bus_rapid_transit
Parks and bicycles were lifelines after Mexico City's earthquake.
Open spaces and nimble rides were crucial as volunteers collected and dispersed supplies amid toppled infrastructure.
Seconds after a powerful earthquake struck Mexico City on September 19, the mobile phone network was down. Stoplights ceased to function as electricity failed, and the city’s streets had turned into one vast traffic jam. In a few frantic minutes, millions of people were driven out of buildings into the public space, incommunicado except for the wi-fi network.
In the aftermath, the quality of the city’s public infrastructure became of supreme importance for its citizens—and in some cases, even a matter of life and death.
Following a disaster, “the difference between the sidewalk and the pavement of the road disappears and people start walking everywhere,” says Jesus Iglesias, a civil engineer who researched the seismic impact of Mexico City’s major 1985 earthquake on the city’s buildings. He says people instinctively avoid buildings after tremors—worrying that glass, rocks, or ornaments could tumble down—and they meet in the street.
Even so, “going on foot is not a very good way of travelling in an area struck by a disaster,” says Ivan de la Lanza, director of pedestrian and bicycle mobility of the World Resources Institute Mexico. “The best option is the bicycle.”
In the rush to get somewhere after the earthquake, bicycles and motorcycles emerged as the safest, fastest, and most-effective option. These wove past rubble and through traffic with relative ease. Bicycles played three basic roles in the disaster response: first as a mobility option for navigating obstructed streets without contributing to vehicular chaos, then as couriers of medicines and other light supplies, and finally as a way to scout heavily damaged areas before larger vehicles entered.
Since the city’s bike-sharing system doesn’t operate totally independently from the electric grid, many of the Ecobici bike-sharing stations were down in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. Some other stations didn’t lose power; a few run on solar cells and batteries. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many people did use the available bicycles.
Mexico City’s subway system lost five of its 13 lines due to electricity failure, making the BRT lines the only transport option aside from walking and cycling in many parts of the megalopolis. The BRT system continued working at 70 percent capacity that first afternoon and night, according to Jesus Padilla, CEO of CISA, which operates of Line 1 of Mexico City’s Metrobus.
“The confined lanes of the Metrobus were the only way for our ambulance services to get around Mexico City after the earthquake,” said paramedic Rodrigo de Lara as he waited at night in an ambulance outside of Mexico’s Hospital General in the aftermath of the earthquake.
Many of the city’s public parks and squares came to play a central role in recovery, too. Like in 1985 when the square around Mexico City’s Monumento de la Revolución became the main center for relief efforts, these spaces function as an initial refuge for people fleeing damaged building and as hubs for organizing rescue efforts.
Shovels, food, and medicine have been collected at the Parque Mexico and Parque Pushkin, where large paved surfaces helped facilitate the earthquake response in nearby neighborhoods. When cars could pass through the streets, they would arrive in the parks to drop off supplies; cyclists would fan out to disperse them. Centers for finding lost pets, psychiatric assistance, and childcare soon arose within the parks. Local residents donated rescue materials and provisions of food for volunteers.
“The ability to host different people with different [needs] in itself is part of a good park,” says Paul van der Voort, co-founder of Mexico City architecture and urbanism bureau DafDF. “In a disaster you see that the multi functionality of parks and public spaces becomes even more important, since the disaster creates radically different necessities which have to be resolved in the public space. Social response to a disaster also depends on people knowing each other beforehand, and this is easier in places with well-designed parks and squares.”
In the aftermath of a disaster, a city has the opportunity to redefine its priorities. The September 19 earthquake reminded Mexico City of the crucial role that public space plays in the aftermath of a catastrophe. BRT lanes and bike sharing plans are not just progressive ways of reducing pollution and traffic; they are central to a city’s capacity for disaster response. Parks and plazas proved themselves to be not just pleasant public amenities, but crucial safety valves. This megacity’s resilience in the face of this earthquake is predicated on public efforts in public spaces—and that should guide urban planning in the future.
About the Author
Feike de Jong
FEED
Feike de Jong is a journalist and urban researcher in Mexico City. He is the creator of the app, “Limits: On foot along the edge of the megalopolis of the Valley of Mexico."
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What would an entirely flood-proof city look like?
The wetter the better. From sponge cities in China to ‘berms with benefits’ in New Jersey and floating container classrooms in the slums of Dhaka, we look at a range of projects that treat storm water as a resource rather than a hazard.
They call it “pave, pipe, and pump”: the mentality that has dominated urban development for over a century.
