Grist | Topics | 133 Results

RESULTS		Results 26 – 50 of 133
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Headline	Author	Published	Section
How Smart Is Your City? An urban-dweller's pop quiz		12 May 2008	Grist Feature
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Topics: green building, public lands, public transportation, Smartish Cities, special series, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

What's a Sustainable City, Anyway? Green-city ranking group SustainLane explains its methodology	James Elsen	12 May 2008	Grist Feature
With a chart-topping 26,000 people per square mile, New York City has to be smart. Photo: Tom Twigg How smart is your city? Take our quiz to find out. Back in 2004, the news emerged that two-thirds of the world's population might be living in cities by 2030. At SustainLane, we got curious about what cities were doing to handle that growth, and we began taking a closer look ...
Topics: green building, placemaking, public lands, public transportation, Smartish Cities, special series, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

That infrastructure thing Congestion pricing might come in handy	Ryan Avent	12 May 2008	Gristmill
Speaking of our crumbling public facilities, CBO Director Peter Orszag testified in Congress on Friday and detailed the country's infrastructure needs. They are dire, in some cases. He notes in a related blog post (yes, the CBO director has a blog): Although capital spending on transportation infrastructure already exceeds $100 billion annually, studies from the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Aviation Administration, and elsewhere suggest that it would cost ...
Topics: placemaking, public transportation (all these topics)

C'mon ride the train, the Coachella train Festival-goers hop free ride -- and stay car-free, too	Sarah van Schagen	06 May 2008	Gristmill
As we've reported in the past, music festivals across the country are making moves to be more sustainable -- mostly involving recycling efforts, compostable utensils, and biodiesel generators. But this year's Coachella music festival, held in Indio, Calif., April 25-27, took an interesting track, chartering an Amtrak train to transport festival folk to and from L.A. The Coachella Express was set up by the creative minds behind Global Inheritance, a group focusin ...
Topics: green living, music, placemaking, public transportation (all these topics)

Oil hysteria, part 2 Are low gas prices an inalienable right?	Jon Rynn	02 May 2008	Gristmill
I'm listening to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) talk to Thom Hartmann on Air America. Sanders is arguably the best senator in decades, and understands, as he just explained, that we need to transform our energy system toward renewables. But he also said something to the effect that 'we have to get gas prices back down.' I can't blame him -- particularly in his state of Vermont, rural people are getting slammed by high gas prices, because they have to drive long distances. ...
Topics: energy, oil, placemaking, politics, public transportation, renewable energy, sprawl, Vermont (all these topics)

Obama on rail transit A candidate finally discusses public transit ... at a random lunch	David Roberts	01 May 2008	Gristmill
So I'm looking at this pool report from a run-of-the-mill day in the Obama campaign. Barack and Michelle dropped by to have lunch with an Indiana couple, Mike and Cheryl Fischer. Mike works in Amtrak's Beech Grove shop, as his family has for generations. Notes the report dryly: "No news." But I scan down a bit to the middle, where Barack's talking to Mike about his impending layoff at Amtrak, and suddenly my mouth is hanging open. Says Obama:The irony is w ...
Topics: Barack Obama, placemaking, politics, presidential race 08, public transportation (all these topics)

The unbearable tightness of oil markets America is ill equipped to handle expensive oil	Ryan Avent	30 Apr 2008	Gristmill
The Times' Jad Mouawad has written a piece describing the state of the world's oil market. It is, in a word, tight. Production volumes have been flat at best, and consumption growth has continued. Kevin Drum comments: I imagine that a global economic slowdown will flatten oil consumption a bit over the next year or two, and eventually higher prices will rein in demand more permanently. On the other hand, we've seen oil prices double three times in the past eight years wi ...
Topics: economy, energy, oil, placemaking, politics, public transportation, urban planning (all these topics)

Oil hysteria Let's rebuild our national rail network instead of repealing the gas tax	Jon Rynn	17 Apr 2008	Gristmill
At the rate things are going, any money that would be available for global warming mitigation is going to go into subsidizing the oil used by airplanes, trucks, cars, and heating oil so that most Americans do not become hysterical -- or am I being hysterical? From Michael T. Klare's latest article: Oil at $110 a barrel. Gasoline at $3.35 (or more) per gallon. Diesel fuel at $4 per gallon. Independent truckers forced off the road. Home heating oil rising to unconscionabl ...
Topics: energy, fossil fuels, oil, placemaking, politics, public transportation, urban planning (all these topics)

