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Archive for the ‘Global’ Category

Modal Shift and High-Speed Rail: A Review of the Current Literature

Wednesday, July 9th, 2014

MINETA TRANSPORTATION INSTITUTE
This report provides a review of scholarly literature with direct relevance to the topic of modal shift and high-speed rail (HSR). HSR systems are usually planned on the expectation that they will attract riders who would have chosen other modes (such as air, automobile, bus, etc.) had the HSR not been created. Identifying and measuring the actual ability of HSR to effect modal shift is therefore critical. To establish the most current systematic research on the topic, this report examines the evidence concerning HSR and modal shift in both secondary analyses of previous studies and in newer studies that use primarily original data. The studies that were reviewed comprise a large variety of HSR systems, time periods, data sources, and means of analysis.

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The BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) Standard

Friday, June 27th, 2014
EXAMPLE OF TWO-WAY MEDIAN-ALIGNED BUSWAY THAT IS IN THE CENTRAL VERGE OF A TWO-WAY ROAD 8 POINTS

INSTITUTE FOR TRANSPORTATION & DEVELOPMENT POLICY

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Infrastructure Spending in the US: Outlook to 2025

Thursday, June 26th, 2014
Figure 1: Infrastructure spending in a national context, Figure 2: Infrastructure spending by broad sector, Figure 3 and Figure 4

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)
By 2025, annual investment in infrastructure across our sectors in the US should top $1trn, having grown by an average of just over 3.5% a year. But the US will likely have been long since left behind by China, where we expect annual spending will reach over three times this level. We estimate that the US’s share of global spending will likely decline gradually over the coming decade to just over a tenth of total global spending by 2025.

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Global Infrastructure Spending: Outlook to 2025

Thursday, June 26th, 2014
Figure 1: Five key infrastructure sectors

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)
Infrastructure spending has begun to rebound from the global financial crisis and is expected to grow significantly over the coming decade. That is the main finding of Capital project and infrastructure spending: Outlook to 2025, our in-depth analysis of 49 countries that account for 90% of global economic output. Worldwide, infrastructure spending will grow from $4 trillion per year in 2012 to more than $9 trillion per year by 2025. Overall, close to $78 trillion is expected to be spent globally between 2014 and 2025. But the recovery will be uneven, with infrastructure spending in Western Europe not reaching pre-crisis levels until at least 2018. Meanwhile, emerging markets, unburdened by austerity or ailing banks, will see accelerated growth in infrastructure spending, especially China and other countries in Asia.

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Reduce Speculation and Limit Gentrification: Penalize Absentee/Pied-à-Terre Owners

Friday, June 20th, 2014

While cities like Chicago, Austin, and Seattle can typically stave off drastic price increases by just building enough housing to meet demand, that’s not always possible for world cities because demand isn’t just local, or even national — it’s global, and in an era of growing inequality the demand for luxury investment properties and pieds-à-terre is vast. That demand is an obstacle to providing an adequate supply of affordable, middle-class housing, but it needn’t be. If harnessed appropriately, it could even be a strength.

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Air Pollution Takes a Heavy Toll Around the World

Monday, May 26th, 2014

Outdoor air pollution, much of it from road transport, is costing advanced economies plus China and India an estimated USD 3.5 trillion a year in terms of the value of lost lives and ill health, according to new OECD research. Without government action to limit vehicle emissions, the costs will rise in the years ahead.

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Why Infrastructure Investment Needs to be a National Priority

Friday, May 23rd, 2014
Deborah Wince-Smith, President & CEO, Council on Competitiveness

The U.S. receives an enormous return on infrastructure investments. Maintaining the status quo is not acceptable. America’s infrastructure underpins the U.S. economy. It is the thread that knits our great nation together. To compete in the global economy and raise our standard of living, we must renew and update America’s aging public infrastructure. Time is running out.

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Clicking Clean: How Companies Are Creating the Green Internet

Friday, May 2nd, 2014
Company Scorecard

GREENPEACE
While shifting businesses to an online model can create significant gains in energy efficiency, the energy appetite of the internet continues to outstrip those gains thanks to its dramatic growth. Critically, the internet’s growing energy footprint has thus far been mostly concentrated in places where energy is the dirtiest…But there is good news to report: since our last report, How Clean is Your Cloud? (April 2012),3 leading data center operators have taken key steps toward building a green internet, particularly those companies that have committed to build a 100% renewably powered platform. These commitments are having a profound impact in the real world, shifting investment from legacy coal, gas and nuclear power plants to renewable energy technologies, and disrupting the status quo among major electric utilities.

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Cities Alive

Monday, April 28th, 2014
Retrofitting the city with nature: The High Line New York: this project captured the public’s imagination and helped redefine and globally influence what urban green space can be; it demonstrates how quality city space can positively utilise obsolete city infrastructure and also how a project of this scale can be successfuly managed by the local community.

ARUP
Reflecting the scale of the challenges ahead, there is urgency to develop more sustainably and this has become pervasive at all levels of government. The 1987 Brundtland Commission looked to unite countries worldwide to pursue sustainable development, and in 2006 the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change discussed the effect of global warming on the world economy. The main conclusion of the Stern report was that the benefits of strong, early action on climate change far outweigh the costs of not acting.

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The Urban Infrastructure Initiative: Final Report

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2014
Figure 2: Growth of proportion of the population residing in urban areas by region (1950 to 2050)

WORLD BUSINESS COUNCIL FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Today, more than half of the planet’s inhabitants are living in urban areas. By 2050, more than 70 % of the global population will live in cities. The scale and pace of urbanization in the coming decades is unprecedented in human history. The battle for sustainable development will therefore be won and lost in cities. Cities already consume up to 80 % of global material and energy supplies and produce around 75 % of carbon emissions. With current energy- and resource-intensive modes of urban development, the addition of 3 billion more city-dwellers by 2050 is likely to significantly exceed the ecological carrying capacity of the planet.

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