Along with the explosion of the motorcar in the early 20th century came paved surfaces. Rainwater – instead of being sucked up by plants, evaporating, or filtering through the ground back to rivers and lakes – was suddenly forced to slide over pavements and roads into drains, pipes and sewers.
Their maximum capacities are based on scenarios such as 10-year storms. And once they clog, the water – with nowhere else to go – simply rises.
The reality of climate change and more frequent and intense downpours has exposed the hubris of this approach. As the recent floods from Bangladesh to Texas show, it’s not just the unprecedented magnitude of storms that can cause disaster: it’s urbanisation.
The downtown Houston skyline and flooded highway 288.
Paul Morris checks on neighbours’ homes in a flooded district of Orange as Texas slowly moves toward recovery from the devastation of Hurricane Harvey.
Foodwaters from the Addicks Reservoir inundating a Houston neighbourhood in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Harvey.
Postal worker Lonzell Rector makes his rounds among flood damaged debris from homes that lines the street in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Houston.
Hurricane Harvey displaced more than one million people, resulted in at least 44 deaths and damaged 185,000 homes in Houston alone
The US National Weather Service said the “breadth and intensity” of the rainfall that came with Hurricane Harvey in late August was “catastrophic”, and “beyond anything experienced before” – the city was overwhelmed with devastating speed, as can happen in areas where much of the land is paved.
A recent survey of global city authorities carried out by the environmental non-profit CDP found 103 cities were at serious risk of flooding.
With climate change both a reality and threat, many architects and urbanists are pushing creative initiatives for cities that treat stormwater as a resource, rather than a hazard.
Permeable pavements: Chicago’s ‘green alleys’
The two-mile Pilsen Sustainable Street, commissioned by the Chicago Department of Transportation to improve the urban ecosystem
One city already preparing for a climate future – or present - is Chicago, parts of which saw almost 20cm of rain in four days this July. It is projected to have 40% more winter precipitation by the end of this century.
The city has poured significant investment into reimagining stormwater management over the last decade, including building more than 100 “Green Alleys” – permeable pavement that allows stormwater to filter through and drain into the ground – built since 2006.
It’s very simple, but it’s very difficult for people to grasp, because we’ve not designed like that in a century
Jay Womack
The most advanced is the two-mile “sustainable streetscape” across Cermak Rd and Blue Island Ave in Pilsen, in Chicago’s Lower West Side. Once a crumbling asphalt strip inclined to flood, today it is “the greenest street in America”: a $15m showcase for cutting-edge ecological technologies such as photocatalytic cement to reduce smog and landscaped shallow troughs known as bioswales, which act as environmentally-friendly drainage, filtering and absorb polluted water.
On the Pilsen Sustainable Street, rainwater travels through the sidewalk to porous rock, where it is decontaminated by microbes. It then goes onto feed surrounding plants, or it filters through sand deep in the ground to make its way back to Lake Michigan.
The bioswale, an environmentally-friendly form of drainage through landscape, at the Pilsen Sustainable Street on Cermak Rd.
Bioswale along cermak road
Rainwater travels through the self-cleaning, pollution-reducing sidewalk before going on to feed surrounding plants
In this way, 80% of rainfall is diverted from the sewage system, and the road no longer floods, says Jay Womack, a senior landscape architect at Huff & Huff, which was commissioned to design the street.
“We try to create porosity and permeability so that water can move in the ways that it moves in the hydrological cycle,” says Womack. “It’s very simple, but it’s very difficult for people to grasp, because we’ve not designed like that in a century.”
Sponge cities: a new model for China
UrbanLab’s masterplan for Yangming Archipelago in Hunan province, China
Lessons from Chicago are being applied in China, where the government has commissioned the construction of 16 “Sponge Cities” to pilot solutions for the freshwater scarcity and flooding suffered in many cities as a result of rapid urbanisation. Chicago architectural firm UrbanLab was commissioned to design the masterplan for Yangming Archipelago in Hunan province: a new centre within the larger city of Changde, devised as a “new model for the future”.
An eco-boulevard of Yangming Archipelago, shown in wet and dry conditions
Changde’s ‘Eco-Boulevard’, in dry conditions (left) and wet (right)
The area, a low-lying land river basin that experiences heavy rainfall, is regularly flooded. Instead of incorporating defences against water, UrbanLab put space for it to flow at the centre of its urban plan, putting major buildings on islands in an enormous central lake. Canal-lined streets that UrbanLab call “Eco-boulevards” connect the eight districts – the process is visualised in this video.
