Found 110 bookmarks
Newest
One solution to fight climate change? Fewer parking spaces. - EnviroLink Network
One solution to fight climate change? Fewer parking spaces. - EnviroLink Network
This story was supported by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. In the beginning, parking lots were created to curb chaos on the road. But climate change has turned that dynamic on its head. Since the 1920s a little-known policy called parking minimums has shaped a large facet of American life. In major cities, this meant that any type of building — apartments, banks, or shopping malls — needed to reserve a certain amount of parking spaces to accommodate anyone who might visit.  But transportation makes up almost one-third of carbon emissions in the U.S. and cars represent a significant portion of those emissions. As the country attempts to aggressively cut carbon emissions, reducing dependence on fossil fuels will also mean rethinking what transportation and public space look like, especially in cities. Earlier this month, the city of Austin, Texas, became the latest community to eliminate parking minimums and is now the largest city in the U.S. to do so.  “If we want half of all trips to be in something other than a car, then we can’t, as a city, in my opinion, mandate that every home or business have at least one parking space for each resident or customer,” said Zohaib Qadri, the Austin city council member who introduced the measure. Reducing dependency on cars was a huge push for the initiative in Austin, said Qadri, who hopes the measure also will lead to a more sustainable city. “Climate change is here,” said Qadri. “And we’re only going to make it worse by clinging to these very climate unfriendly and unsustainable transportation habits of the 20th century.” The elimination of this seemingly innocuous law could pave the way for cities to build denser housing, increase public transit options, and reduce their carbon emissions, according to Donald Shoup, an
·envirolink.org·
One solution to fight climate change? Fewer parking spaces. - EnviroLink Network
Bremen’s fight for car sharing - Eurocities
Bremen’s fight for car sharing - Eurocities
“Keep on fighting, that’s the message – it’s worth it,” insists Michael Glotz-Richter, Senior Project Manager for Sustainable Mobility at the Municipality of Bremen. He would know. The idea of car sharing was one of the first things to hit his desk when he started working for the city back in 1990, and in 2020
·eurocities.eu·
Bremen’s fight for car sharing - Eurocities