Transportation ← Progressive Bloggers // Blogues progressistes

Things Are Good: The Tube is Heating up While London is Trying to Stay Cool

Jun

27

2017

London’s tube system is literally heating up the city – and that’s a problem. A hundred years ago their subway stations were places to cool down during hot summer days and people had to wear sweaters while commuting. Today, this is no longer the case. The trains are heating the earth which in turn makes ...

Things Are Good: Oslo Improves its City Centre by Banning Car Parking

Jun

21

2017

The Norwegian capital of Oslo dealt with an interesting proposition of banning all cars in the city centre by compromising. At first business and some residents (only 30% of urban dwellers own cars in Norway) didn’t like the proposal at all claiming it would ruin neighbourhoods and business. To address their concerns the city rolled ...

The Progressive Economics Forum: Fiscal situation of Canada’s ‘oil rich’ provinces

Jun

19

2017

I’ve just written a blog post about the fiscal situation of Canada’s ‘oil rich’ provinces (i.e., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador). It consists of a summary of key points raised at a PEF-sponsored panel at this year’s Annual Conference of the Canadian Economics Association. Points raised in the blog post include the following: -The ...

Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Evening Links

Jun

1

2017

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Diane Cardwell points out how carbon politics are threatening renewable energy just at the point where it would win a fair fight against fossil fuels. And J. David Hughes finds that any case for Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline falls apart in the face of realistic assumptions about ...

Things Are Good: Smog Free Bike Cleans the Air While You Ride

May

17

2017

Daan Roosegaarde designed another piece for his Smog Free Project and it’s a bicycle that cleans the air as you ride through the city. The handlebars contain a filtration system that removes pollutants which will provide clean air for the cyclist to breath in. As a cyclist myself this sounds amazing because breathing in exhaust ...

Things Are Good: Zero Emission and Autonomous Shipping to Start in Norway

May

16

2017

Norway will soon see a fully autonomous ship navigating its waters. A resource company in the country presently uses trucks to transport fertilizer from one port to another, the new ship will replace 40,000 of these diesel truck journeys. The ship is battery powered meaning that it will be zero emission if electricity comes from ...

Things Are Good: An App That Rewards You for Riding a Bike

May

15

2017

Biko rewards cyclists with free stuff just for riding their bike! Rewards include small things like coffee to very expensive consumer items. The idea of rewarding cyclist for not killing the environment using cars isn’t new, Stockholm basically pays cyclists. When it comes to using Biko please consider that they collect marketing data from your ...

Things Are Good: Big Brains Encouraging Bringing Bicycles into the Mainstream

May

2

2017

Bicycling is a fun and healthy way to get around town, but some people still aren’t convinced that bicycling is a solid transportation solution. Outside magazine asked some rather smart people who love bicycling what would make bicycling more attractive for cities. Some answers are neat and others are very practical. I suggest you get ...

Things Are Good: Lower Your Risk of Cancer and Heart Disease by Cycling to Work

Apr

24

2017

We all know that encouraging bicycles as daily transportation is good for cities, economies, and traffic flow. Cycling is really good for you too and the evidence that you should bike more is more prevalent than ever. The most recent contribution to why riding a bike to work is good for you comes from Glasgow. ...

Things Are Good: Stopping Free Parking from Strangling Society

Apr

19

2017

Urban planners spend the last hundred years modifying cities and policies to cater to the car – and that’s been harming us ever since. We’ve looked at how changing parking culture can save America’s economy, cities, increase transportation efficiency, and removing spaces can even make parking easier. Slowly, we are seeing change happening around the ...

Things Are Good: Bicycles are the New Trucks

Mar

29

2017

Trucks are loud, big, and clog the roads. Bicycles are quiet, small, and only need a fraction of the space larger vehicles need. Moving freight around a city is tough because of the traffic, so how about using bicycles to transport freight? Bicycles are often thought as only a recreational or commuter transportation solution, but ...

Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links

Mar

24

2017

Assorted content to end your week. – Vicki Nash challenges the claim that unemployment in a precarious economy is generally a matter of choice rather than the absence thereof. And Jia Tolentino argues that we shouldn’t pretend there’s any value in being forced to work oneself to death: It does require a fairly dystopian strain ...

