Carlos Richa, Mayor of Curitiba Brazil. Dialogue: 'Um pouco mais elevado do tipo tanto tem sido da prefeitura com o governo do estado e com o governo federal principalmente na recuperacao dos nossos balanciais por que involve um custo social que e o custo de construir moradias para que familias que sao removidas casas balanciais? tenham uma opcao digna de viver' Journalist 'quando a comecou...' TRANSLATION
Dialog- A little higher up there has been a partnership between the city (mayor's administration), the government of the State and the Federal Government. Especially in recovering our finances because there are social costs of building homes for those families who are evicted from their homes but who may have an option to live with dignity...I think quality of life is something that plays a significant role in the Brazilian Psyche. Curitiba is certainly one of the most progressive cities in the world when it comes to long term urban planning and sustained intitiatives especially in transport. Its also the home of the wickedly good Brazilian Pop Group Bonde do Role. A Brazilian diplomat friend of ours at the United Nations said Brazil's mission is not to teach the world how to live but how 'to live well.' I think Curitiba is a good example of that. Curitiba's plan began in the 1960's and has systematically implemented well-thought out housing, transportation and green-streets campaign that have given this moderately sized (about 1.7 million inhabitants) city a place in the front ranks of urban planning worldwide. Unlike many other places, they kept with the plan over time and the result is a most liveable place.

Curitiba, Thoughtful Planning

A Model Bus System


Oskar Niemeyer MuseumLinks:
City of Curitiba
Bonde do Role in Action

It is mostly in Australia were people find the so called "Roadtrains" attractive. Long Combination Vehicle is the official name of the trucks that carry products from one end of the continent to another. They are also sort of popular in the United States and in Canada.In countries large and wide like Australia the use of Long Combination Vehicles seems to make sense, in countries that are more populated with a strong net of infrastructure the question is asked if the use of the super lorries is sustainable and eco-friendly at all.Now in European countries as well the Road Train seems to become a new star of the motorway. There is a speed limit for trucks in Germany for instance 40 miles per hour. A lot of trucks at a low speed, some say. Two solutions could be to allow higher speed - or to raise the payload of the truck. By using Long Combination Vehicles it could be boosted from 24 to 48 tons.This could lower the costs for service and transport, but could raise the ecological costs on gthe other hand, critics say. Especially in Gemany there have been efforts to transfer transport from the motorway to the tracks.Taking new technologies in account Long Combination Vehicles seem to be more an option than years ago. However, environmentalists hope that endeavors for nature will not lose track.

It would be nice to see something new for a changeHow will we deal with congestion pricing in New York City?
Most likely they will choose not to deal with it since car commuting
is such an issue. The commuter suburbs in Westchester, Connecticut,
Long Island & New Jersey have excellent scheduled train service directly into the city. Outlying sections of many New York City boros are linked only by bus routes that can hardly be called 'scheduled' to midtown and to the subway termini. Waiting and changing from bus to subway and back again can make this an arduous and lengthy trek especially in inclement weather, its easier to drive. Commuters from within New York City who drive thus constitute a significant proportion of city drivers who would be understandably distressed by a usage or congestion tax.Current scheduled bus service is dysfunctional and probably will never work well again no matter how much money is spent on it. The bus service replaced an interlocking grid of light rail streetcar systems so dense it went almost everywhere in the city and so
widespread it was possible to almost reach Chicago by light rail (except for a 20 mile gap near Buffalo NY) from New York City. Many
of those rights of way are still embedded in the streets and could be
restored to light rail services. Most of the lines serviced areas that were until recently considered 'remote' and 'abandoned.' These locations have now become hotspots of real estate development much of it highly desirable waterfront property that are literally off the public transport grid.
Light rail would re-integrate these areas back into the urban fabric.
Certainly real estate developers understand this particularly the
Durst Organization which is developing a number of waterfront residential properties in NY
and the BoA Tower.Realizing the that its unlikely that city will build light rail
anytime soon the Durst's invested in a company which has a fleet of water taxis
which go straight from quais near his buildings to midtown. One of
these water taxi stops even has a beach bar next door with a great view of the United Nations and 5 minutes away from midtown Manhattan by sea. Definitely a better way to commute than being stuck on a bus to nowhere for an hour.Its time to put some useful and clean public transportation projects back on the drawing boards. These require the kind of large scale capital investments that are too big for private developers to go alone. In spite of his mixed legacy it would be nice to a master organizer and builder like Robert Moses step up and take charge of some long term infrastructure planning and funding.

Rober Moses, he built big...In the meantime until something better gets built lets try parking and commuting taxes based on a sliding scale according to how much carbon your vehicle emits. Enforcement and legislation is local, you prepay your EZ Pass based on the car model you drive. No carbon signature, a very low or no fee. Hybrid a lesser fee. High carbon output a very high fee. Drivers will immediately recognize the advantage of low or no emission vehicles. A plan like this is being discussed for possible implementation in London's Borough of Richmond right now. According to Peter Goldmark of the Environmental Defense Fund, mobile sources account for a lot more of New York City's carbon signature than 20% and the 'traffic problem must be compared to the Mayor's initiative on smoking' which is I think not a bad way of putting it. It is a health as well as a traffic issue, if we can ban the use of trans-fats in food preparation and cigarette smoke why not noxious carbon monoxide fumes from our city streets?If not ban at least make it expensive enough that people carpool using existing HOV lanes and put pressure on their elected representatives to extend and improve the transportation grid.