UrbanLab says their vision combines a dense metropolis with a nature setting: “As a functional center, Yangming Archipelago will serve as an urban model, we expect it to lead the way to a new way of thinking about the city of the future.”
Coastal corridors: no more ‘holding the line’
An aerial map visualising projected flooding in New Mastic in 2050 versus flooding in the proposed development
With 2.5 million residents of New York and New Jersey currently living within a designated flood zone, the Tri-State Region of the US is already vulnerable to flooding, and the outlook will only deteriorate with rising sea levels.
A cross-discipline team was commissioned by the Regional Plan Association and the Rockefeller Foundation to devise a response to the pressure put on the region’s coastlines within 50 years and six feet of sea-level rise.
The aerial map above shows flooding in New Mastic in 2050 and, on the right, in New Mastic in 2050 after the proposed future development. Development on high, dry ground would be densified while homes in wet areas would evolve into a new elevated neighbourhood, built along docks.
A view across the lagoon at the proposed Bight City development in Jamaica Bay, 2067
They proposed freezing future development on flood plains in favour of focusing new housing in the neighbourhoods of Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island and New Jersey along “corridors” and transit spines inland on higher ground.
The team reimagined The Bight, the notch in the region’s coast where ocean currents pile sand, as a new “landscape economic zone” that would blur the hard line between the city and the sea and create new spaces for habitation, conservation, work and play.
Map showing the proposal to densifying to densify high ground in Jamaica Bay, NY, by 2067
Map showing the proposal to densifying to densify high ground in New Mastic by 2067
Street sections showing the transition between higher dry ground and lower wet areas.
Cross-sections demonstrating how landscapes act as a buffer between wet and dry areas, and how buildings on the edges of protected neighbourhoods could be accessed from both water and land
These cross-sections show how Segal and Drake’s team envisage buildings could exist on the shifting threshold of water and land. Click on the images to expand and see more detail
“Rather than futilely trying to hold the line, the zone’s mantra is ‘receive, protect, adapt’,” said Segal and Drake.
Per their vision, the coastline would be transformed into “the new urban frontier” with a vanishing barrier island at Sea Bright, NJ, by 2030; a retirement walkable community at Mastic Beach in NY by 2050; and New York City’s “new sunken central park” at Jamaica Bay by 2067.
Berms with benefits: a barrier with bike lanes and BRT too
A terrace in Little Ferry, one of the first sites for the pilot project of New Meadowlands
The stakes of failing to adapt to flood risk were made clear by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which caused the deaths of 147 people and cost the US more than $50bn in damage.
One of the worst-affected areas was Meadowlands in New Jersey, a low-lying wetland basin bisected by the Hackensack river.
During the hurricane it was impossible to pump out water because of tidal flooding on the other side of the dike, and the area was devastated: houses filled with water, cars floated away, residents had to be rescued with boats, and critical infrastructure failed.
Meadowlands was one of the worst-affected areas in Hurricane Sandy as a result of development that failed to account for local ecology
Kristian Koreman, a co-founder of ZUS, a Rotterdam-based architectural practice, says development had failed to take into account the local ecology.
“By neglecting the fact that they were building in a swamp, they forgot that it was a tidal area,” he says. “You can see that the water goes up and down every day, but with a real storm like Sandy, and a tidal flood plus heavy rain, water came from all sides and there was no way to escape that.”
By neglecting the fact that they were building in a swamp, they forgot that it was a tidal area
Kristian Koreman
In response to Sandy, ZUS partnered with MIT’s Center for Advanced Urbanism and De Urbanisten to devise New Meadowlands: a masterplan for combining flood resilience with recreational amenities through marshes and a system of parallel raised banks called berms. (The aerial rendering is shown at the top of this article.)
Between the outer berm and the sea, the restored wetlands would soak up seawater and slow down tidal waves, preventing them from hitting the dikes at high speed. The stretch of berms would serve as a wildlife refuge, filling up with rainwater during periods of heavy rain before draining out. And on the insider of the inner berm, ditches and ponds would retain rainwater, preventing it from causing sewers to overflow.
The first pilot project will focus on the towns of Little Ferry, Moonachie and Carlstadt, with $150m in funding from the US Department Housing and Urban Development.
Given the triple whammy of climate change, increasing urbanisation and budget constraints, infrastructure projects now have to serve multiple purposes: Koreman says the team were under pressure to deliver the most value per dollar possible.
