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  • Notes from a plug-in hybrid conference

    Silicon Valley came to Washington this week to talk about plug-in hybrids at a great conference organized by Google.org with Brookings. The combination of tech visionaries, electric cars on display, Washington heavy hitters such as John Dingell, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and even a couple of film stars, Peter Horton and Anne Sexton of Who Killed the Electric Car?, made for a great meeting.

    Here are my notes from the standing room only event ...

    Michael Moynihan Cities

  • Toyota and Honda could sure learn something from Chevy!

    “I don’t have to tell you how sexy the [Chevy] Volt is. The Japanese and Chinese couldn’t possibly put out something that appealing to middle America.” — Andy Karsner, Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the Department of Energy

    David Roberts Cities

  • Hot plans rile the Chicago waterfront

    Two curious things going on along the waterfront in Chicago, which Mayor Richard Daley envisions as the “greenest city in America”: a brouhaha over plans to relocate the children’s museum to Grant Park, and a billion-dollar dream of a semicircular Eco-Bridge in the same area. A mock-up of the Eco-Bridge. Photo: Chicago Tribune. The $100 […]

    Katharine Wroth Cities

  • Florida city takes another smart(ish) step

    Yesterday, the Tampa city council gave preliminary approval to a plan that offers incentives for green building; they’re expected to formally approve it later this month. We mentioned in our rockin’ Smart(ish) Cities series that this was in the works — nice to see it pursued, and heartening to see such places taking green(ish) steps.

    Katharine Wroth Cities

  • San Francisco approves giant solar incentive program

    San Francisco has become the proud owner of the largest municipal solar program in the United States. The Solar Energy Incentive Program, approved by the city board of supervisors on Tuesday, will provide rebates to home- and business owners who install solar panels on their buildings. Individuals can receive up to $6,000; businesses can be […]

    Grist staff Cities

  • Focusing population growth in the right places will make us both

    The New York Times looks at the impact of high gas prices in communities across the nation today and concludes that increases are most painful in rural areas. Part of this analysis involves an examination of money spent on gas as a share of total income. The big middle of the country does badly, and […]

    Ryan Avent Cities

  • California launches database of green state buildings

    Some day I’ll stop being surprised at the eco-dreaminess of California. But for now, I’m still tickled by even relatively minor developments — say, the creation of the country’s first statewide map of government-run green buildings. Sites are color-coded (and searchable) by whether they’ve achieved LEED certification, are pursuing it, or are being “retro-commissioned.” And […]

    Katharine Wroth Cities

  • USA Today: oil prices drive up asphalt costs, derail road maintenance

    For decades, public cash has gushed into building infrastructure designed to get us around in those little (or not-so-little) privatized pods. Indeed, the mobilization to create and maintain our road and highway network probably counts as our greatest public achievement of the last half-century. Meanwhile, while the highway rode high, our rail-transportation network crashed. Attacked […]

    Tom Philpott Cities

  • Scooter ridership zooms as gas prices rise

    For reasons both environment- and wallet-related, motor scooter ridership is zooming (along with transit and bike ridership, natch). Between 1997 and 2007, annual sales of new scooters jumped from 12,000 to 131,000. Scooter sales in the first three months of 2008 were up 24 percent over the same time period last year, and sellers are […]

    Grist staff Cities

  • Rail and the coming changes in transport

    National Train Day was marked this year on May 10, so it's not too incredibly late to mention two new books of note: John Stilgoe's Train Time: Railroads and the Imminent Reshaping of the United States Landscape that came out in the fall says that rail is "an economic and cultural tsunami about to transform the United States." Maybe that's a little grand, but rail is definitely on the ascendancy, since it can move people and freight at a fraction of the energy usage vs. petroleum.

    Also, Radio Ecoshock's March 28 edition of its useful weekly podcast had a recording (skip to minute 11 for the presentation) by authors Richard Gilbert and Anthony Perl at the launch event for their new book Transport Revolutions: Moving People and Freight without Oil. They are forecasting a grid-tied and electrified (increasingly from renewables) rail system among four revolutions coming in transport:

    Erik Hoffner Cities