lizzzyyy100

Transportation experts and environmentalists dream of a future in which vehicles are fleet based and not privately owned, where they are autonomous and not operated by drivers and where they are powered by electric motors instead of gasoline and diesel. But how would such a future become possible? This blog has looked into car sharing and AVs before. This article is about electrification. Transportation electrification: Clean air through clean buses The United States is with 1-2% electric vehicles in the mix far behind global leader Norway (somewhere beyond 30%). People don't know much about electric vehicles but many know the term "range anxiety" and have heard that electric vehicles use at least three different types of "plugs" for charging, making hard to find charging stations even more elusive. They have heard that batteries contain pollutants, are expensive to replace and that the materials that go into them are found in only a few places in the world. Wha...

Of all the European cities Frankfurt on the Main is the most American ("Mainhattan") with its cluster of high-rise towers sprouting downtown, a rarity on a continent that is quite skeptical when it comes to skyscrapers. Now Frankfurt has another American feature, a newly reconstructed "old" town  much like colonial Williamsburg, hardly more authentic than the Eiffel tower in Las Vegas its critics say. Reconstructed Altstadt Frankfurt/Main: Completed in 2018 In a country that puts much stock into "honesty" the architectural masquerade which was completed earlier this year re-ignited  a debate among architects and urban planners which surges in waves starting right after WW II and continues today. The war had left many historic German cities in rubble. The reconstruction debate reached a crescendo with the plans to tear down the east German parliament building and reconstruct "the Stadtschloss" in Berlin. The castle was rebuilt and monarchy followe...

Why abandoned housing isn't affordable housing By some estimates Baltimore has 40,000 abandoned vacant residential buildings, most of single family row homes. But like many other US cities, Baltimore also has a housing crisis, more specifically, an affordable housing crisis. There are as many people on a  waiting list for what used to be called "section 8" vouchers. (Now "Housing Choice"). It is no surprise that many people think that there should be simple ways to reconcile those two numbers. Particularly in Baltimore, people remember fondly a 1970s program called the " Dollar House Program " and suggest that such a program could house the poor and get rid of the vacant houses at the same time. Vacant houses in Baltimore (Vacants to Values) None of this is limited to Baltimore. In fact, although the federal  Department Housing and Urban Development (HUD) still has Dollar House program on the books,  vacant houses are a persistent problem in many Ameri...