News & commentary on sustainability, activism, urban planning, politics, and our world.
Since I’ve been writing about transit a lot lately, I thought I’d share this super cool map of world rail systems (from 2008). I actually ran across it looking for a photo last week for a post on the world’s first subway system. It’s apparently not very accurate, in case you were wondering, but definitely [...]
Europe, as we know, has a much different urban fabric — because most of its cities were developed long before cars arrived. They have narrower streets, are more walkable, more bike-friendly, and more pleasant. Nonetheless, Europe went the same route as the U.S. in recent years with the boom of the automobile and started trying [...]
South Yorkshire Housing Association (SYHA) has signed 120 houses up for an innovative renewable energy program, “Power Roofs,” which should reduce carbon emissions by about 350 tons a year. By 2012, SYHA hopes to eventually have 650 homes signed up and getting 30% of their energy needs from solar power. The purpose of the program [...]
“A small start-up near Washington, D.C. has started what it calls ‘the first stationless smart bike sharing program in North America.’ And all it took to get the system up and running was some bikes, U-locks and mobile phones.” That’s the intro to an interesting story on TheCityFix. It’s an in-depth piece on how three [...]
There’s been a pretty significant transformation on public transit in the past decade or less. Whereas riders used to start up a conversation with complete strangers on a regular basis in the past, more and more riders are plugged into their iPods, iPhones, iPads, or other electronic gadgets and stay in their own world despite [...]
