Climate Cities

Al Gore’s home meets LEED Gold standard

Al Gore has finished efficiency renovations on his much-maligned Tennessee home. Solar panels, rainwater collection, geothermal heating, and non-incandescent light bulbs have helped the abode earn a LEED Gold rating […]

San Francisco mayor proposes strict green-building standards

San Francisco would have the most stringent green-building standards in the U.S. if the city Board of Supervisors adopts a new measure proposed yesterday by Mayor Gavin Newsom. By 2012, […]

Transportation planning with people in mind

Say what you will about streetcars, they have an unmatched appeal. I mean, there must be a reason why it's hard to imagine a smoldering love affair between Marlon Brando and Vivian Leigh with a bus theme.

Or, as the inimitable Dan Savage says:

Why is this so hard to understand? ... People like trains. People hate buses.

To wit, the Seattle P-I recently interviewed folks about the new Seattle streetcar and elicited what I imagine are fairly typical sentiments:

Bryan Lenning ... could take the bus downtown ... But for some reason, he'd rather take the streetcar. "But I'd never take the bus." He'd rather walk or drive downtown.

Mari Stobbe ... "I'd never take a bus. I've never been on a bus. I've never had any desire to be on a bus," she said. "(But) the streetcar seems like it would have a different feel."

NYC taxicabs will have to boost fuel economy

New York City taxicabs purchased after Oct. 1, 2008, will be required to get at least 25 miles per gallon, and those purchased after fall 2009 will have to get […]

Greening public housing

The Clinton Global Initiative is arranging to have banks finance green retrofits of NYC public housing. CGI is, for my money, one of the most interesting groups figuring out practical, […]

Housing slump is slowing sprawl in metro Atlanta

The current housing slump in the U.S. may be helping to slow sprawl — at least if the experience of metro Atlanta is a reliable microcosm.

Cyclists should be more involved as biking advocates

This essay is part of a series on bicycle neglect.

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Blame me. It's my fault the Northwest does not treat bicycling with respect. How? Bear with me, and I'll explain.

Cascadia is, as Washington state legislator Dick Nelson used to say, a "motorhead democracy" -- a place where licensed drivers substantially outnumber registered voters and where car-head dominates transportation thought and debate.

No matter how much good Bicycle Respect would do for our health, communities, economy, and natural heritage, it won't fly in on fairy wings. Bicycle Respect is a political agenda: new traffic laws and enforcement, new budget allocations, and new street designs.

So winning Bicycle Respect requires political power. When many elected leaders begin to see championing the bicycle as a path to higher office, as Portland City Commissioner Sam Adams does, we will be well on our way. When elected officials fear for their seats if they ignore the needs of the bicycle, we will have arrived.

Metro is succeeding, but like all public transit systems, it needs our support

It was a bad headline and a bad take on an important issue from a writer at a publication that ought to know better. Last week, M.J. Rosenberg, writing at […]

Giving up car-lessness for Rob Lowe’s plug-in hybrid

This essay is part of a series on not owning a car.

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The weekend before Halloween, my car-less family got a loaner plug-in hybrid-electric car to try. You see, the City of Seattle and some other local public agencies are testing the conversion of some existing hybrids to plug-ins to accelerate the spread of these near-zero-emissions vehicles. As a favor and, perhaps, for some publicity (this post), the city's program manager offered me four days' use of the prototype -- previously driven by actor Rob Lowe.

Enthusiasm about plug-in hybrids -- like their now-almost-mainstream siblings the gas-electric hybrids -- has been running high of late. For example, the California Air Resources Board is among the toughest air quality regulators in the world. When members of the board's expert panel reviewed the evidence on plug-in hybrids, they issued a boosterish report predicting widespread adoption and fast market penetration. The Western Governors' Association is similarly smitten (MS Word doc). The tone of some popular press reports makes it seem that the vehicular second coming may be at hand.

For this auto (pictured in our back yard, with our Flexcar visible out front), I wondered, would my family give up its car-less ways? Would the joy of these 100+ mpg wheels cause us to end our 21 months of car-free-ness, emulate Rob, and buy our own plug-in?

The short answer? No. Plug-in hybrid-electric cars hold great promise, as long as we can fix the laws. And the technology. Oh, and the price.

None of those fixes are "gimmes." Without fixing the laws -- and specifically, without a legal cap on greenhouse gases -- plug-ins could actually do more harm than good. And without the second two fixes -- working technology and competitive prices -- plug-ins won't spread beyond the Hollywood set. (Echoes of this point are in Elizabeth Kolbert's latest article in The New Yorker.)

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning.

Thousands of monkeys uprooted by sprawl move into New Delhi

Last month, the deputy mayor of New Delhi fell from a terrace to his death while trying to fend off a gang of wild monkeys. This weekend, rampaging monkeys attacked […]