Bikes in the Netherlands...

Have you seen this video yet? It’s of an intersection in Utrecht in the Netherlands, and it’s exactly what I imagine for future of transport in Australia. (Sorry, people who are reading this via email or RSS - I suspect the video won’t show up for you, you’ll have to visit the site to see it. Please do, it’s pretty interesting.) Isn’t it great? People, buses, trams or light rail all...

Bike sharing...

Nextbike in Germany. Photo credit: Jokannes, via Wikimedia Commons G Magazine’s new issue is out, and they’ve got a feature on car-share businesses in Australia. If you’ve ever thought about ditching your car but weren’t sure if you could do without it all the time, it’s well worth a look. But lately I’ve been seeing mentions of bike-sharing businesses around the world. I think they’re...

Deep walkability: how’s your suburb?...

Walkscore website (I don't actually live right in the CBD) You’ve probably heard of the idea of “walkability“, that is, whether or not a place has decent footpaths and bikepaths that lead to shops and services and interesting places within walking or biking distance. There’s a few websites out there that measure the walkability of the place where you live, like Walkscore (which does the maps...

Riding to work: what’s it like?...

Clint going for a ride After thinking so much about transport this week, I’ve been trying to work up the courage to start bike-riding again. I did it a lot when I was about 12, but a few bad experiences in traffic (mostly my own fault!) put me off. But I think it’d be a great way for me to combine travel and exercise, so I’ve been talking to people who already ride a lot. One of these people is my friend...

Bright green future: how will we travel?...

Photo credit: www.pedbikeimages.org / Ryan Snyder Ok, so let’s get back to thinking about our bright green future. Today I’m imagining how transport would work for us all. At the moment, transport is responsible for 14% of our greenhouse gas emissions. It’s also responsible for a lot of other impacts on the environment, from peak oil to destruction of ecosystems to feed our need for more roads and carparks...

Plug-in hybrid car...

I don’t normally get excited by prototype cars, and this one would be too big for me and Dave (SUV size), but I’m really intrigued after reading about it: Turn On, Plug In, Drop Out by Joseph Romm. It’s a plug-in hybrid car. It has a fast-charge battery that can be charged from your home’s electricity, no petrol needed. The disadvantage of the fast charge time is that it discharges quickly too...

I’m leaving on a jet plane…...

I won’t be posting as often over the next two weeks, as I’m off for a well-deserved holiday with a good friend, in a place that has unreliable internet connections However, this is still relevant to environmental issues, since I’m flying to my overseas destination. My round-trip is about 27660 km altogether. According to a few carbon-calculators, this creates approximately 9.4 tonnes of greenhouse-gas...

Taking the Prius on a road trip...

On the weekend we took the Prius out for it’s first long-distance drive. We travelled about 450km to the town where Dave’s parents live, taking about 5 hours (including a couple of stops). We’d been told that a Prius wasn’t as efficient on country drives, but our experience showed it being only slightly less fuel efficient than it is on our regular city routes. It did very well on the long drive:...

Other green car options...

So, even though we bought a secondhand Prius to replace our old car, what were our other options? Fuel-efficient petrol cars The less petrol you use, the fewer greenhouse-gas emissions you create. Buying a fuel-efficient car is the easiest green choice for cars now, as the fuel-efficiency is marked on a sticker on all new cars sold in Australia, as is the amount of pollution it will create per 100km. However, it’s...

We now own a (used) Prius...

We got our used Prius yesterday, trading in our old car. We used it for all our usual Saturday errands, and it was great! I haven’t gotten used to the display showing when the car is using the battery, regenerating it, or using petrol, so I keep staring at it. But Dave has adjusted and finds it much the same as any other dashboard display now. Click the photo to see the large version at my Flickr account. Our old...