By Barbara Kessler
It’s refreshing in these days of gas and environmental calamities, not to mention lending and budget crises, to hear about something that’s chugging along in a positive direction.
That’s the story of Amtrak, or nearly so, at this junction. Ridership on the American passenger rail service is up a healthy 14 percent compared to [...]

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By John DeFore

Joining the existing array of programs addressing school bus pollution this fall (the EPA’s Clean School Bus USA, for example) is a new effort bringing the Texas Parent Teacher Association together with the state’s Commission on Environmental Quality.
The project, announced earlier this month, will supply funds to the PTA for bus pollution-control [...]

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By Catherine Girardeau
Let’s face it: Solo car commuters increase both traffic congestion and a city’s carbon footprint.
In San Francisco, those gas-hogging lone drivers soon will be get a clear message to switch to greener forms of transportation, such as buses, train transit and van pools. Earlier this month, the city preliminarily approved a commuter [...]

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By John DeFore
Not long ago, a City of Austin crew spent the day installing new “No Parking” signs along the streets of my neighborhood. Two big Ford F450 trucks sat outside my home-office window for hours while the men dug holes and planted posts — and their engines ran the entire time.
Not wanting to [...]

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By Barbara Kessler
With gas prices pressuring wallets everywhere and climate change warming the planet, people are looking to the sun for some salvation. It’s paradoxical yes, but so sensible. The sun’s energy burns brightly on Earth and is capable of powering our homes and potentially our cars, if that power can be efficiently harvested.
For the [...]

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By Nima Kapadia
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Swedish Energy Agency (SEA) have extended their partnership with Volvo another three years to develop commercial trucks with greater fuel efficiency. The partnership is an extension of a one-year agreement signed by the three groups in June 2007, with the overall objective of creating [...]

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By Harriet Blake
As a LEED-accredited engineer and leader of the sustainable design initiative for AKF Engineers, Robert Diemer is a believer in the green movement. He helps create greener buildings. He takes public transportation to work.
Recently, Diemer took his commitment to an even higher level by becoming the 50,000th member of PhillyCarShare. With the price [...]

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By John DeFore
Some time in the coming weeks, residents of our nation’s capital will be the first American customers of a service some Europeans have used for a decade, a public/private partnership that adds bicycles to the more familiar array of public transportation options like buses and trains.

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By Nima Kapadia
With consumers clearly moving — some would say stampeding — away from gas-guzzling trucks and sport utility vehicles, General Motors plans to do the same.
The world’s largest automaker announced on Tuesday it will stop production at four U.S. factories that assemble trucks and Sport Utility Vehicles, such as the BMC Sierra and [...]

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By John DeFore

The history of aviation is full of feats — transatlantic this, non-stop that — that sound like extravagant publicity stunts but foreshadow innovations with real-world impact. With any luck, the same will be true for the Solar Impulse, a planned aircraft whose development is profiled today in the European Wall Street [...]

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By Harriet Blake
In Columbus, Ohio, yesterday Mayor Michael Coleman and his staff biked from their homes to the Ohio Statehouse, jacking up their heart rates and kicking-off the city’s 20-year Bicentennial Bikeways Plan.

Photo: City of Columbus
 
Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman
In Boston, Mayor Thomas Menino fought a stiff wind cycling a half mile from City [...]

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By Bill Sullivan
Charles Stone expected to encounter a skeptic or two. He had done his research, and this outside-the-box idea seemed to make good sense, but the Director of Transportation for the Mansfield (Texas) Independent School District figured he still would have some explaining to do.
“Natural gas is a little unusual,” he says. “Most people [...]

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