Turkey got its first high-speed trains back in November 2007. It’s state railway company (TCDD) was the 8th in the world to operate high-speed trains (and the 6th in Europe). News now is that the country has just started testing out some bullet trains. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended an inaugural run on December …
Getting oil out of the ground requires water. And as oil supplies are depleted, this process requires more and more water. It turns out that nowadays oil companies are using a TON of water,.. (to access precious oil for our gas-guzzling cars). “Oil companies are grabbing an increasing share of the water in California’s Central …
Weekly news roundup from other sites. TheStreet and Bundle Special Report: America’s Best and Worst Commutes Whether you live in a city, the suburbs or farm country, commuting by car to and from work can be an unavoidable expense. Beyond the obvious cost of gas, there are other ways a commute lightens your wallet — …
To share more stories with our wonderful readers, I’ve decided to start doing a weekly “link drop” — in other words, I’ll drop links to great stories we couldn’t cover (plus a little intro). Hope you find this helpful and enjoy it. Studies Show the Connection Between Travel Times to Food Stores and Public Health …
New data out in the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency 2010 Transportation Fact Sheet shows that the number of car-free households in San Francisco has climbed a little bit recently, bringing the percentage of car-free households in this progressive city above 30%. Yes, an increase from 29.8% to 30.3% isn’t huge, but you know how we …
Over 30% of San Francisco Households Now Car-Free Read More »
Cargo Bikes + Food for the Hungry + Portland = B-Shares. I met the guy in this video and we had a long chat about all things bikes when I was in Portland this summer. Looks like his company, B-line, is expanding its services to the hungry now. “The ‘B-shares’ program uses 600-pound capacity(!), electric-assisted cargo …
Unlike the Vélib bike-sharing program in Paris, the largest in the world, which has had a bit of a problem with bike theft and vandalism, it seems that this is an issue of little or no concern for U.S. bike-sharing programs (and others around the world). Noah Kazis of Streetsblog New York City writes: For …
Bike Theft and Vandalism Not an Issue For U.S. Bike-Sharing Programs Read More »
Bicycling in Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, Chicago, San Francisco, and many other big North American cities has increased a few times over (or more) in the past couple of decades. And with more people cycling, more people get the urge to cycle, especially with health, environmental, and economic problems the way they are these days, so …
The League of American Bicyclists has had a Bicycle Friendly Community program going for years, as well as newer Bicycle Friendly Business and Bicycle Friendly State programs. Now, the League is adding one more, a Bicycle Friendly University (BFU) program. The program was actually officially launched in September at the annual Pro-walk/Pro-bike conference in Chattanooga, …
The Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) of the news magazine The Economist and leading engineering company Siemens just released the Latin American Green City Index [PDF], an index measuring the sustainability of 17 key Latin American cities. Believe it or not, Latin America is the most urbanized area of the world according to the United Nations. 81% of the …
The proposals are in after Monday’s final public meeting to decide the future of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway trench which severs the Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, and Columbia Street Waterfront neighborhoods of Brooklyn. Residents spoke up and prioritized their wishes for a less disruptive BQE including reduced noise and pollution, increased neighborhood connectivity and bike / pedestrian …
Cycling directions became an option in Google Maps in 150 U.S. cities back in March. News is that they are now about to be an option in Canada as well. 9 major Canadian cities (Calgary, Edmonton, Gatineau, Kelowna, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Waterloo and Winnipeg) shared bike path and bike lane data with Google and users in …
Google Maps Includes Bicycle Directions in Canada Now Read More »
I wrote on New York City’s large, potential bike-sharing program a few months ago, the only proposed bike-sharing program in North America that will compare to the famous and highly successful Paris Vélib’ system (or even Barcelona’s Bicing program). NYC’s bike-sharing program has just moved forward now, with New York City’s Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) Commissioner Janette …
New York City Bike-Sharing Program Plans Move Forward Read More »
Curitiba, Brazil has improved itself as much as practically any city on the planet in recent years. A new short video on the city was released by EMBARQ last week and a screening of the video was held at the World Resources Institute in Washington, D.C. The City Fix, in a post covering this screening, the …
Curitiba: Sustainable Transportation & Sustainable City Leader [VIDEO] Read More »
