Climate Cities

Prius-toric

Team achieves 110 mpg in Toyota Prius If you thought fuel efficiency was cool, wait ’til you meet … Xtreme fuel efficiency! Rawk! Ahem. A team of five oddly obsessive […]

Hybrid Fidelity

Toyota plans 10 new hybrids, invites automakers to eco-summit Toyota is developing 10 new hybrid models and aims within the next few years to be selling 1 million of the […]

Meet the world’s first hybrid-cab driver

Like any self-respecting cabbie, Andrew Grant has a talent for small talk. But when the conversation turns to his prized 2004 Toyota Prius, things get a bit more animated. Andrew […]

Milenko Matanovic, community-based planner, answers questions

Milenko Matanovic. What work do you do? I run a nonprofit organization called Pomegranate Center. We specialize in involving people in creating gathering places, thereby integrating art into the fabric […]

Gas-Muzzler

EPA holds back negative report on U.S. auto fuel efficiency According to a report not released Wednesday by the U.S. EPA, loopholes in U.S. fuel-economy standards let automakers produce cars […]

Hail the Cabs!

Hybrid taxis to hit the streets of New York City this fall Six different hybrid models will debut in New York City’s taxi fleet this fall, thanks to a recent […]

Green architect Raphael Sperry answers questions

Raphael Sperry. With what environmental organization are you affiliated? I’m the president of Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility, which is a small nonprofit with a national membership and active local chapters […]

Vancouver city politicians take risky moves to fight climate change.

If you want an example of what sets greater Vancouver, B.C., apart from cities south of the U.S.-Canadian border, look no farther than this Vancouver Sun headline:

Council votes to turn two of six lanes on Burrard Bridge into dedicated bike lanes.

Just for context -- the Burrard Bridge is one of just a few main access points into downtown Vancouver, and carries a significant amount of car traffic into downtown from some of the western neighborhoods. Vancouver tried a similar experiment in the mid-1990s, but it ended after just a week or so because of a public outcry over congestion. The same thing may well happen again.

So politically, this is a risky move. Which makes it all the more impressive: Vancouver city leaders are actually willing to take concrete and potentially unpopular steps to reduce the city's global warming emissions and promote biking and walking -- steps that seem completely outside the realm of political possibility in, say, Seattle or Portland. Even Seattle mayor Greg Nickels, who has won national recognition for organizing hundreds of the nation's mayors to speak up on global warming, has dedicated considerable political capital to rebuilding the Alaskan Way Viaduct -- a massively expensive project that will, in all likelihood, increase Seattle's global warming emissions.

But there's no such mismatch between rhetoric and reality in Vancouver city politics. According to city councillor Fred Bass:

"I became a city councillor because of global warming," Bass said after the vote. "And it seems to me that what we have here is a very feasible way of testing out whether we can mobilize people to walk and cycle and for people to leave their cars behind."

Definitely an experiment worth keeping an eye on.

A visit to Iceland spurs dreams of a hydrogen future

The loneliness of the long-distance rider. I have seen the future, and it works. The 111 bus rolls quietly up to the Mjodd terminal in eastern Reykjavik at 11:19 a.m., […]

These Aren’t the Hybrids You’re Looking for

Newer hybrids emphasize engine muscle instead of fuel efficiency Some of the newest hybrid car models are not notably more fuel-efficient than their conventional brethren, but still qualify buyers for […]