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THE CYCLE – REDUCE
KICK THE HABIT
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rice husks, a by-product of nearby rice mills. A network of cycle and foot
paths will help the city achieve
close to zero vehicle emissions
. Farmland
More and more cities are trying to address the invasion by cars of city centres by
charging a fee to discourage drivers from using their private vehicles. Together with
a reduction of nuisance and health hazards such as noise and air pollution, the
fee can reduce CO2 emissions considerably. London’s congestion charge resulted
in a decrease of 16.4 per cent of CO2 emissions in the city because of traffic reduc-
tion and a better traffic flow in the first year after its introduction in 2003. Today,
compared with 2002, traffic entering the zone is down by 21 per cent, and cycling
has increased by 43 per cent.
More recent examples of cities that have introduced congestion charges on a trial
basis are Stockholm and Milan. Considered one of Europe’s ten most polluted cities,
Milan introduced an “anti-smog” ticket called the eco-pass at the start of 2008, to
reduce air pollution in the city centre. This will run for a one-year trial period.
The fee charged is based on the vehicle engine type, and particularly addresses
older petrol and diesel vehicles. The eco-pass does not apply to mopeds, motor-
bikes, or alternative-fuel vehicles (e.g. hybrid or electrical cars). It costs €2-10 to
drive in the city centre, an area of about 8 square kilometres. Cameras at 43 elec-
tric gates monitor traffic and violators face fines starting at €70. The city council
expects to generate €24 million, which will be used for buying buses and green
vehicles, and for creating bicycle paths.
The first month produced excellent results, with pollution levels dropping, traffic
reduced by 22.7 per cent, and 9.1 per cent more people using subway trains to reach
the city centre. The highest reduction in car usage came from the most polluting cars
which faced higher prices to enter the zone: their number dropped by 40 per cent.
within the Dongtan site will use organic methods.
The Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) describes the global envi-
ronmental imbalance as: “Sustainability requires living within the regen-
erative capacity of the planet. Currently, human demand on the planet is
exceeding its regenerative capacity by about 20 per cent. This is called
overshoot
.” Dongtan’s architects are developing an ideal ecological foot-
print for the city to guide the master plan and prevent overshoot. Its foot-
print will be determined by a modelling programme called the Resources
and Energy Analysis Programme (REAP), developed by SEI and the Cen-
tre for Urban and Regional Ecology at the University of Manchester, UK.
Unlike the traditional focus on air and water pollution, REAP concen-
trates on measuring the amount of resources consumed by the number
of individuals occupying a defined area. This will inevitably include the
consumption of fossil fuels.