Last year marked an important tipping point: for the first time, half of the global population lives in cities. Cities currently add 1.4 million people each week and this population growth comes with new buildings, roads and transport systems.
Ani Dasgupta, Global Director of WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities discusses unique solutions cities can offer to combat climate change, boost economic prosperity, and catalyze smart urbanization.
Improved planning and design of bus priority systems can benefit 31 million people every day
Bus rapid transit (BRT) and bus priority systems have become an attractive solution to urban mobility needs in recent years because of their relatively low capital costs and short construction times compared to rail transit.
The growth in BRT and bus priority systems worldwide presents an opportunity to save lives and improve the health and safety of cities.
A new report, Traffic Safety on Bus Priority Systems, shows that high-quality public transport systems can improve traffic safety, reducing injuries and fatalities by as much 50 percent.
More than one half of the world’s population lives in cities, and by 2030, about one billion additional people will live in urban areas.
Former president of Mexico, Felipe Calderón, explains that how cities build their transport systems will determine their economic performance and citizens’ quality of life.
The number of SUV models getting at least 25 miles per gallon (mpg) has doubled in the last five years, while the number of cars achieving at least 40 mpg has increased sevenfold. Research shows that new policies can drive efficient vehicle use even further, lowering emissions and saving consumers money.
From climate change to poverty reduction, 2015 is a year of immense opportunity to advance progress on sustainable transport and inclusive cities.
Rapid urbanization creates a number challenges for city leaders, but the growing use of sustainable urban mobility solutions provides reasons for optimism in cities worldwide.
Through the Compact of Mayors and parallel initiatives, cities are making ambitious commitments to curb emissions, adopting new greenhouse gas emissions measuring standards, and supporting the financing of low-carbon infrastructure.
Next week at the UN Climate Summit in New York City, leaders from business, national government, and cities will convene to discuss bold actions to address climate change in various sectors, including transport.
And while climate change is an international challenge, climate action in the transport sector is proven to create significant and immediate development benefits at the national and local levels.
A new report, Better Growth, Better Climate, finds that there are several actions city leaders can take that can reduce emissions while driving economic growth.
The report finds that connected, compact cities could save $3 trillion in infrastructure investments over the next 15 years. Not only that, but they can also curb global climate change and yield immediate local benefits for air quality, health, and quality of life.
The “People-oriented Cities” series—exclusive to TheCityFix and Insights—is an exploration of how cities can grow to become more sustainable and livable through transit-oriented development (TOD). The nine-part series will address different urban design techniques and trends that reorient cities around people rather than cars.
The “People-oriented Cities” series—exclusive to TheCityFix and Insights—is an exploration of how cities can grow to become more sustainable and livable through transit-oriented development (TOD). The nine-part series will address different urban design techniques and trends that reorient cities around people rather than cars.
While the vast majority of citizens in developing cities don’t own cars, infrastructure is still being designed and financed to support motor vehicle travel. In Mexico, for example, less than one-third of urban trips are made in cars, but three-quarters of the federal mobility budget is allocated to highways.
It’s time for the world’s cities to start thinking about moving people rather than moving cars.
EMBARQ Mexico discusses three key elements of urban design to support quality public transport, and how it can help cities move towards a transit-oriented development model.
Improving developing cities’ traffic safety is a critical task for ensuring that these growing urban centers become safe, equitable places to live. A key part of achieving this safety? Sustainable urban design.
The connection between safety and justice is a major theme of the upcoming World Urban Forum (WUF7), organized by UN-HABITAT, which this year focuses on “urban equity in development—cities for life.” At the event, EMBARQ experts will host a Cities Safer by Design for All networking session. The event will convene key experts and explore ways that urban design can improve safety—and in turn, justice—in developing cities around the world.
As countries negotiate a new international climate agreement for the post-2020 period—including at this week’s intersessional meeting in Bonn, Germany—the key choices for putting the world on a secure pathway to a low-carbon future should be front-of-mind. The new agreement will be essential for putting in place the policies beyond 2020 that ensure a shift from high-carbon to low-carbon and climate-resilient investments. To do this, the agreement will have to send the right signals to governments and businesses about the trajectory we need to be on.
The UNFCCC meetings in Bonn this week mark a critical time, as one of the issues negotiators are focusing on is the development of countries’ post-2020 plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Parties in a position to do so must communicate their post-2020 “contributions” by the first quarter of 2015. To help inform this discussion, we published a working paper outlining what this information should look like and why this level of transparency is important.
Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are negotiating an international agreement for the post-2020 period, to be adopted by 2015, that aims to limit the rise of the global average temperature to below 2°C above pre-industrial levels (hereafter referred to a