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Ideas to make cities greener
Green cars, such as hybrid and electrical cars, are expensive and impractical. Some of them still cause some degree of air pollution. That’s why I think to make our environment greener, we shouldn’t focus only on creating the cleanest vehicles, but also on new concepts of human transportation to reduce energy consumption and air pollution. For example, it’s greener for 60 people to travel by 2 normal buses than by 60 bio-fuel cars.
Good City Design - because you don’t want to drive 2 hours to the cinema
Imagine places like shopping centers, schools, and post offices are miles apart within a city. You have to travel a great distance just to do simple things like shopping and sending postcards. Such inconvenience eats away the fuel and your time. That’s why cities should be well designed to reduce the need to travel great distance.
Helsinki, Finland is a well designed city. You can take a cruise ship (Silja or Viking line) from Stockholm to Helsinki and it’ll dock directly at the heart of the city! Just walk a little further and you’ll reach the shopping places, main train station, schools etc. Everything is in walking distance, and you hardly need a car. Another example of well designed city is Gothenburg of Sweden, where walking is the best mode of transportation to get you anywhere.
Map of Helsinki, Finland
Providing green transportation infrastructure - because you don’t want to cycle in the middle of the road
The government should enable “green traffic” by providing the required infrastructure. You just need to visit cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen and see how people travel around. Their bicycle lanes can be as wide as a two lane road! No wonder so many people choose to travel by bikes. Possibly in the future, there’ll be lanes for Segways.
Thousands of bicycles in Münster, Germany
Public transportation network - because it’s better than getting stuck in front of traffic lights
Those who live in developing nations know how lousy their buses and trains are: confusing and never punctual. It’ll be great if the government sets up an efficient public transportation network throughout the city, which allows people to commute easily. That will reduce the dependence on cars.
The network has to be integrated, where the buses/subway/trams/trains are under one system or management so that people can transit easily between different modes of transportation. We just need to buy a ticket to use all modes of transportation in the city. Proper incentives should be offered to encourage people to use the public transportation network. Frequent travelers should get cheaper ticket (normally it comes in the form of weekly or monthly pass). People who travel in one group should also get cheaper group tickets. I wish they provide us free coffee too!
Transportation network in Frankfurt, Germany
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I know some of you are familiar with the ideas mentioned above, but they are still new to many countries. If every major city implements them, the world will be much greener.
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Definitely! Would be great if more cities designed a more walk-friendly environment - that’s what I missed most about living in Toronto actually.
that’s right! wonder when will msia learn
Tokyo achieved the bicycle and integrated public transport system quite well here.
Basically one can take a deep breath along the street and won’t be feeling dusty & hazy due to the smoke from the car.
@ Ivy
I like the car free zones of European cities. You can take a horse ride in car free zones!
@ Sophos
Malaysia has room for improvement.
@ CLF
Cool - for a huge ass city like Tokyo.
well, having room for improvement is one thing while taking action for improvement is another thing.
Wish that this could happen in our country! We will have a better quality of life, and yet pollute less.
@ Sophos
I agree. Good government that take action is important.
@ min dfin
I agree. But for now we have to bear with the ill planned transportation system. It think it’s hard to modify the existing system. It’s easier to build things from scratch.
I couldn’t agree more!
It first struck me how unpleasant many of our cities are some years ago on a trip to Florence. What is one of the artistic gems of the world has been turned over to the motor car. They are everywhere - noisy, dirty and no patience with pedestrians.
In Bucharest, where I spend 50% of the time, they recently finished a programme of putting in cycle lanes. There are two problems with how they did it. First they put the lanes over the top of the existing pedestrian pathways so that in many places there is only road and cycle lane. So everyone, out of necessity, ignores the lanes. Second, hardly anyone rides a bicycle here because it’s just too dangerous on the roads.
It’s a great start, but transforming cities needs to be done mindfully - we’ve allowed the car to take over and it’s going to be a long slow process to change it.
Thanks for a great post!
Even if a city is not green-friendly, it would definitely join the race to go green because as the danger level is crossed, people would start voicing their anger. Government would then be bound to bring in necessary legislations. People’s consciousness is highly required in this regard.
Richard
http://www.aafter.com