Their plan includes a huge recreation zone, as well as bike lanes and a rapid transit bus lane running across the top of the berms to better connect Meadowlands to New York. ZUS sees its design as “berms with benefits”.
Floating pods – and beyond
Waterstudio’s Floating City Apps in a slum
Koen Olthuis, the founder of Waterstudio, a Dutch architectural practice that builds exclusively floating and amphibious structures, believes the way to encourage flood resilience is to make sure it’s almost overshadowed by those other benefits.
Olthuis is trying to improve living standards in waterside slums by providing vital functions such as education, sanitation and power in floating shipping containers built on foundations made of thousands of waste plastic bottles. He calls the units “city apps” as they are easy to install and launch. Since they can be moved, they can be granted a temporary licence by city governments that normally prohibit development in illegal settlements; and because they float, they entice investors who would ordinarily shy from investing in a flood plain.
Waterstudio’s Floating City App as a classroom
Floating City
A City App used as a classroom
The first major project is in Korail, a slum on the waterside in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where five units will be arriving in October: a classroom, a sanitation unit, a kitchen and a battery pack connected to a floating solar field.
Olthuis says he works with nature, rather than treating it as a threat – which means letting water flow where it wants, and using floods as a catalyst for more flexible urban development. He talks of relieving crowding in cities by building amphibious architecture on flood plains, or augmenting a city with pop-up floating structures on waterways – concert halls, stadiums, even rescue and relief units during disasters.
“For us,” he says, “it’s the wetter, the better.”
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Big polluters are headed to Germany for UN climate talks.
They all have ties to the fossil fuel industry.
They all have ties to the fossil fuel industry.
Nathalie BaptisteMay 4, 2017 2:14 PM
State Lands Commission via AP
According to a new report from Corporate Accountability International, several trade and business organizations based in countries that are among the biggest contributors of climate change are potentially obstructing the international community's attempt to fight global warming.
Next week, government officials and representatives from various business and environmental groups will gather in Bonn, Germany, to continue negotiating the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, an international treaty for fighting climate change that was first passed in 1994 and includes the Paris Agreement. For the first time, the agenda will provide an opportunity for delegates to discuss conflicts of interests and whether or not industries that contribute so heavily to warming the planet should have an outsized presence at the UNFCCC talks.
"Right now hundreds of business trade associations have access to the climate talks, and many of them are funded by some of the world's biggest polluters and climate change deniers," Tamar Lawrence-Samuel, the international policy director of CAI, an organization dedicated to fighting corporate abuse, said in a press release accompanying the report.
It's not the first time the fossil fuel industry has been in the spotlight for its presence at UN climate talks. Tim McDonnell reported a similar set of concerns in 2015 when the Paris climate talks came under fire for permitting the fossil fuel industry to bankroll parts of the event. Here's what he wrote in Mother Jones:
Big international conferences frequently have corporate sponsors, but given the basic aim of the Paris talks—to dramatically reduce man-made greenhouse gas emissions—some of the event's sponsors are drawing criticism for their close ties to the fossil fuel industry. In other words, some of the companies paying to keep the lights on and the coffee flowing at the vital climate summit may have a vested interest in limiting the scope of the international agreement.
In their report, Inside Job, CAI identified six major business or trade organizations with poor records on fighting climate change, which will have delegates at the UNFCCC. Three of them are based in the United States and are all are groups with ties to the fossil fuel industry: the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Mining Association, and the Business Roundtable. The other organizations are FuelsEurope based in Brussels, the Business Council of Australia, and the International Chamber of Commerce based in Paris.
The US Chamber of Commerce represents 3 million businesses in the United States and currently receives millions of dollars from Exxon Mobil. Earlier this year, the Chamber released a statement in support of the final approval of the Dakota Access Pipeline, a controversial pipeline that will carry oil through sacred Native American land and threaten the water source of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. Karen Alderman Harbert, who is the president of the Chamber's Institute for 21st Century Energy, will not acknowledge that humans are the primary driver of climate change, saying "it is caused by lots of different things."
The National Mining Association is a Washington, DC-based trade association representing the interests of the mining industry in Congress, the White House, and the media. With a membership of more than 3,000 corporations and organizations involved in different aspects of mining, the NMA will be at the talks, even though the association's vice president, Luke Popovich, is staunchly against the Paris Agreement, which seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions substantially in the coming years. Popovich claimed that it created an extra burden on the US by forcing it to be "the only good kid in class" because other nations will continue to increase their coal production.