Things Are Good: Beijing Replacing Gas Taxi Fleet with Electric Taxis

Mar

15

2017

Smog and Beijing go hand in hand due to the explosive growth of car ownership and poor environmental management. That’s starting to change. China’s capital city has mandated that when any new taxi hits the street that it has to be electric. This follows their efforts to replace their buses with an all electric fleet, ...

Things Are Good: Improve Transportation by Ending Subsidies for Automobiles

Mar

1

2017

Many drivers think that gas tax (or their car-related taxes in general) more than cover the costs of infrastructure of cars. The reality is quite the opposite. People who don’t drive subsidize those who do. In terms of infrastructure itself we have spent more money on roads than on other forms of transit. This combination ...

Things Are Good: Montreal’s Streets Continue to be Focused on People

Feb

7

2017

Walking the streets of Montreal already provides a pleasant experience – and it’s about to get better. The city has dedicated an additional $1.7 million to what it already spends on making selected streets car free. The pedestrian areas promote local artists and encourage people to visit neighbourhoods throughout the municipality. People love the initiative ...

Things Are Good: Busting Urban Planning Myths

Jan

11

2017

There’s a lot of misconceptions about how to make cities a better place to live that need to be cleared up. A popular belief is that adding more lanes for cars will help curb traffic jams – when the opposite it true. Some backwards-looking individuals think that adding bike lanes is bad for business when ...

Accidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links

Dec

23

2016

Assorted content to end your week. – Christo Aivalis offers some suggestions for a set of progressive and effective tax policies: My view is that the Left has to combine the general philosophy of economic redistribution with the practical needs of getting the money to preserve existing social programs and build new ones. We have ...

Things Are Good: Riding a Bike in the USA is Getting Safer

Dec

7

2016

Riding a bicycle is getting safer in American cities thanks to improvements in infrastructure. Usually the USA is associated with being the land of the car (and it still is very car-focussed) so it’s really nice to see that a sustainable and friendly form of transportation is getting the attention it needs. Over the last ...

Things Are Good: Public Transit Makes Cities Safer

Dec

1

2016

Obviously public transit is great for getting people around cities and is a very scalable traffic solution. One spinoff of a good public transit system is that the streets get safer. In Canada he number of collisions increases every year with the vast majority of these collisions the result of driver error. With public transit ...

The Progressive Economics Forum: Do Calgary and Edmonton need more power and resources?

Nov

3

2016

Over at the web site of the Calgary Homeless Foundation, I’ve written a blog post titled “Do Calgary and Edmonton need more power and resources?” The blog post comes as the Government of Alberta considers the possibility of, well, giving more power and sources to both Calgary and Edmonton. Points raised in the blog post ...

Things Are Good: Why North American Cities are Different Than European

Oct

27

2016

We often look at urban design on Things Are Good so it’s worth thinking about how we got here. The decisions made centuries ago impact how our cities operate and how we as people integrate ourselves into the built environment. This video explores how and why cities in Europe look different than North American cities, ...

Things Are Good: Cities Improve Parking by Removing Parking Spaces

Sep

27

2016

Car culture greatly damaged urban centres the world over and now cities are trying to undo the damage. Smart cities are banning cars from certain areas, installing bike lanes, more sidewalks, and now are removing parking. Cities built too many parking spaces for cars and now they are reclaiming that space. It’s important to remember ...

Carbon49 – Sustainability for Canadian businesses: Canadians Prefer Businesses with Green Vehicles

Sep

20

2016

Should your company cars and long distance fleets go green? 90% of Canadians believe businesses should reduce transportation related emissions and 82% feel having an environmentally friendly fleet is an important factor when choosing vendors. I look at the findings to see if turning your fleet green may make business sense. Commissioned by Bullfrog Power ...

Things Are Good: Trams Win For Moving People

Sep

6

2016

Traffic is a problem in every city, and more and more people are concerned with the most efficient way of getting people from A to B. It turns out we already know the answer: mass transit. The issue in traffic planing is slowly changing from how much space should cars get to how much space ...

Things Are Good: Bicycling is the Safest Form of Transportation

Aug

30

2016

In Toronto, the car rules the road so much so that the city is fine with non-driver (that’s everyone) deaths, and the city won’t do much to stop drivers from killing. Sadly, Toronto isn’t a unique case. In far too many places bicycling infrastructure is an afterthought that plays second fiddle to cars. Despite this ...