Nov 21, 09
Dutch Cabinet Okays Tax Based on Miles Driven by Motorists
In an effort to reduce automobile usage and greenhouse gas emissions, the Dutch cabinet has approved a driving tax that would charge motorists seven cents a mile. The plan, which must still be approved by parliament, would use GPS systems installed in each car to keep track of mileage and automatically bill drivers. The mileage charges would be higher at rush hour, for large cars, and for commercial vehicles. Dutch officials said the driving tax, which would replace existing road taxes and...
Walk Score Adds Transit
Popular walkability ranking now includes bus stops and rail stations. Walk Score, which has become the most widely-used measure of pedestrian friendly neighborhoods in North America, has added a new trick: they're now incorporating transit data into their walkability ratings. So in addition to stores, restaurants, parks, and the like, Walk Score now treats nearby bus stops and rail stations as key ingredients of a walkable neighborhood. What makes this extra nifty is that Walk Score has...
Vancouver Bridge Bike Lane a Success
by Alex Aylett If you build it... they will bike. The success of Vancouver's Burrard bridge bike lane is front page news here today.The six lane Burrard Bridge is one of Vancouver's most highly used, and connects the downtown core with nearby residential and commercial neighbourhoods. In July, the $1.3 million trial project converted one of the six lanes into a dedicated two-way bike lane separated from traffic by a concrete barrier (see photo). The results of a new report on the...
Parking Done Right
Let’s talk parking. Recently I suggested that building new parking garages isn’t an environmentally friendly thing to do, even if such garages are nicely landscaped and have energy-efficient lighting systems. The environmental impact of the structures themselves is minuscule in comparison to the impact of the transportation system they are part of, and the green flourishes do nothing to change this basic equation. For making this fairly bland observation, I was accused of,...
New Study Shows $56 Billion in Hidden Health Damage From Autos
By Elana Schor Transportation's effects on public health are rarely discussed by policy-makers, but they remain very real -- and the National Research Council (NRC) put a number on them Monday, reporting that cars and trucks have about $56 billion in "hidden" health costs that are not reflected in the price of oil or electricity. In its report on the "unpriced consequences of energy production and use," the NRC was acting under a congressional mandate to map the health...
Buses Using Ultracapacitors Will be Put to the Test in Washington
A U.S. company and its Chinese partner will test electric buses using ultracapacitors that would be chargeable at stops every few miles. The latest ultracapacitors store only 5 percent of the energy that lithium-ion batteries can hold, making them impractical for passenger vehicles. But proponents say the fact that buses have to stop frequently — and at predictable locations — make them a more logical use of the technology. Virginia-based Sinautec Automobile Technologies and Shanghai...
San Francisco Walks to School
by John Hamilton A generation ago, nearly half of all U.S. kids walked or bicycled to school. Today, less than fifteen percent do, with the majority arriving at school in private automobiles. It’s no coincidence, then, that studies show more than a quarter of San Francisco’s children are overweight. But a new program hopes to change that trend, while reducing greenhouse gas pollution and increasing fun. With the help of a $500,000 grant from the federal government, San Francisco has...
Paradox, Shmaradox. Congestion Pricing Works.
By Charles Komanoff We're used to seeing bizarre patterns of thinking on the Wall Street Journal's editorial pages, but an op-ed in Friday's Journal took it to a new level: “How Traffic Jams Help the Environment.” Photo: The Wall Street Journal Still more bizarrely, the author was New Yorker writer David Owen, promoter of the commonsensical idea that urban density is energy-efficient, hence big cities are green. For some reason Owen has taken a dislike to congestion pricing, and it...
Not Just For Treehuggers: France To Spend $2.2 Billion On Electric Car Charging Stations; Does Peeing Before Boarding An Airplane Really Save Carbon Emissions?
The most widely read ‘green’ site on the Web has a firehose worth of material, in part because they themselves fill their hydrant with almost everything green that is published online. I’m going to try clip some of the highlights regularly for CP readers: Yet another reason EVs trump FCVs (see “Climate and hydrogen car advocate gets almost everything wrong about plug-in cars“) — — people are actually spending big bucks to building the EV...
Fun With Data: How US Workers Commute
By Mathew Katz Bike Pittsburgh has posted some great, sortable data about how commuters get to work in major American cities, drawn from a Census Bureau report. As you'd expect, New York comes in as the city where the least amount of people commute solo by car -- only 23.3 percent, followed by 37.2 percent in Washington, D.C. and 38.4 percent in San Francisco. Wichita, Kansas ranks as the place with the highest percentage of drivers: 85.1 percent of commuters use a car to get to work. The...
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