The Business Roundtable, which represents several big oil companies such as Shell, Chevron, and Exxon Mobil is also sending delegates to the UNFCCC but, in Congress, actively lobbies against climate policies. The BRT suggested that the Clean Power Plan, which establishes targets for carbon emissions reductions for each state, should be changed to "address concerns about EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] overreach and infringing on state authority."
According to the report, the CAI wants the UNFCCC to create a different process for admission to the talks that will ensure that participants are motivated by protecting the planet and not by business interests.
But, for now, earth's biggest polluters will have access to the very talks attempting to curtail their activities. "With so many arsonists in the fire department," Tamar-Lawrence said, "it's no wonder we've failed to put the fire out."
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This is the longest aerial bike path in the world.
In Xiamen, China, bikers can now ride suspended in the air for nearly five miles.
In Xiamen, China, bikers can now ride suspended in the air for nearly five miles.
This Is The Longest Aerial Bike Path In The World
Adele Peters 02.13.17 6:30 AM
Eight years ago, middle school students in Xiamen, China, proposed a new design for an aerial bike lane for the city, suspended under an elevated road used for bus rapid transit. The city eventually decided to build it. After six months of design and construction, it's now open for trial use.
The route stretches almost five miles, making it the longest elevated bike path in the world. It has 11 exits that link to six public transit hubs. If someone doesn't have a bike, and just wants to get to the next subway or bus station quickly, they can rent one of hundreds of bikes provided on-site; the bikes can also be dropped off at other locations throughout the city.
It's a little like the "Cycle Snake" elevated bike path in Copenhagen, which links between bridges over a crowded pedestrian area (and a little like a crazier design once considered, and abandoned, for a bike path between the roofs of skyscrapers in the Danish capital). But the Xiamen path will happen at a larger scale.
At rush hour, the path will be able to accommodate more than 2,000 bikes an hour; gates at the entrance automatically close if it gets too full. Designed to help decrease traffic on the city's roads, and the accompanying air pollution, it's meant to be a viable alternative to driving.
"I tried [it] today, and it took 10 minutes from my home to my workplace, which is the same as when I was driving," Chen Yimin, a local resident, told Xinhua.
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Meet the high-tech buses of tomorrow.
They’re zero-emissions. They drive themselves. And they’re longer than a blue whale. Can the humble city bus get a modern makeover?
When French mathematician Blaise Pascal* introduced the world’s first public bus service to Paris in 1662, it was little more than a fleet of seven horse-drawn carriages that ran along three regular routes, carrying six to eight passengers each. (Perhaps too novel for its times, the idea didn’t really catch on until the 1800s.)
Buses have come a long way since Pascal’s horses and buggies. They represent almost half of public transit trips in the U.S., and are increasingly trumpeted as key to multi-modal transport and to urban sustainability. “If you take seriously the climate change challenge and the need to provide more alternatives to the automobile, there are many corridors where the only realistic option is bus,” says Fred Salvucci of MIT’s Transit Lab. Bus lines are cheaper to establish and more flexible than rail-based transit. But the ponderous, diesel-spewing machines don’t tend to get the same love as subways, trains, and streetcars.
That could be changing soon: Rolling onto the scene are fleets of high-tech vehicles with self-driving capabilities, zero-emissions engines, and all sorts of innovations that promise to make them not only greener and more efficient but also, transit advocates hope, more attractive to riders. “I think we're going to see bus grow more than most people think,” says Salvucci.
Here’s a roundup of some of the new technologies that might give the humble bus a modern makeover.
Wave goodbye to the bus driver
While many speculate that the autonomous vehicle technology now being pioneered by the likes of Tesla, Google, Uber, and (maybe!) Apple could spell the end of public transit, others are convinced of the opposite: AVs may roll out first not in private vehicles but in shared, public ones—driverless buses with sensors and artificial intelligence behind the wheel. In fact, some are already being tested in a handful of cities, from Helsinki, Finland, to Washington, D.C., to the city-state Singapore.
Among the vehicles vying to lead the autonomous bus race is Olli, a self-driving electric minibus from the Arizona-based Local Motors. It’s the first of its kind to use IBM’s cognitive Watson technology to interact with passengers. The bus can be summoned in Uber-like fashion, can answer questions about routes and nearby attractions, and could eventually personalize the trip by linking with the passengers’ social media accounts. Here’s an IBM video on Olli’s test run in Washington, D.C. this past summer.
