This article originally appeared in WRI Insights. Read it here. https://www.greenbiz.com/article/5-ways-cut-oil-and-gas-use-through-clean-transportation There’s never been a better time to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. Oil and gas prices are skyrocketing as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with gas prices exceeding $4 a gallon in the United States in March and more than $10 a gallon in other countries. Meanwhile, the …
Free fares are bringing riders back quicker
Feb 2022 https://gothamist.com/news/free-fares-could-bring-riders-back-mta-quicker-what-cost NY’s MTA is still suffering from low ridership during the weekdays due to the pandemic changing commuting patterns. It is relying on $16 billion in federal funding to balance its budget in the coming years, due to fare revenue shortfalls. But as the agency tries to bring ridership back to pre-pandemic levels, one idea we wanted to explore is what it …
Open Mobility Foundation rolls out standards and APIs that will provide open communication about curb space
Smart Cities Dive, https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/open-mobility-foundation-rolls-out-data-standards-for-curb-space/618064/, Feb 2022 After creating the Mobility Data Specification tool, a set of data standards for cities to collect data from mobility-as-a-service companies, the nonprofit Open Mobility Foundation (OMF) is rolling out similar standards that will provide open communication about curb space. OMF’s Curb Data Specification (CDS) is a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) for cities, delivery companies, ride-hailing companies …
Fare free or zero fare transit could address equity and ridership issues. Here’s how some cities are making it happen.
INNOVATIONS TRANSPORTATION https://www.planning.org/planning/2021/fall/can-zero-fare-transit-work/ Also: By 1980, there were more than 40,000 miles of road in the interstate system (most 90% covered by federal investment). Highway engineers have since added more than 5,000 miles aimed at speeding up traffic and easing congestion, especially for suburban commuters (with federal participation at the 80% level)…in the first 20 years of the interstate highway system, …
San Diego’s Climate Action Plan – Mobility and Land Use Measures and Actions
The Climate Action Plan draft is now out: Climate Action Plan Draft The City of San Diego’s new Climate Action Plan establishes a community-wide goal of net zero by 2035, committing San Diego to an accelerated trajectory for greenhouse gas reductions. PDF: https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/climate_action_plan_draft.pdf or read and comment online at: https://sdclimateaction.konveio.com/strategies-reduce-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://sdclimateaction.konveio.com/plan-overview Related to building electrification it has: Strategy 1: Decarbonization …
As traffic deaths climb, NTSB chair calls for ‘fundamental rethink’ of transportation planning
Sept. 14, 2021By Jason Plautz, Smart Cities Dive It is possible to achieve zero traffic fatalities if we “fundamentally rethink” the nation’s approach to transportation planning, even as traffic deaths continue to climb, said U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chair Jennifer Homendy at the Governors Highway Safety Association’s (GHSA) annual conference in Denver on Monday. An estimated 8,730 people died in motor vehicle crashes in …
On commuting, what our jobs or employers require, and what we give or take back
Excerpt from The Myth of the Productive Commute, by Anne Helen Petersen, Sept 19, 2021 …Anyone who’s actually commuted will tell you: these are fantasies. Or, at the very least, they were available to a vanishingly small portion of the office-working population. None of these bikes have kid seats on the back. None of these dudes are carrying large backpacks …
Banning of trucks on (and major pollution from) a highway
The high levels of asthma in the neighborhoods around the I-880 freeway, which carries the highest volume of trucks in the San Francisco Bay Area, stem from the trucks emission of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter. Truck traffic along the I-880 worsened significantly when trucks were banned on the nearby I-580, which runs through the predominantly white Oakland Hills. Special Route …
Riding a Bike Has One-Tenth the Impact of an Electric Car: A full life-cycle analysis shows that EVs still have a significant carbon footprint
By Lloyd Alter, March 31, 2021, Fact checked by Haley Mast A recent study with the unexciting title The Climate Change Mitigation Effects of Daily Active Travel in Cities comes to the unsurprising conclusion that “cyclists had 84% lower CO2 emissions from all daily travel than non-cyclists.”1 The lead researcher, Christian Brand, jazzed it up a bit in his summary in The Conversation, …
Ability to walk in a safe, comfortable, and dignified manner…
The Real Reason Red America Loves Cars (Streetsblog USA), by Kea Wilson, Sept 3, 2021 Republican-leaning voters are more likely than Democrats to trade a walkable community for a large home, a new poll finds — but that result may say more about car culture’s stranglehold on the American imagination than how either group really wants to live. In a viral article for …