Category: Transportation

Top Ten Green Transportation Trends for 08

Inhabitat has a breakdown of what they see being the most significant trends in transportation in 2008.

3) IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT FUEL EFFICIENCY
Everyone is looking at emissions as the greatest contributor to global warming, but there is so much more that we can do to improve our methods of transportation. This past year Mazda showcased the Kiyora, a car that cleans water, while BMW showed a car that not only ran on hydrogen but also cleaned the air as it moved through the city. But none was as exciting to us as the super-environmentally friendly Eco-Elise, which was revealed by Lotus in July of this year. The vehicle was not just an energy-efficient vehicle, but was created with the greenest materials that the company could find. It’s like they read our minds!

Bike Sharing Gone Wild

Pedal power is gaining popularity in Europ in the form of more and more cities creating their own bike sharing programs.

For mayors looking to ease congestion and prove their environmental bona fides, bike-sharing has provided a simple solution: For the price of a bus, they get a fleet of bicycles, and they can avoid years of construction and the approvals required for a subway. For riders, joining means cut-rate transportation – as well as a chance to contribute to the planet’s well-being.

The new systems are successful in part because they blanket cities with huge numbers of available bikes, but the real linchpin is technology. Aided by electronic smart cards and computerized bike stands, riders can pick up and drop off bicycles in seconds at hundreds of locations, their payments deducted from bank accounts.

“As some cities have done it, others are realizing they can do it, too,” said Paul DeMaio, founder of MetroBike, a U.S.-based bike-sharing consultant that tracks programs worldwide. “There is an incredible trajectory.”

The huge new European bicycle-sharing networks function less as recreation and more as low-cost, alternative public transportation. Most programs (though not Paris’s and Lyon’s) exclude tourists and day-trippers.

700 KM on 4 Liters of Fuel?

Yes it is possible, FactCheck.org says so:
Can a freight train really move a ton of freight 436 miles on a gallon of fuel?

Yes.

Some rail lines do better. The Soo Line, which is the U.S. branch of the Canadian Pacific, operating in the upper Midwest, reported moving each ton of freight 517.8 miles per gallon of diesel fuel, on average. Lines operated by the Grand Trunk Corp. reported 510.5 ton-miles per gallon.

The national average figure of 436 miles is the highest on record, according to AAR, and a 3.1 percent increase from the 423-mile figure reached in 2006.

The rail industry says its fuel efficiency has increased by 85 percent since 1980. It attributes that to factors that include using new and more efficient locomotives, training engineers to conserve fuel, using computers to assemble trains more efficiently in the yard and to plan trips more efficiently to avoid congestion, and reducing the amount of time engines are idling.

Montreal Launches Bixi the Pedal Powered Public Transit


Bixi is the name of Montreal’s new bike-sharing program. If I had my way every city in the world would have a system like this. Way to go Montreal!

The city joins Paris, Barcelona, and Lyon with the installation of its own public bike system, named Bixi, making 2,400 bicycles available to the public at more than 300 locations across six Montreal boroughs.

Starting next spring, residents will be able to borrow bicycles from one station and drop them off at another.

“You grab it, you ride it, you bring it back,” Montreal’s mayor Gerald Tremblay told The Canadian Press. “It will become an emblem for Montreal.”

Bixi may be a more health-friendly means of transportation, but it’s also environmentally friendly. The bikes, which were made in Quebec, are composed entirely of recycled aluminum and the parking stations run on solar power.

The entire operation cost $15 million and was paid for by Stationnement de Montreal, a company that manages the city’s on-street parking.