Other autonomous shuttles are also making appearances in cities worldwide. Currently, these experimental fleets aren’t as advanced as driverless cars: They poke along at anywhere between six and 15 miles per hour depending on the maker and each city’s safety restrictions, and the ones already in use provide limited service in controlled setting. Driverless buses in Helsinki, for example, are focused on providing “last-mile” service and carry about a dozen passengers per vehicle. They debuted in September, running at seven miles an hour on a straight, quarter-mile route. Even at that kind of speed, some buses get into trouble when sensors encounter an atypical situation. One program in Switzerland had to be suspended after it bumped into the open tailgate of a parked van.
These shuttles might help address the concern that single-passenger AVs will trigger overwhelming urban congestion. But Salvucci sounds a cautionary note. "Streets are very complicated environments to drive in; you got jaywalkers and bike riders who sometimes dart out in front of the bus,” he says. “I think solving the technology problems for an urban bus to be safe is going to be very tough.” Even assuming that buses are equipped with proper safety features, there’s the potential problem of pedestrians adjusting their behavior for the worse. That’s the basis for one recent research paper that uses game theory to suggest that when pedestrian learn that autonomous vehicles always stop for people, they’ll jaywalk with impunity.
Robo-buses, therefore, are “not high on my list on what would make public transportation more viable,” Salvucci says. So what is?
How about the world’s longest bendy bus?
Bus rapid transit systems, which give exclusive lanes to high-capacity, limited-stop buses and can move lots of people around quickly, got a boost last week when Volvo introduced the world’s longest “bendy” bus, which will be put to use next year in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Gran Artic 300, as it’s called, is a 98-feet-long double-articulated bus with three carriers connected by two accordion-like joints. It can carry up to 300 people, about 30 more than the capacity of today’s largest buses, according to the Volvo Group. And it was made specifically for the planned Transbrasil line, a BRT system that will run 14 miles across the city, with 16 stations and 17 walkways serving some 820,000 passengers each day. The notion of sharing the road with a vehicle as long as a pair of mosasaurs may be daunting (when it merges, it’s like letting eight cars cut in front of you), but since they will run in dedicated lanes, other motorists won’t have to interact with these beasts. Plus, the added capacity should cut down the number of buses overall, thereby cutting costs per passengers for operators and reducing emissions.
BRTs are a a relatively low-cost alternative to fixed-rail systems in cash-strapped cities in Brazil and Colombia. And they work. One of the world’s first BRT system, in the city of Curitiba, is highly regarded. The big buses don’t get stuck in traffic, and having passengers pay before they get on the bus helps that the system run smoothly. Extending BRT systems is one of the top priorities listed in the C40’s recent action plan for cities limiting global temperature increases over the next four years.
But the success of BRTs in Latin America comes with a note of caution, according to Salvucci. “They are useful tools in a complicated transportation strategy in major metropolitan areas, but generally speaking you probably want to convert them to rail once they succeed in attracting a lot of people,” he says. Why? Capacity. Even with Volvo’s latest creation, the capacity per bus is still hundreds fewer than what a set of railcars can shuttle in one trip. “I think the enthusiasm for them may be a little overdone,” he says.
Zero-emission upgrades
They may be a rare sight in U.S. cities, but globally, there’s a growing market for fully electric buses. China, for example, is expected to have doubled its purchases of electric buses, from 10,000 in 2015 to 20,000 by the end of this year. That growth will likely continue as the country tries to tackle its lung-searing air-pollution problem. In the U.S.—the second largest carbon polluter behind China—numbers are far lower: The Department of Transportation estimates that roughly 300 of the country’s 71,000 transit buses are zero-emission. But the federal government is pushing to raise those numbers with $55 million in Department of Transportation grants to help transit agencies buy cleaner buses.
Proterra, a manufacturer of zero-emission electric buses, aims to get in on that action with their latest model, the Catalyst E2 Series. The company says the battery-powered bus can drive up to 350 miles on one charge, enough to cover a day’s worth of routes (and comparable to a new Tesla, which can drive up to 400 miles before needing a shot of juice).
Cost will be one big hurdle: A battery-powered bus from Proterra comes with a hefty price tag of $800,000, more than double the cost of that cities pays for a diesel bus. But the company says the new models will save owners up to $237,00 in the long run, as it should require fewer repairs (and no oil changes). Salvucci seems to think that the electro-bus might have legs. “If battery-operated bus [become] financially viable, I think they could be come an interesting part of the urban picture in a lot of cities,” he says.
London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, is encouraging another kind of zero-emission buses: ones that run on hydrogen fuel. Last month the city unveiled the world’s first hydrogen-powered double-decker and announced plan to at least 20 new buses next year as part of Khan’s goal to phase out diesel buses entirely by 2020. He wants to have 300 zero-emission buses on London street by then.
