Posts tagged with 'Asia'
China's high-speed rail system has offered affordable, sustainable alternatives to travel for China's residents, while strengthening the linkages between China's emerging cities. Photo by Michael Vito/Flickr.
How did high-speed rail transform China’s regional transport sector?
In the past few years, China has made eye-catching achievements in building the world’s largest high-speed rail system, with a total length of over 9000 km (5,600 miles) in operation in 2012. In China, trains travelling at design speeds above ...
The construction of the Shanghai Tower is a testament to architectural skill and China's growing economic power, but does this come at the expense of vibrant street life? Photo by Jerry Yang/Flickr.
Friday Fun: Shanghai Tower raises questions on the future of walkability
Shanghai Tower, designed by transnational architecture design tycoon Gensler, will soon become the third tallest building in the world this year. Once complete, it will proudly join Shanghai’s already crowded skyline, which currently consists of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, ...
Hong Kong's mass rapid transit (MRT) system boasts a high quality of service, an important factor in making sustainable transport the way to go for urban residents. Photo by Lileepod/Flickr.
Friday Fun: A day in the life of Hong Kong's subway
Transport and urban planners spend much of their time thinking about distance to stations, fare pricing, and the key components that make sustainable transport systems work at a basic level, but they sometimes forget the smaller details that make transport ...
In the past two decades, Indian cities have grown tremendously—not only in population, but in geographic size. Photo by Peter Vandeput/ Flickr.
Three challenges facing India’s growing cities
Population growth and rapid urbanization are combining to create huge challenges for Indian cities. According to McKinsey, Indian cities are expected to grow from 340 million people in 2008 to a whopping 590 million in 2030. Meeting demand for urban services ...
Shanghai is one of China's many cities which has seen the proliferation of bottom-up innovations, such as e-bikes, to tackle the problem of urban transport. Photo by 2 dogs/Flickr.
E-bikes bring individual and sustainable transport to China
In developed cities, new mobility options typically only penetrate the transport ecosystem after governing bodies have developed an institutional framework around the new technology. Emerging economies, however, do not always have the regulatory capacity to standardize regulations and create policy ...
Pedestrians passing across a congested road in Mumbai, India. Photo by Jerry H/Flickr.
From traffic flow to pedestrian access: Shifting Mumbai’s parking policy
In a recent study, the International Energy Agency (IEA) projected that the area required for parking in India if motorization trends continue as they are today will reach between 10,000 and 20,000 square kilometers (3,861 to 7,722 square miles) by ...
Sudhir Gota and Fei Li present at Transforming Transportation 2014. Photo by Aaron Minnick/EMBARQ.
Crunching numbers and parking reform: Lee Schipper Memorial Scholars present at Transforming Transportation 2014
Last week’s Transforming Transportation conference, co-organized by EMBARQ and the World Bank, featured 90 speakers. Two of the youngest were Sudhir Gota and Fei Li, the 2013 recipients of the Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship for Sustainable Transport and Energy Efficiency. ...
Crowded subway car in Beijing, China. Photo by Filipe Fortes/Flickr.
Will raising Beijing’s subway fare be enough to improve service quality and combat mounting subsidies?
As we discussed last week on TheCityFix, Beijing’s municipal government is currently considering a controversial proposal that would reform the city’s low subway fare structure. If approved, the proposal would raise the standard subway fare in an effort to alleviate ...
A crowd of urban residents enjoy Raahgiri Day in Gurgaon, India. Photo by EMBARQ.
In photos: Two months of Raahgiri Day
Raahgiri Day, India’s first sustained car-free day, completed its second month in Gurgaon – India’s “Millennium City” – on January 19, 2014. Although only eight weeks old, Raahgiri Day has had quite the journey since its first day in action ...
Rush hour at Guomao Station on the Beijing subway. Photo by Jens Schott Knudsen/Flickr.
Beijing’s subway fare increase, justified
Beijing’s subway system – one of the longest in the world at 469 kilometers (289 miles) of track – is confronted by excessive congestion and costly government subsidies. In an extremely controversial move, the city government has decided to increase ...
Passengers ride Ahmedabad, India's BRT. Photo by EMBARQ.
Friday Fun: Even floating yogis take the Janmarg
Today’s Friday Fun brings you a colorful and cheeky animated short from the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy’s (ITDP) India office called JAM, presenting Ahmedabad’s award-winning bus rapid transit (BRT) system – the Janmarg. The film, made by Ketaki ...
Pedestrian in Bangalore, India. Photo by jchessma/Flickr. Cropped.
Where are the footpaths? A case for protecting pedestrian rights in India
India’s constitution guarantees every citizen a fundamental right to move freely throughout the country. Today, this right is violated in most cities, as pedestrian infrastructure has taken a backseat in the planning of Indian cities. Traditional Indian cities with compact ...
Rainy Ciclovía in Bogotá, Colombia. Photo by Claudio Olivares Medina/Flickr.
Memories of Ciclovía, dreams for Raahgiri Day
Darío Hidalgo is EMBARQ’s Director for Research and Practice, a transport expert, and Colombian native who grew up participating in Ciclovía in Bogotá. Today, Hidalgo shares his memories of Ciclovía and recent experience at Raahgiri Day in Gurgaon, India. Certain moments make me ...
"On The Tram." Photo by Melissa Maples/Flickr.
Challenges and opportunities come with Turkey’s urban boom
Turkey’s urban population has grown from 25% of its total population in the 1950s to 77% today – a figure well above its global counterpart of 52%. In a little more than half a century, rapid urbanization has transformed the ...
Auto-rickshaw in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Photo by Kamakshi Sachidanandam/Flickr.
Reinventing Chennai’s auto-rickshaws
Chennai – the capital city of Tamil Nadu in southeastern India – recently implemented new fare regulations in its auto-rickshaw sector for the first time since 2007. In 2010, the Tamil Nadu government lifted a freeze on issuing permits, which ...
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