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Revealed: how cars cause urban floods
Michael McCarthy, The Independent
Why on earth would increased car ownership in urban areas lead to flash flooding? Because towns and cities are complex systems of cause and effect – and the Government needs to start thinking about that, according to a new report.
The link between more cars and more flooding may not be immediately obvious to most of us, but it is vividly illustrated in a diagram in the report, entitled The Urban Environment, published yesterday by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution.
Increased car ownership and use leads to demands for more roads and parking, the diagram explains. That then leads to an increase in hard, impermeable surfaces which cannot soak up rain – which in turn leads to more polluted surface water running off into drains, and in real downpours, a much higher risk of a flash flood. These sort of complex interactions are not being addressed by the Government in policy and planning, says the report, calling for the development of an over-arching policy on the urban environment.
(7 Mar 2007)
Revving up the rails
Josh Goodman, Governing Magazine via CQ
States are ready to put up big bucks to speed up passenger rail service–if someone would just push freight trains out of the way.
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If a train leaves Charlotte, North Carolina, heading north to New York City, when won’t it arrive?
It probably won’t get there in 13 hours, even though that’s what’s listed on the Amtrak schedule. Last year, more than 80 percent of trains on this route arrived late. And the line’s performance is not unique. One-third of Amtrak trains pulled into their destination stations behind schedule. The Coast Starlight–the train that runs between Seattle and Los Angeles–was the worst: It was on time for less than 4 percent of its trips. Shorter regional routes performed a bit better than the longer passenger-rail routes, but none scored above a 90-percent on-time record.
Making the trains run on time is a vexing problem. Rails’ supporters, which include state governments that subsidize passenger trains, tout train service as a necessary transportation option with important implications for economic development. But it’s an option that can live up to its potential only if the trains don’t turn off ridership by being late.
The problem is frustrating because the source of most of the tardiness is well known: Trains hauling freight delay their passenger-carrying counterparts. And the solution is something few want to hear: massive capital investment.
(March 2007 issue)
Electic-powered Trucks in Russia
EnglishRussia
These days there are many talks on converting fuel cars to some new sources of power: hydrogen or electrical driven, many hybrids appear which use both electricity and fuel.
But not many know that already 60 years in some Russian cities there are even big trucks are go solely on electricity without a drop of fuel. The only problem with them they are wired. Yes, connected to the wires which cover all the major streets of the cities so that such trucks and some passengers trolleybuses (which don’t use rails like trams but go just on any surface) are connected.
Look at those pics to get the picture of these ecologically safe trucks with 60 years history.
(5 Mar 2007)
Fuels of the future
David Gow, Guardian
‘We are on the threshold of a major change and this is going to be very expensive’, says the GM boss
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It sits pretty, with fake leopard-skin livery, in the middle of one of the main halls at the annual international motor show, surrounded by the latest sleek and powerful products of the global auto industry.
The tiny Greeny AC1, made by Reva, is an all-electric urban car costing €17,500 and just one example of the “green” cars that are rolling out of car-plants around the world. The industry has woken up to and acknowledged climate change.
The obsessive topic of every conversation here is the proposal by Stavros Dimas, EU environment commissioner, for legislation to limit CO2 emissions by all new cars to 120 grammes by 2012 – and, frankly, how it can be fought, circumvented, delayed. But it’s not the ghost of Stavros that’s present in every makeshift meeting room on the manufacturers’ stands. A keen awareness that fossil fuel reserves are finite and oil may run out faster than anticipated is also prompting car-makers to club together to develop alternative technologies that employ “green” fuels…
(7 March 2007)
