Recent Streetsblog USA posts about News

Smoggy China to Observe World Car Free Day

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The Financial Times reports that China’s cities will participate in this year’s World Car Free Day. These actions have a measureable effect. A recent study found that when Beijing ordered 800,000 cars off the roads for three days last year, local nitrogen oxide air pollution fell by 40 per cent. More than 100 Chinese cities […]

High-Emission Vehicles to Pay £200 ($400!) to Enter London

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London mayor Ken Livingstone, whose congestion-pricing plan has served as a model for Mayor Bloomberg’s, is expected to unveil today an even more radical measure aimed at reducing pollution in his city. According to the Guardian, Livingstone’s proposal would target high-emission commercial vehicles: Ken Livingstone is expected to confirm that older, "dirtier" lorries and buses […]

Building a Better Bike Lane

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This weekend’s Wall Street Journal has an massive, full-page report on bike friendly cities in Europe. Initially the arguments for more biking were mostly about health and congestion, but in the last year concern for the environment has become an important factor compelling people to travel by bicycle: Flat, compact and temperate, the Netherlands and […]

Black Clouds Over China

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The balloon says: Drive one day less and look how much carbon dioxide you’ll keep out of the air we breathe. While the Chinese economy is booming, the skies above its cities are blackening. China will actually pass the United States as the world’s biggest source of greenhouse gases this year. The World Wildlife Federation […]

Zero Carbon is the Goal for Woodstock

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Randolph Horner, renewable energy developer, on the roof of town hall Mayor Bloomberg is not the only one going green. Woodstock, New York wants to be America’s first carbon neutral city by 2017. The Telegraph reports: Woodstock town hall’s large flat roof is blotted out by 112 solar panels – an early manifestation of the […]