Tag: road building

  • Our responsibility: reduce carbon on projects by 7% a year starting now

    Our responsibility: reduce carbon on projects by 7% a year starting now

    Hold this figure in mind: 7%.

    In 2019 the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) published a report concluding that in order to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees, we need to reduce carbon emissions by 55% below 1990 levels by 2030. That’s equivalent to 7% per year, starting now, every year until the end of the decade. 

    That is faster than they fell in 2020 during the pandemic.

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  • More lanes = more cars. More apps = more things to do?

    More lanes = more cars. More apps = more things to do?

    Deleting apps and leaving your phone at home could be analogous to dismantling urban highways.

    I read earlier this week about the research that established a direct link between building more roads and the level of traffic in a system. The researches established a directly proportional link. Increase road capacity by 10% and traffic increases by 10%. The causal link is that when you increase road capacity, you make it easier for more people to make more journeys. And so more people drive until the new road reaches capacity. At which point the traffic stops growing until new roads are built.

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