Karl Cardinal Lehmann, head of the Roman-Catholic Church in GermanyThe head of the Catholic church in Germany, Karl Cardinal Lehmann, Bishop of Mainz, called on his compatriots to give up their beloved cars for Lent to make a personal contribution to preventing climate change. Cardinal Karl Lehmann said in Bild newspaper that the period of 40 days before Easter in the Christian calendar "requires us to rethink our lifestyle." The Bishop continues: "Far too often, we do things that are harmful to our fellow citizens and the environment. Let us use Lent to make a personal contribution to improving our climate by having car 'fast.' Preserving creation is a duty which falls to all of us," Lehmann, the chairman of the German bishops'conference, said.25 Million Germans are members of the Catholic Church. If they listen to Lehmann this might be a starter. In times of ecumenism maybe some of the 26 Million Lutherans in the country will follow their Catholic neighbors and give up their car, too.

The resurrection of Christ, painted by El Greco

Is there any reason only car engineers should have all the fun?As I examine each element of the car we build, I'm going to use a mental model that is very useful when designing something new. I'll start by describing the model then I'll apply it to the first component so you get a sense of how to use it.The model uses the distinction between change and reinvention (sometimes called transformation).Change is inherently past-based. When one changes something, one takes what already is and modifies it. Because one has to start with something before one can change it, the result has to be based on the past.Reinvention, however, is future-based. It is future-based because with reinvention one creates from a blank canvas, from nothing, which is exactly what makes up the future.If we are going to solve our environmental mess, we're going to have to use a lot more reinvention than change. That's because change often retains the worst elements of the previous system.Let's use change and reinvention as we design our new car to get a sense of how they differ. Right now cars use an internal combustion engine. Engines are defined as devices that produce their own power, in this case through a chemical process (combustion), to produce the kinetic energy that performs work.A motor is a device that converts power from an external source into kinetic energy. It's because the electricity is generated elsewhere that one always hears of an "electric motor" but never an "electric engine."If we want to use change with respect to the motive device of a car, that's easy: keep using an engine and simply change the fuel. Change will give us engines that combust natural gas, or diesel, or biodiesel, or ethanol or even hydrogen. If the result is an engine – no matter what chemical reaction is used to create the kinetic energy – we've still used change.It's possible to examine a different element of the system and see that we're using change. All the energy sources listed above require a chemical process, combustion, to create kinetic energy. Because of that, even radically new engine designs like those from companies like www.regtech.com are still using change. Because it is still an engine based on combustion, no reinvention is occuring.But when we use reinvention, what can we create? To explore that, we have to dump the engine and look for other ways to provide kinetic energy.The obvious first reinvention is to use an electric motor. We don't care so much where the electricity comes from at this point so long the work is not provided by an engine.Another possible motive device uses electromagnetism, which is what gives maglev trains their name.I'll keep exploring change vs. reinvention as we move around the car. But I'll leave you with a piece of homework.If we switch to a horse pulling a carriage, have we used change or reinvention?

In keeping with my last post about variety in transportation, it's fitting that I write this while traveling at over 170mph on a high speed AVE train in Spain. I'll be in Sevilla less than 2 1/2 hours after leaving Madrid - a distance of more than 300 miles or roughly the same as traveling from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Doing the latter would take about 6 hours in a car, or 1 hour and 15 minutes by plane - and with airport hassles, the door to door time by plane would be about the same as this miraculous train I'm riding on. Throw in a nicer seats, a cafe car and the freedom to roam about, and the train is a no brainer in terms of anyone's preference.It's also arguably a great deal greener than either of the other two methods of travel. The train is electric and has no emissions at all. It takes up far less space on the ground than airports and highways, and travels strait into downtown areas without encouraging suburban sprawl. Obviously its power comes from somewhere but even if the train's power were derived 100% from coal it still works out as more efficient than the other two options in terms of pollutants emitted. Why is it that nothing like this exists in the United States? Excellent high and medium speed trains are available almost everywhere in Europe and Japan. Granted the Acela Amtrak service on the east coast comes close, but is still a far cry from France's TGV or the Japanese Shinkansen.The answer is twofold: Massive infrastructure costs, and historic neglect. In the case of Acela (the high speed Amtrak service from Washington to Boston), the track is too curvy for the train to stay at full speed for very long. Straightening the track would require an eminent domain adventure of epic proportions. Elsewhere in the country, there are less expensive potential routes such as San Francisco to Los Angeles, the so-called Texas Triangle, and spurs radiating from Chicago. Saying these are less expensive still means they'll cost billions to upgrade to high speed, but every year spent doing nothing means the price tag only rises. Almost any two cities that are less than 350 miles apart have a golden opportunity to build high speed rail that will make train travel easier and faster than flying or driving. Despite the high cost of such projects, they would improve economies by making transportation easier, free up space at congested airports for longer trips, improve transportation security by offering more options, and cut our fossil fuel consumption and pollutants measurably. The United States has ignored inter city train travel for so long that the country is in a costly pickle, but only by starting projects now will we prevent this needed improvement from costing even more. It's time to bite the bullet on this one and get train travel, ahem, back on track - another solution that can be arrived at today, using existing technology, to buy us time to develop the needed innovation to truly rid ourselves of fossil fuel dependencies.