Michael Graham RichardHow to Create a Bike-Friendly Office
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The transportation sector is broken. It relies overwhelmingly on fossil fuels, which means that it is a top contributor to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Sadly, greener alternatives to cars have been progressively squeezed out over the past decades because of policies favoring automobiles and trucks over all else. This has to change, and our cars have to change too.
It won't be easy, but thankfully we already have most of the pieces of the puzzle... This series of articles will look briefly at what we can do to be less dependent on cars, and then at the different ways that we can improve our vehicles so that they have a much reduced impact on nature.
Photo: Wikipedia/Creative Commons
Alternatives to Cars: What We Know Works
Our society is too automobile-centric. Cars are great for certain things and they'll be around for the foreseeable future, which is why we need to develop new types of cars that have a much lower impact on the environment, but they are just one of many ways to move people and things around.
We already know that we need a lot more walkable and bikable cities and neighborhoods, with urban planning that gives consideration to all modes of transportation and not just to the car. An encouraging sign of progress on that front is that it seems like US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood seems to think so too.
We also need better and faster transit, such as high-speed rail between cities, light-rail and bus rapid transit (BRT) in cities, subways, etc. Also add to this more bike-sharing and car-sharing programs, since they both reduce the number of cars on the road and lead to lower pollution.
Photo: Michael Graham Richard
Where We Need to Innovate: Cars & Trucks
But what about cars? Under most realistic scenarios, cars will stick around for the foreseeable future, and even if the number of car trips goes down in the currently rich countries, the number of cars being added in the developing world will more than make up for it. Can we make cars that have a much smaller environmental impact?
Life cycle analysis studies say that 80-90% of the environmental footprint of a car comes from "use", which mostly means burning fuel. Can we improve this (as well as the remaining 10-20%)? That's what we'll see in the next installments of this series.
This is the first part of a series about the green(er) cars of the future.
[b]Read Part Two: 5 Improvements That Can Make All Cars Greener