While we’re at it, the bus stop could use an upgrade too
Fighting pollution doesn’t stop with the buses themselves: Commuters are exposed to a elevated rates of pollution at bus stops. In Singapore, for example, a study suggests that bus commuters may be breathing in more than three times the level of toxic gases while waiting for their rides. And in London, which suffers from some of the world’s worst nitrogen oxide pollution, the mayor issued an alert earlier this month about its thick smog, placing notices throughout its 2,500 bus stops and 270 subway stations. One possible fix? Airlabs, a London-based startup, is fighting the smog monster at the pedestrian level by installing filters that reduce the level of nitrogen oxide from exhaust fumes at London bus stops and subway stations.
So, as they wait for their zero-emission buses of the future, at least commuters can breathe a bit easier.
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Amid GOP wave, transit measures still win approval across the Southeast.
Voters approved ballot measures to expand and improve bus service, build light rail and commuter rail, and invest in bus rapid transit in growing metro areas, rejecting only two of ten proposed tax increases, bonds and other inducements for public transit.
Across the Southeast yesterday, voters approved ballot measures to expand and improve bus service, build light rail and commuter rail, and invest in bus rapid transit in growing metro areas, rejecting only two of ten proposed tax increases, bonds and other inducements for public transit.
“When it comes to transportation, the Southeast is realizing that it has to catch up with the rest of the country and the rest of the world,” said Karen Rindge, director of the group WakeUP Wake County in North Carolina, which led the charge for one of the region’s successful ballot measures.
North Carolina
After decades of inaction, Wake County voters caught up to their neighbors yesterday in Orange and Durham counties, who had earlier voted to invest in a regional light rail system. The county that includes state capital of Raleigh adopted a half-cent sales tax increase to help fund a $2.4 billion plan that includes bus rapid transit, improved and expanded bus service, and a commuter rail from Garner to Durham.
“I’m elated,” Sig Hutchinson, a Wake County commissioner and a chief proponent of the ballot measure, said about the night’s victory. “I’ve worked for 20 years on this referendum and finally we got it done. This is a whole new day for Wake County. This is going to take us into the 21st century for transportation options.”
“We’re feeling awesome,” said Rindge with WakeUP Wake County, “and we couldn’t have done it without a very broad, diverse coalition of organizations, businesses, and colleges. We went across party lines and across interest [group] lines and that’s how we won.”
Voters in the city of Greensboro adopted a more modest $28 million transportation bond measure that includes $10 million for improved sidewalks, intersections, bike improvements, and public transportation.
West Virginia
With the existence bus service at stake in the city of Huntington, West Virginia, near the Ohio and Kentucky borders, 73 percent of voters approved a five-year property tax renewal for the Tri-State Transit Authority.
Voters in Monongalia County, home to Morgantown and the University of West Virginia, also approved a small property tax increase to support the county’s transit authority.
Georgia
After rejecting a similar measure two years ago, by a wide margin Fulton County voters in the city of Atlanta adopted a half-cent sales tax for a 40-year plan to expand subway service, improve bus service, add new streetcar lines and build infill stations. The city’s voters also approved a .4 percent sales tax to add to the city’s greenway and create bike and pedestrian infrastructure.
“It’s the biggest expansion of MARTA in the city’s history,” Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed told the Atlanta Journal Constitution late Tuesday, speaking of the city’s subway system. “I want to thank the people of Atlanta,” he said, anticipating the referendums’ approval.
South Carolina
In Charleston, South Carolina, 51 percent voters agreed to half-cent sales tax increase to fund a plan that includes roads, public transportation, and greenbelt projects. Advocates are now working to convince the County Council to use at least $600 million of these funds for bus rapid transit and upgrades to the existing bus system.
“Today, the voters of Charleston County made it clear that they want real traffic relief, and they’re prepared to do what’s necessary to fund it,” Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg said. “Now it’s our duty as public servants to work closely with our citizens to ensure that these new transportation and public transit dollars are spent wisely, and only on projects that directly relieve traffic and improve our citizens’ quality of life.”
Virginia
Voters in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Arlington County, Virginia easily approved a $58.8 million bond measure to help finance the cost of various capital projects for metro area’s transit system and other transit, pedestrian, road or transportation projects.
Nearby in Fairfax County, voters adopted a $120 million bond measure to help fund new rail cars, buses, and rail station improvements to increase the capacity of the rail system infrastructure.
