triadaby.blogg.se

• #Gridlock traffic drivers#

Last week, as New York allowed more nonessential businesses to reopen, the Department of Transportation warned in a sign on the Robert F. New York City had planned to become the first American city to impose a congestion tax at the end of 2020, but the measure’s fate is now unclear. Still, officials concede that targeting private cars can be difficult in a struggling economy. They have proposed both a congestion tax on private vehicles entering the city as well as a per-mile tax on ride-hailing services like Uber, with the goal of plowing that money into the bus network to reduce fares. In Pôrto Alegre, Brazil, where bus ridership has plunged 60 percent during the pandemic, city officials are worried about a death spiral for the system.

#Gridlock traffic drivers#

The city also recently raised its congestion charge by 30 percent, requiring many drivers to pay $18 per day to enter the busiest parts of central London. In May, as its lockdown loosened, London began reinstating low-emissions zones around the city, which impose fees on older cars, trucks and vans that don’t meet air pollution standards. Some cities have been trying to dissuade drivers from bringing older, more polluting vehicles into city centers, mainly by imposing levies to enter congested areas during rush hour. New York City, for instance, has historically built fewer bike lanes and bike-share docks in neighborhoods that are home to large shares of essential workers, the majority of whom are people of color. In other cities emerging from lockdowns, including Berlin, London and Paris, data collected from bicycle counters indicated that cycling had become more popular than it was before the pandemic, according to Felix Creutzig, a transportation specialist at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, a think tank in Berlin.īut as cities reclaim streets from cars, they are also struggling with deep inequities in access to transportation. Data from the city suggests that bike sharing and electric scooter use rose sharply in May, while traffic congestion remained well below 2019 levels. They are being used - at least for now, when the weather is mild. “What did we have in the drawers that could help social distancing? Bike lanes.” “The physical distancing requirements of Covid gives us huge leverage,” said Maria Vittoria Beria, a spokeswoman in the Milan mayor’s office. Milan has also made its pandemic-era network of bike lanes permanent. for retail, and so on - in order to make the roads less congested. Estupiñán said Bogotá was also staggering work hours for different industries - a 10 a.m. It was intended as a temporary measure, said Nicolás Estupiñán, the city’s transportation secretary, but public support has emboldened the city to make it permanent. “But if they don’t pay attention to this issue, emissions could rebound back to where they were before or even go higher.”īogotá, Colombia, which had in the past carved out bike lanes on sidewalks, has now set aside 52 miles of road space for cyclists. “Cities have a window of opportunity to make changes and keep the cleaner air they saw during the lockdowns,” said Corinne Le Quéré, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia who has tracked global carbon dioxide emissions during the pandemic. It’s impossible to stop global warming unless cities sharply reduce pollution from cars, trucks and motorcycles. Staving off a surge of cars on city streets is important not only to avoid congestion delays, accidents and higher air pollution, which kills an estimated four million people worldwide each year. In many cities, officials worry that people will avoid public transit for fear of catching the virus, and decide to drive instead, which will push vehicle traffic higher than ever. From Shenzhen to Milan to Austin, officials are trying to coax people back onto buses and subways and reclaim road space for cyclists and pedestrians. As coronavirus lockdowns loosen around the world, city leaders are scrambling to address a new problem: the prospect of gridlock worse than before the pandemic.