Sustainable cities: the next big thing in travel?

On the European front, according to England’s Transport Minister, Paul Clark, major urban centers across the country are being given a chance to bid on becoming the nation’s first-ever “Sustainable Travel City”.

Upon winning the bid, a sum of up to £29 million over the next 3 years will be invested in the awarded city to create and encourage greener travel choices – options that would include providing the proper infrastructure to allow for walking, cycling and the improvement of public transport.

Built on a model of success

“Sustainable Travel City” is based on a similar yet smaller scale project, “Sustainable Travel Towns” – a program which for the past 5 years has encouraged car use to decline by 9%, while walking and cycling increase vy 14% and 12%, respectively.

“Our Sustainable Travel Towns have proved that with the right information and improved facilities we can make a real difference to how people travel,” Clark said. “Giving people a real alternative to the car not only reduces congestion and carbon emissions but also increases the amount of exercise they take. The opportunity to become England’s first Sustainable Travel City will be a chance to see these benefits on a much larger scale and I look forward to seeing the bids coming in.”

As problematic all over the world in major urban centers, the aim of the program is to ease congestion, reduce emissions and increase physical activity.

Strategies for advancement include:

• Work or school travel planning
• Cycle training
• Personalized travel planning
• Online journey planning
• Car share and club schemes
• Dedicated bus routes
• Improved bus stops and shelters
• Cycling and pedestrian routes
• 20 mph zones
• Consideration of parking provision

In addition to the award-funding for major urban areas, the Transport Department has also announced up to £3 million in funding for smaller local authority areas to help them develop their own green travel initiatives.

Dubai: A Green Utopia in the Sand

Dubai’s Chamber of Commerce has dubbed Dubai’s free zone “Food City”, and has proclaimed it as a self-sufficient metropolis. Designed by the creative architects from GCLA, Food City is an entirely off-the-grid structure chock full of sustainable features, including vertically stacked green walls and aquatic farms, artificial roof landscapes, renewable energy and thermal conditioning systems.

The GCLA team is also integrating features to lower energy and water consumption, utilizing concentrated solar collectors, towers covered in thin-film photovoltaic cells, piezoelectric pads in pedestrian areas, and methane harvesting through sewage percolation tanks.

It’s also designed to use a set of atmospheric water harvesting, solar desalination and grey water recycling systems to bring life into the land of sand.