Don't celebrate this holiday We need to be freed from gas, not the gas tax	Ryan Avent	17 Apr 2008	Gristmill
John McCain's proposal to institute a gas tax 'holiday' during the summer driving season is as clear an example of a pander as one is likely to see during election season, but its inclusion in a major economic policy speech suggests that this is no easily ignorable one-off. As Joseph Romm notes, any hope progressives might have had that the maverick, straight-talking conservative could bring some principle to the table on climate and energy issues has now gone out the win ...
Topics: energy, gas prices, John McCain, oil, placemaking, politics, public transportation, regulation (all these topics)

Gas tax attacks The gasoline tax is regressive, but only for upper-income groups	Joseph Romm	16 Apr 2008	Gristmill
After I argued against McCain's summer gas-tax freeze, I received an email, the basic thrust of which was, 'but everybody knows a gasoline tax is regressive, so how can progressives endorse it?' Well, as we will see, everybody doesn't know a gasoline tax is regressive. In fact: The poor are more likely not to buy any gasoline (i.e., to not own a car at all), poor families own fewer cars (and much fewer of the fuel-inefficient SUVs and minivans), and the poor t ...
Topics: cars, economy, environmental justice, public transportation (all these topics)

WTF?	David Roberts	08 Apr 2008	Gristmill
They're submerging subway cars to make artificial reefs?! Nobody tells me anything.
Topics: oceans, placemaking, public transportation (all these topics)

The forgotten solution Transit investment should and will be a part of the peak oil solution	Ryan Avent	01 Apr 2008	Gristmill
Joseph Romm has made a number of very good points in his new Salon piece (and accompanying Gristmill post) on the problem of peak oil. He is, in my view, quite correct that oil prices will continue to increase based on supply and demand fundamentals. He is right that alternative oil source development would be a monumental mistake, and that biofuels are unlikely to be much help either. And I'd like to strongly associate myself with his statement that a solution to the cli ...
Topics: placemaking, oil, energy, urban planning, public transportation (all these topics)

Commute conundrum Should emissions from employee commutes be included in company GHG inventories?	Guest author	27 Mar 2008	Gristmill
The following is a guest essay by Kevin Luten of UrbanTrans, a sustainable transportation consulting firm working in Australia and the United States. He is based in Melbourne. ----- When businesses dip a toe in the rising sea of corporate action on climate change, the first box they check before diving in involves tabulating their own greenhouse-gas inventory. In getting your corporate house in order, the first step is defining where your yard ends and your neighbor' ...
Topics: business, cars, climate, greenhouse-gas emissions, greening biz operations, public transportation (all these topics)

Rev. Billy at the auto show	David Roberts	24 Mar 2008	Gristmill
This protest/happening at Saturday's N.Y. Auto Show was most amusing: See StreetFilms.org for background.
Topics: green living, cars, public transportation, placemaking, New York (all these topics)

Highwaymen take over the Transportation Department The WaPo reveals why mass transit gets the shaft on the national level	Tom Philpott	20 Mar 2008	Gristmill
I have a couple of things to add about the Washington Post article pointed to by Ryan Avent in his smart recent post about mass transit.The article, by Lyndsey Layton and Spencer S. Hsu, is a superb and important piece of work, but it's maddeningly written; it buries key and even shocking information. The theme is the takeover of the Department of Transportation by neocon ideologues with ties to the highway industry. Evidently, they're using the department as a tool ...
Topics: Department of Transportation, public transportation, placemaking (all these topics)

Priced to move A comprehensive solution to end congestion	Ryan Avent	19 Mar 2008	Gristmill
On Monday, the Washington Post took a look at the ideas of a key Department of Transportation policymaker named Tyler Duvall, a man of bold plans who hopes to bring congestion pricing to highways across the nation. Congestion pricing is an idea with roots in the field of economics, widely supported by a broad spectrum of transportation officials. Unfortunately, Duvall has decided to use a very limited pool of federal transportation dollars to push this plan on cities a ...
Topics: public transportation, Department of Transportation, placemaking (all these topics)

'But Americans won't ride trains' Defying conventional wisdom, NC residents express desire for public transport	Tom Philpott	18 Mar 2008	Gristmill
Photo: Roadsidepictures You know that old saw about how greens should shut up about public transportation because Americans hate trains and insist on getting around in their own private chunks of resource-sucking steel and plastic? Well, that may be going the way of $2/gallon gas. Get this, from a recent poll of North Carolina residents: Potential new railway options were embraced positively by those surveyed. Commuter rails in urban areas and high-sp ...
Topics: North Carolina, public transportation, placemaking (all these topics)