Virginia Beach voters, however, resoundingly defeated an advisory measure on the use of “local funds” to extend Light Rail from Norfolk to Town Center in Virginia Beach.
Florida
Voters in Broward County, home to Fort Lauderdale, rejected a penny sales tax increase, half of which would have supported public transportation, including expansion of light rail.
Local 10 News, the ABC affiliate in the area, reported that “opponents worried that the additional funds would not be used properly after a similar measure in Miami-Dade was passed years ago, only for residents to see more tolls added to county roadways.”
ABOUT ELIZABETH OUZTS
Elizabeth Ouzts, a former director of communications for Environment America, is a freelance writer based in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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Can we make our cities more sustainable?
A conversation with Michael Renner of the Worldwatch Institute, asking: "Can a city really be sustainable?"
Istanbul, Mexico City, London, New York, Cape Town - sprawling metropolises have become home to nearly 4 billion people. And they continue to grow - over the next three decades, urban populations are expected to increase to 6 billion.
Cities already account for around 70 percent of global energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. So if we are to keep to global climate targets, cities will have to become more sustainable.
Michael Renner of the Worldwatch Institute contributed to the 2016 State of the World report, asking: "Can a city really be sustainable?"
Everybody talks about the climate challenge - and that does loom larger and larger, particularly as the policy processes are very slow in trying to figure out how we deal with it.
But cities have probably all along had issues in terms of air pollution, water pollution, the concentration of waste - these issues haven't gone away, but they are increasingly interlinked with climate. As it is, we are facing a more complex challenge.
What would you say is the biggest threat to the climate within cities?
Buildings are a very major factor. But what do you count as part of a building - is it just the building itself, or is it also the energy systems to run the buildings, or do you also count the equipment and the machinery?
Transportation is a rising factor in terms of CO2 emissions, and particularly in cities that haven't managed to build a more diverse and broadly integrated transport system.
Promoting walking, cycling and public transport can all improve the sustainability of cities
What can the people in the cities do to try to minimize their impact?
Making buildings - new buildings, especially in the so-called emerging economies - as green, as efficient as possible.
For countries that have a large building stock in existence already, you have to do retrofits - and retrofits can be very expensive. So that's a matter of shaping the policies to allow people to do the right thing.
We know the solutions are - greener buildings, more efficient transportation systems and so on. But what's tricky is for policy-makers to put in place the right incentives and mandates to make people say, "yes, not only does it make sense in an abstract sense to do that, but we are also able to do it economically, we can afford to do it."
How can cities become more sustainable?
There's certainly a need to learn from past mistakes to try to not repeat them. With buildings, don't put up inefficient structures that hem you in for 20-to-50 years or more, because these are long-lasting structures that will not disappear very quickly.
Or with transportation systems for example, don't build your system around the private automobile. In poorer countries, only a very small portion of your population can afford that anyway, so everybody else will be left stranded or be left to deal with the air pollution.
Cities like Calcutta lack needed pedestrian infrastructure - which would also help make such cities more sustainable
If you look at a city like New Delhi in India, you see that very graphically, where you have more and more cars and air pollution and you have all the poor people basically walking alongside very busy, dirty streets. So it's bad not just from a broader climate point of view, but also the point of view of individuals having to survive in the city.
It sounds like making cities sustainable is expensive. Does that mean this is an aim that is out of reach for cities in developing countries?
The economics remain important, but you can look at the examples in various Latin American countries for example, where cities have more and more taken up this concept of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), which has proven to be very successful in many Brazilian cities and other Latin American cities and actually has spread to other continents worldwide.
BRT is a system that ensures that buses have a separate corridor right of way, easy boarding, and you buy a ticket before you board. It's very easy getting on and off the bus and so they become very popular with people because they work very well. They provide a service, they're attractive.
Renner (left) says transport, buildings and energy consumption are among the biggest factors in a city's sustainability
And that's maybe the other thing, in addition to economics - things have to be sufficiently attractive for people to be something that you want to do. That's true for any person in any city in the world.
So how should cities be implementing these changes?
The reality for many cities is that they have limits in what they can do, like legal limits, and they also have financial issues. So there needs to be more coordination among different ministries, different levels of governments - and there needs to be a financing system that allows cities to do the kinds of things that we all know actually make sense.
Michael Renner is a senior researcher specializing in the connections between environment and society at the Worldwatch Institute, an independent research organization based in Washington, D.C. that works on energy, resource, and environmental issues.
Interview: Louise Osborne
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