Transportation – Page 38 – Things Are Good

France Pays People to Cycle to Work

France is experimenting with new way to subsidize transportation by getting more people to bicycle to work. Traffic in Paris is particularly awful and with ongoing population growth and car-focused infrastructure the transportation problems are only going to increase. France is hoping that getting people to ride bicycles will stymie the growth of transportation issues.

French Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier, noting that commuting using public transport and cars is already subsidized, said that if results of the test are promising, a second experiment on a larger scale will be done.

The ministry hopes that the bike-to-work incentive scheme will boost bike use for commuting by 50 percent from 2.4 percent of all work-home journeys, or about 800 million km, with an average distance of 3.5 km per journey.

In Belgium, where a tax-free bike incentive scheme has been in place for more than five years, about 8 percent of all commutes are on bicycles. In the flat and bicycle-friendly Netherlands, it is about 25 percent, cycling organizations say.

Solar Roads Could Provide Electricity

There are six days left for the Indiegog campaign for Solar Roadways and they have already met their goal! The $1,000,000 goal has been reached and passed – which is quite impressive! The idea behind the successful campaign is to turn roads from heat-producing to energy-producing. A network of roads equipped with solar panels can revolutionize energy networks.

Solar Roadways is a modular paving system of solar panels that can withstand the heaviest of trucks (250,000 pounds). These Solar Road Panels can be installed on roads, parking lots, driveways, sidewalks, bike paths, playgrounds… literally any surface under the sun. They pay for themselves primarily through the generation of electricity, which can power homes and businesses connected via driveways and parking lots. A nationwide system could produce more clean renewable energy than a country uses as a whole.

Thanks to Stu!

New Speed Limit in Paris: 30 km/hr

This week Wired published an article about the 20 deadliest US cities for pedestrians and they write:

There, low-density neighborhoods â€œrely on wider streets with higher speeds to connect homes, shops, and schoolsâ€”roads that tend to be more dangerous for people walking,â€ the report says. More than half of all pedestrian deaths recorded from 2003-2012 occurred on wide arterial roads designed to move cars quickly.

Paris, is known for its boulevards that accommodate fast moving traffic (in theory) and good pedestrian walking. Over the past few years Paris has had some of the worst traffic problems in the world. They have experienced seemingly never-ending smog and congestion. Their most recent way to curb these problems is to reduce the speed limit.

As traffic speeds are significantly brought down across the city, a number of very important things occur as a direct result: substantially fewer accidents, significant reduction in serious injuries and deaths, energy savings, reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels, local air pollution reduction, quality-of-life improvements all those who live and work, and play and study there, improved conditions and local accessibility for local business, significantly reduced carbon stress on climate, and the long list goes on.

More Americans Are Biking to Work

Bicycling in urban areas has increased in the developed world over the last decade and the USA is no exception. The obvious health benefits from riding a bike and the increased attention to bike infrastructure contributes to the growth in riders. More people bicycling the better as it gets people out of their cars and cleans the air.

The increase comes as cities add bike-share programs and lanes to encourage cyclists. Portland, Ore., which boasts 319 miles of bikeways, has the largest share of bike commuters among big cities, about 6 percent. (Insert Portlandia joke here.) Madison, Wis., (5 percent) and Minneapolis (4 percent) are right behind. In some smaller cities, bike commuting is even more common: One in 10 Boulderites ride to work in Colorado, and the number approaches 20 percent in Davis, Calif. The trend is good news for the bike industry and the people who make this suit.

High Speed Rail Coming to……Texas?

Texas is an American state best known for its gun-loving, big truck driving, cowboy, remember the Alamo culture. It is the last place I’d expect high speed rail infrastructure to actually get support in the USA. The good news here is that not only are Texans in favour of high speed rail – the private sector is going to fund.

This is a great contrast to other states where governments are even apprehensive to do feasibility studies. The private company will use Japanese technology and pay for building the infrastructure. With luck, this Texas push for rail will spread further than that state’s borders. Getting more people onto trains instead of driving everywhere is good for everyone.

Five years ago, the company started work on bringing Japanâ€™s bullet train to the U.S. It studied 97 potential city pairs.
Which route would pay for construction and operating costs and generate a return for investors? Which would serve as a showcase so the model might be replicated elsewhere?
Weigh all the factors, and Dallas to Houston was the top choice.
â€œThis is a golden market to deploy our system,â€ said Richard Lawless, CEO of Texas Central Railway and a former CIA employee who served in Asia and Europe.
Dallas and Houston are the ideal distance for high-speed rail, about 230 miles apart. A one-way rail trip is expected to take less than 90 minutes.