Comments on: A Message from Copenhagen: Climate Plan Must Include Walkable Urbanism

By: Lucy

Lucy — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 20:18:44 +0000

Why would anyone suggest that cars will become trmendously efficient but other forms of transportation won’t? We have more efficient transit in the works as well as more efficient cars.

New housing that is in demand for the next few decades is urban housing, as revealed through surveys, demographics, and a little common sense. Nationally, the demand for large-lot SF housing is less than the supply, although there may be spots where that is not true.

At this point, we know that we can build urban housing efficiently and offer the choice of transit so that people do not have to drive for every single purpose. We know that there is the demand. We also know that the laws and regulations and subsidies all favor sprawl. Why can’t we have a level playing field and let the market work? Walkable urbanism is very competitive in that scenario.

By: gecko

gecko — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:59:27 +0000

correction: there are 100 million eCyclists in china; not 100,000.

By: gecko

gecko — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:55:46 +0000

ebikes extend speed and range even further but, traveling at 20 mph or more continuous is probably not acceptably safe freewheeling though, is probably done a lot in China where there are more than 100,000 eCyclists.

Greatly extending speeds and reanges, serious safe commuting using similar technology could employ simple mechanical collision avoidance systems and hands-free automation with guideways and rails and start to improve upon automobile speeds and ranges (and in particular, where cars have traffic and parking issues) especially, if low-cost permanent magnetic levitiation (maglev) is used to reduce rolling friction, wear and tear, etc.

By: gecko

gecko — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:12:10 +0000

bkeable is the same as walkable but, 3 to 4 times more efficient, 3 to 4 times faster and larger range.

By: Larry Littlefield

Larry Littlefield — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:38:13 +0000

Some suburbs can become more efficient by retrofit. They may not be high enough in density to be walkable, but they may be high enough in density to be bikeable. And they may use more power, but they have more space on their room to generate it.

The stuff built in the last decade, massvie McMansions miles from anything, seems less amenable to energy efficiency.

Moreover, one of the efficiencies of the private automobile compared with a bus is that you don’t have to pay the driver, and the retired former driver, because you can drive yourself. But what about those who can’t drive — the young and seniors?

For the young, we are providing a very expensive, highly inefficient, massively subsidized mass transit system — school buses. For the seniors? We can’t afford what they would want.

By: Russell Bartels

Russell Bartels — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:05:41 +0000

In this article, the major difference in energy consumption in the types of households is primarily associated the use of vehicles (133 versus 20 – over six times — 108 versus 41 or less than three times for the home ). At 100 MPG these vehicle energy consumption differences would be minor. (Albeit, we don’t know the source of the numbers and classifications.)

And unless the urban bus gets much better energy efficiency, the 100 MPG private vehicle will be more energy efficient, to say nothing about convenience, for most cities. We have only about five cities in the US that are dense enough to make mass transit the best choice now and in the near term.

And with new building technologies, the difference between SUBURBAN and GREEN URBAN might be minimal also. We will replace the SUBURBAN homes slowly, even with high energy prices, so we will probably have a lot of retro fitting to do.