EEA Urban environmental sustainability transitions survey

Do you work for a European city? Are you involved in your city’s efforts on environmental sustainability?

Fill in this survey on the drivers and the barriers of the sustainability transition in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic

How would you rank the bike lanes in your city? Do you use them?

Indeed, well-designed cycling networks can help cities obviate the need for so many private cars and the issues related to health, pollution, space and equity that arise with them.

According to WRI there are five key principles of safe bike lane design:

- Establish safe operational vehicle speeds for all urban streets
- Maintain a coherent network approach by integrating new bike lanes with any existing bicycle network
- Design bike lanes to prioritise safety for cyclists and pedestrians
- Provide ongoing communication and engagement at all stages of the design and implementation of safe bike lanes.
- Manage and enforce regulations to protect bike lanes from common types of infringement

Read the article to find out more!

In Austria climate action revolutions public transport: fifteen years after it was first proposed, the new Klimaticket, or climate ticket, went live on October 26.

Offering seamless travel across all modes of public transport - for only 3 Euros per day - it is intended to galvanize the Alpine nation's fight against climate change.

"The Klimaticket Ö is more than just your ticket for all public transport. It is also the ticket with which we aim to reach the Paris climate goals together".

Good news for sustainable mobility! Will similar initiatives happen elsewhere?

Google Maps is to offer drivers the lowest carbon route for their chosen journey as part of the search company’s new environmentally friendly policies.
Motorists will be able to select the route with the lowest carbon emissions once factors such as traffic and road inclines are taken into account. The new product launches in the US on Wednesday and in Europe next year. Where the comparable journey times are broadly the same, Google Maps will default to the lowest carbon option.

"What’s good for the city is good for the country," said Claudia López, mayor of Bogota making the case for electrifying mass transit to achieve climate goals. Together with Bogota, several other cities are rethinking their urban transport, from reviving electric tram lines to building cable cars. How do these cities make mass transit more attractive?

David Ward, President of the UK's Towards Zero Foundation, discusses the future of transport and mobility in a recent episode of the International Resource Panel (IRP) Webcast Series "What does the Global Future hold?"

Photo by Meriç Dağlı on Unsplash

The UK MPs on the Transport Select Committee have today joined growing the growing chorus of calls for the government to introduce a zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate in a bid to accelerate the market for electric cars ahead of petrol and diesel sales coming to an end in 2030.

Among a series of recommendations for boosting supply and demand of electric vehicles (EVs) ahead of the 2030 phase out sales of fossil fuel cars and 2035 phase out of hybrids, the Committee called for regulatory requirements for carmakers to sell a minimum proportion of zero emission cars which trends upwards over time, or - if unable to reach targets - to purchase credits from from other manufacturers.

A senior manager at aircraft maker Airbus says that zero-emissions planes will be flying by mid-century, reports BBC News. It adds: “Airbus has set a target of commercial ‘climate-neutral’ flights by 2035, with hydrogen as a primary power source.” It quotes Gareth Davies, Airbus head of industrial architecture for wing, saying: “We have a challenge today to try and symbolically get towards a zero emissions product by around 2050…So, essentially, we’re looking at by the mid-point of the century, that we will have products flying with that target and with that goal.”