The story of Toyota cars having accelerator-pedal and brake problems, causing out of control speed and possible crash death in a fireball, is a near perfect allegory for something far more serious: the burning of the planet with fossil fuels including gasoline for cars. The vehicle for the burning of the planet is none other [...]
To celebrate World Environment Day 2009, the Swedish commuter organisation Planka.nu hosted a “Climate Crash” together with Friends of the Earth Sweden and Klimax, a network of groups that uses direct action to raise awareness of the threat that climate change poses. Over 150 people took to the streets of Stockholm on a chilly June [...]
Andy Kunz is an urban designer, new urbanist and a proponent of building new train systems to solve our transportation problems. Kunz talked to Carbusters about the importance of New Urbanism for creating walkable and bikeable towns and cities, as well as the urgent need for investments into green transportation. He lays out his ideas [...]
Aptera motors have designed a new electric car that goes 160 km on a single charge and should be ready to be sold by the end of the year. Nevertheless, they won’t get money from the US government – funds that promote electric vehicles and other high-efficiency cars in the Innovative Vehicle Act. Why not? [...]
Cape Town, and indeed South Africa, has first and third world communities living alongside one another. As a result of almost 50 years of legislated apartheid – during which time entire communities were removed from healthy, clean and socially integrated areas to racially separated, remote and dusty “townships” – access to opportunities was forcefully removed [...]
Two urban planning professors have written an entire book about sidewalks, 330 pages on this part of the transportation infrastructure built for non-motorists. (Cultural note: Since both authors live and work in the United States, they use the term sidewalk not pavement, footpath or platform.) The book considers sidewalks as [...]
San Luis Potosi (SLP) is the capital city of the homonymous state located in the central-northern part of Mexico. The city, founded in 1592, was originally composed of seven districts (barrios in Spanish) each with their own churches and gardens. In the past the city was known as the “Gardens City” because of its many green and beautiful areas.
It’s healthy, green and in fashion. Just how walkable is your neighbourhood? Walk Score helps people live a carfree lifestyle by measuring how walkable a place is – not just how pretty the area is for walking. The Walk Score uses data and mapping from Google Maps to provide coverage of the walkability of any address in the world. Although it only gives an approximation of walkability, Walk Score is still a useful tool to motivate people to get out and walk.
US President Barack Obama has an unenviable task: helping reverse the current path of environmental destruction, and this involves transforming the way Americans travel. Obama’s Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, does a good job of talking the talk about bicycling and walking as parts of this transformation [...]
It is urgently necessary nowadays to build and to promote new models of urbanism less car-dependant that can allow one to choose freely his mode of transportation. Therefore there is a need to think about new systems of urban planning, but also to think about possibilities to convert existing places into carfree areas.
Carbusters has been funded with support from the European Commission. Carbusters.org reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
Here you can browse and download back issues in PDF-format.