All close together now A post-petroleum American dream	Jon Rynn	13 Mar 2008	Gristmill
'This craziness is not sustainable,' concludes The New York Times op-ed columnist Bob Herbert, and he's talking about the economy, not the environment. He continues: Without an educated and empowered work force, without sustained investment in the infrastructure and technologies that foster long-term employment, and without a system of taxation that can actually pay for the services provided by government, the American dream as we know it will expire. And without pet ...
Topics: agriculture, cars, energy, placemaking, public transportation, urban planning (all these topics)

Fun with numbers If we want to create jobs, why aren't we spending on mass transit?	Sarah K. Burkhalter	12 Mar 2008	Gristmill
The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending Priorities (PDF): Number of jobs created by spending $1 billion on defense: 8,555 Number of jobs created by spending $1 billion on health care: 10,779 Number of jobs created by spending $1 billion on education: 17,687 Number of jobs created by spending $1 billion on mass transit: 19,795 (via Yes! magazine)
Topics: public transportation, placemaking (all these topics)

The Way You Move Climate change has it out for transportation infrastructure, says report		11 Mar 2008	News
Posted at 5:08 PM on 11 Mar 2008 Climate change is likely to wreak havoc on U.S. transportation infrastructure, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Research Council. Think bridge joints weakened by too-high temperatures, flooded tunnels, shipping disrupted by heavy storms, roads threatened by erosion, and much, much more! Coastal regions are likely to be especially hard hit, as more and ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, news, placemaking, public transportation, urban planning (all these topics)

Gas up The next generation of infrastructure should help more Americans go carless	Ryan Avent	04 Mar 2008	Gristmill
It appears that oil has reached a new all-time high in real terms. Given that gas prices normally peak during the summer season, the stage could be set for some ugly pump prices this year, although expensive oil may not be the most painful part of the current commodity price boom for consumers (an honor which may go to the exploding cost of grain). With oil so expensive, commuters may wish they had better transportation options. Some of them may even begin to wonder ...
Topics: energy, oil, placemaking, public transportation, urban planning (all these topics)

Zipcar merges with Flexcar, effs it all up Has the east coast car-sharing company screwed up the west coast car-sharing company?	David Roberts	29 Feb 2008	Gristmill
Late last year, the country's two major car-sharing companies, west-coast Flexcar and its larger east-coast cousin Zipcar, merged and became, um, Zipcar. Flexcar fans were concerned about the effects of the merger. Sadly, Flexcar fangirl Erica Barnett reports that they were decidedly negative: more expensive, fewer cars, less friendly service, etc. Zipcar, what hath thou wrought? Any Gristians have car-sharing experiences to share?
Topics: public transportation, placemaking, cars, business (all these topics)

Governors drink the Kool-Aid State govs embrace the range of 'alternative fuels,' from nukes to clean coal to biofuels	Tom Philpott	27 Feb 2008	Gristmill
The National Governors Association has linked up with 'a team of Wal-Mart energy experts' to 'green the capitols.'That's fantastic -- and I'm sure it will draw well-deserved huzzahs in certain green circles. (It's touching to see Wal-Mart giving back some of what it has been siphoning off in state taxes!) But read a little deeper into the press release, and you see what the National Governors Association means by 'green.' Turns out that when it comes to energy, the go ...
Topics: energy, placemaking, politics, public transportation, state politics, Wal-Mart (all these topics)

Public investment: the counterargument Geek humor	Gar Lipow	22 Feb 2008	Gristmill
Volker Weber provides a strong counterargument to my posts favoring public investment (very funny, if you are a certain kind of geek):
Topics: placemaking, public transportation (all these topics)

A climate for old men Spearheading transit for livable cities at 93	Charles Komanoff	11 Feb 2008	Gristmill
I recently ended 100 days without Grist. And wouldn't you know, the title of the first post I saw, 'No climate for old men,' spoke directly to the reason I was away. No, I wasn't with the McCain campaign. Rather, I was immersed in a project, spearheaded by a really old man, that could become a terrific tool for beating back the climate crisis. That man is 93-year-old Ted Kheel, legendary New York labor-lawyer-turned-environmentalist. His project is a study o ...
Topics: climate, energy, placemaking, public transportation (all these topics)

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