2010 study
• 78 percent say owning a car is difficult due to high costs of gas and maintenance
• 53 percent would participate in a car-sharing service, like Zipcar – mobility and convenience is still important
• Millennials are the most likely age group to participate in the “sharing economy” (67 percent would participate in media sharing and 49 percent in home/vacation sharing)
• 40 percent  say they would participate to save more money for retirement or buying a home

Check out the rest of the article here. Related articles on the topic include:

• ‘Driving has lost its cool for young Americans’ (Grist)
• ‘Why are US teenagers driving less (BBC)
• Infographic: ‘The Future of Car Sharing’ (Collaborative Consumption)
• ‘Is Digital Revolution Driving Decline in US Car Culture?’ (Ad Age)
• ‘Oil Prices Predicted to Stay Above $100 a Barrel Through Next Year’ (New York Times)
• ‘Economy, Gas Prices Make Americans Drive Less’ (USA Today)
• ‘US Gas Use Declining’ (Earth Policy Institute)
• ‘We Are Approaching Peak Car Use’ (FastCo.Exist) 

(Photo credit: Carbon Talks)

Ultimately, the car-dominant model of urban and suburban development is not sustainable. Recognizing the limitations of this outmoded model is the first step in planning for our future of economic, energy, and environmental uncertainty. 

You can read and download the report here.