News
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Decision makers across Turkey convened to learn about how to make cities more livable
The Third Livable Cities Symposium, in Istanbul. Photo by WRI Turkey Sustainable Cities.
WRI Turkey Sustainable Cities organized the third Livable Cities Symposium on November 19-20 in Istanbul, with over 400 representatives from local governments, the private sector, NGOs and universities in attendance. The Symposium focused on creating smart and energy efficient cities—hosting a total of 45 speakers from 13 different countries.
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The Transport Community Comes Together in Support of Accelerating Action on Climate Change - Photo: Beijing Metro - Credits: Benoit Colin/WRI
Shanghai, PRC and Paris, France 24th November, 2015
Transport is one of the fastest growing sources of CO2 world-wide and is the largest energy consuming sector in 40% of countries worldwide while being the second largest in most of the remaining countries. Action to limit global average temperature rise to less than 2°C, as recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) without including the transport sector is unrealistic.
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The initiative will help the city, businesses, and employees improve productivity and save money
Photo credit: EMBARQ Mexico
The Santa Fe business district in the west of Mexico City is known as a “3D” area—distant, dispersed, and disconnected. Employees spend an average of 2.6 hours a day (26 days a year) stuck in traffic attempting to access the district. Intense traffic congestion affects other areas like Insurgentes Sur to the south of the Mexican capital, and Reforma-Centro in the center of the city. And in the Polanco-Lomas business center, average rush hour speeds reach a low of 7.5 km/h (4.66 mph), and traveling just 500 meters can take up to half an hour.
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The team conducted a road safety and accessibility inspection to prevent future BRT crashes
Photo Credit: EMBARQ Türkiye
Şanlıurfa, Turkey has a population of nearly two million—which may seem small compared to mega cities, like Beijing—but is still greatly suffering from congestion. As the city’s population rises, the capacity of Şanlıurfa’s public transport has been burdened, causing residents to turn to personal vehicles. To combat congestion and meet the needs of citizens, city officials created a bus rapid transit (BRT) system that is integrated with existing bus lines.
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Pai has helped bring sustainable urban mobility to cities across India
Pedestrians and auto-rickshaws compete for space on the streets of Mumbai, India. Photo by EMBARQ.
Sustainability Outlook, a leading market access, insight and collaboration platform tracking actions related towards sustainability in India, has recognized Madhav Pai, Director of WRI Ross Center in India, as Parivartan Trailblazer of the Year 2015. The prestigious award is a recognition of Pai’s outstanding leadership establishing our Center’s EMBARQ sustainable urban mobility initiative in India.
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New manual from WRI Brasil Sustainable Cities helps businesses develop corporate mobility plans step by step
Highway in São Paulo, Brazil Photo Credit: mlsirac/Flickr
Commutes to and from work make up about half of all daily travel in Brazil. The majority of commuters travel at peak hours, which—coupled with low-quality public transport and sprawl—is harmful for governments, businesses and people. The current model of development centers on private vehicles, which has increasingly resulted in congestion, poor mobility and air pollution. However, both public and private employers can do a lot to encourage employees to commute in more sustainable ways.
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Workshop brought together local officials and experts to share best practices on implementing new policies
Downtown Beijing. Photo Credit: LanguageTeaching/Flickr
According to the Beijing Municipal Committee of Transport (BMCT), the number of vehicles in Beijing has reached 5.591 million, with 30.99 million daily trips within the sixth ring road at the end of 2014. As a result, air quality in the area has declined sharply. Latest data from the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB) shows that among local pollutants, emissions from motor vehicles contributed to 31.31 percent of fine particular matter, for example.
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Established in memory of Dr. Lee Schipper, the scholarship has helped advance the field of sustainable mobility for four years
The Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship for Sustainable Transport and Energy Efficiency is awarded annually to up to two extraordinary candidates to honor the legacy of Dr. Leon J. Schipper, pictured above, co-founder of EMBARQ. Photo by EMBARQ.
EMBARQ, WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities’ sustainable urban mobility initiative, and the Lee Schipper family are pleased to announce Gwen Kash has been selected to receive the fourth annual Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship.
Established in 2012, the Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship celebrates EMBARQ founder Dr. Lee Schipper’s vision and contributions to sustainable transport and energy. Last year’s recipients – Erik Vergel-Tovar and Madeline Brozen – studied the relationship between BRT ridership and the built environment and the design of complete streets, respectively.
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Collaboration through the Transit Metropolis program to target private car use and support public transport
Mayor of Suzhou LU Liusheng and WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities Director of Strategy and Global Policy and EMBARQ Director, Holger Dalkmann, inked the MOU to officially launch a series of cooperation on the Transit Metropolis demonstration project between WRI and Suzhou Municipal Government. Photo Credit: EMBARQ China
Currently home 4.16 million people, the city of Suzhou in China is growing at such a rapid rate that its economic activity has nearly reached that of first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. However, rapid economic growth has also produced the same mobility challenges—major traffic congestion, pipe-tail emissions, and increased road incidents--that have plagued the first-tier cities.
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Event will be broadcast live on www.cidadesetransportes.org
Register now for the Cities & Transport International Congress.
Given the widespread challenges of urbanization, mayors need to learn from one another and gain fresh ideas in order to pioneer projects that result in sustainable cities. To inspire city leaders worldwide, WRI Brasil Sustainable Cities is hosting the Mayors’ Summit, which will be attended by Ken Livingstone, Enrique Peñalosa, Mary Jane Ortega, Jaime Lerner, and Sam Adams.