Are you a cycling superhero? Probably not yet, but you could be soon. A handful of green activists and bicycle enthusiasts have been going on “cycling superhero bike rides” once or twice a year since 2000, on which they bike long distances (no experience doing so needed, just a desire to give it a shot) …
This is a great-looking bicycle composting and recycling service, and what is greener than biking, composting, and recycling? As Rory Woods of sustainablog writes, “Motivated by their love of bike culture and the environment, this enterprising group has built a cooperative business around transporting other businesses’ compost and recycling.” For a little more info from …
Community Composting and Recycling by Bike [VIDEO] Read More »
The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) releases figures regarding how much people save by riding transit in the U.S. every month in its Transit Savings Report. It calculates how much the average American saves as well as how much an average resident of twenty of the country’s largest cities (the cities with the most transit …
Cars have gotten a hugely disproportionate bulk of transportation funds in the U.S. for decades, over half a century even. But with more and more people realizing this is bad for our health, bad for our pocketbooks, bad for the environment, and bad for the vibrancy of our cities, this is (slowly) changing. One of the …
Cyclists get mistreated, illegally ticketed, and poorly protected on roads all over the U.S. Why people don’t realize that cyclists save them time (while a biker may block your way for a short time, he or she does so much less than an automobile), make the roads safer, and help keep the air cleaner is …
New York City Cyclists Getting Nearly $1 Million for Wrongful Arrests Read More »
I just wrote on the high-speed rail (HSR) network being planned in California earlier today, which will have trains that can travel up to 220 mph (354 kph), bringing people from LA to San Francisco in less than 2.5 hours. While California is planning its network, however, China has already started implementing one, the largest …
China’s Fastest Train (Fastest Train in World) Now in Operation Read More »
One of my friends from my city planning graduate studies just tipped me off to a new video for the California high-speed rail (HSR) project that her company, PBS&J (an Atkins Company), is a part of. It is a great, comprehensive video covering numerous aspects of this project and I highly recommend checking it out. …
The Green Business Blog Carnival comes to EcoLocalizer! Following up on Green Business Blog Carnival post #17 on Cleantechnica (which featured a couple posts from EcoLocalizer), here’s the next edition of the Carnival for your reading pleasure. The first ride.. er, post of the day comes from Jeff McIntire-Strasburg, writing over on the SUNflitered blog. It was a …
I wrote last week on a cool pilot project in Philadelphia in which the kinetic energy created from subway trains braking will be captured and either reused in accelerating trains, stored for later, or sold back to the electricity grid. While I think that project is super cool, this one maybe be even cooler. A …
If you are a regular reader here on EcoLocalizer, you know that I am a big fan of sustainable transportation — bikes, buses, trains, etc. So, when I came across this story, you can imagine I got a big kick out of it. Though I don’t think I would ever try to steal a bus …
New York City Bus & Train Thief Is Addicted To Stealing NYC Transit Read More »
Ever wonder how much kinetic energy is created from trains braking? Me neither,.. until I found out about a cool new pilot project in Philadelphia where the energy created from subway trains braking will be used for some of the transit authority’s power needs and may also be sold back to the electric grid. How …
Philadelphia Subway Trains to Start Producing Electricity from Braking Read More »
The first Bicycle City is finally getting built! More on that and how Bicycle City got started via co-founder Joe Mellet below. I have seen advertisements for Bicycle City for years now. I remember when it first got started — it looked like a great initiative but was rather mysterious. “Where was “bicycle city” or …
I just wrote a piece on a cool visualization project of the new London cycle scheme, or bike sharing program. Now, on the other side of the Atlantic, we have some very exciting news about a bicycle sharing program in New York. I have been pretty critical of U.S. bicycle sharing programs in the past, …
New York City Bicycle Sharing Program to be BIG! Read More »
London is one of the latest big cities to implement a modern bike sharing program. The “cycle scheme” (as they call it in England) is popularly called “Boris Bikes” now, named after London Mayor Boris Johnson. To help show the effect of this program, Oliver O’Brien of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University …
I was just writing earlier on the power of cities and the progressive transportation choices cities can take to turn the world around (environmentally, economically, and otherwise). Looking at this from a different (and perhaps more negative) angle, IBM recently released a global “Commuter Pain Study.”
Animation of the upcoming Transbay Transit Center (aka Grand Central of the West) that just broke ground on Wednesday.
