Transportation

Green Cabs Start to Appear in NYC

- Adam Clare

When news first broke about all those yellow cabs going green in New York City I was pretty excited. Now they are being rolled out and all the yellow cabs in NYC will have to be green by 2012! They taken a good initiative and made it better.

“There’s an awful lot of taxicabs on the streets of New York City obviously, so it makes a real big difference,” said Bloomberg. “These cars just sit there in traffic sometimes, belching fumes; this does a lot less. It’s a lot better for all of us.”

There are currently eight vehicles on the city’s “approved” list when it comes to hybrid vehicles to be used as yellow cabs: the Ford Escape Hybrid; the Honda Accord Hybrid and Civic Hybrid; the Lexus RX400h; the Saturn Vue Green Line; and the Toyota Highlander Hybrid, Camry Hybrid and Prius. As more manufacturers roll out fuel efficient hybrids, the number of possible candidates is sure to increase. Vehicles like the Saturn Aura Green Line and rumored Ford Fusion hybrid are likely to join the list.

Europeans Love Bikes

- Adam Clare

Every time I’m riding my bike and get stuck behind a smog producing death machine I fantasize about biking in cities like Amsterdam. Compared to North American cities they are already revolutionary in the way they promote cycling, and now some European cities are pedaling harder!

Copenhagen and Amsterdam have a cycling rate of 30% and 40% of their population commuting to work on bikes. This is good news itself, what’s better is that they are looking to encourage more cycling by increasing the cycling infrastructure that exists.

The rest of Europe is paying close attention. Officials from London, Munich and Zurich (plus a handful from the U.S.) have visited Amsterdam’s transportation department for advice on developing bicycle-friendly infrastructure and policies. Norway aims to raise bicycle traffic to at least 8% of all travel by 2015—double its current level—while Sweden hopes to move from 12% to 16% by 2010. This summer, Paris will put thousands of low-cost rental bikes throughout the city to cut traffic, reduce pollution and improve parking.

The city of Copenhagen plans to double its spending on biking infrastructure over the next three years, and Denmark is about to unveil a plan to increase spending on bike lanes on 2,000 kilometers, or 1,240 miles, of roads. Amsterdam is undertaking an ambitious capital-improvement program that includes building a 10,000-bike parking garage at the main train station—construction is expected to start by the end of next year. The city is also trying to boost public transportation usage, and plans to soon enforce stricter car-parking fines and increase parking fees to discourage people from driving.

Whistler Buses Go Hydro

- Fono

The government of BC (the Canadian province, not the era) is planning to outfit mountain city Whistler with a whole scad of hydro-powered buses. Diesel vehicles are the current norm, but the new buses will run entirely on fuel cells, which produce no harmful emissions.

Small numbers of fuel-cell- powered buses have been used in demonstration projects in cities in Europe and the United States over the past decade.

But the Whistler project, which is forecast to have 20 of the city’s 30 or so buses running on hydrogen power, will be the largest fuel-cell-powered fleet in the world and the first project to make such vehicles the backbone of a public transit system.

Highways Have Potential for Wind Energy Generation

- Adam Clare 3 Comments

highway Over at Inhabitat, there are two posts on using wind created by traffic on highways to generate electricity. A student proposes horizontally placed wind generators over highways, much like road signs are placed now (pictured).

A proposal coming from New Jersey has the generators built into the highway that powers a light rail system. Awesome!

The design, a runner-up in the 2006 Metropolis Mag Next Generation Design Competition proposed the integration of wind-turbines into the highway barriers that divide the traffic. These turbines would generate power from the wind created by the vehicles that drive past them in opposite directions. Originally conceived as a single row of vertical-axis rotary turbines, it has now been redesigned to include two rows, one stacked on top of each other, with the end power being used to power a light rail system.

Cyclists and Pollution

- Adam Clare

TreeHugger has a summary of what cyclists can do to protect their lungs from car pollution. If you’re worried about cycling in cities because of pollution, just remember that the health (and environmental) pros of cycling outweigh the cons.

By cycling instead of driving or taking public transport, you are doing your part to keep the air clean. The problem is that you have to cycle through all the pollution created by people who aren’t making any effort.

The Spacing Wire has information on what Canadians can do to get the federal government to support cycling.

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