This week, we’ve explored public transportation around the world. To wrap up, we searched the world for the funniest and most unusual public transportation. This is what we found.
Levitating Monorail, Germany. An electric car? Cool. An electric train? Awesome. An upside down electric monorail?? Now that qualifies as unusual public transportation. Believe it or not, this transit system was built over 100 years ago. While Ford was fidgeting with his “quadricycle,” the city of Wuppertal built this transportation marvel that still appears ahead of its time today.
It’s a zero emissions, all electric transit system, and it floats through Wuppertal (the self-styled “German San Francisco”) with over 20 million passengers a year. Photo: Flickr
Mae Klong Train Market, Thailand. Yes, those are train tracks running through that market. One of the shortest train routes in Thailand is also one of the most bizarre. Ambling past windmills and salt flats, the train stops halfway through its route at a river. Right, no bridge. So, people get out and ferry across to a second train, which picks up where the first left off. But wait, it gets better…
In order to arrive at the Mae Klong station, the train must pass right through the middle of a crowded street market. Vendors quickly pull in their stalls several times a day as the train goes by. For an excellent account of the journey, read Steve Van Beek’s article on the Tourism Authority of Thailand website or this article at 2Bangkok.com, or see this video. Photo: Thai-Blogs.
The Sahara desert is a truly vast environment - with sand dunes reaching 180 meters high, scorching temperatures and fierce sand storms it provides a real test for any method of transportation.
So how, does the eco-option for crossing this massive and barren landscape stack up against more modern technologies? This is a question posed regularly at EcoWorldly and I recently had the opportunity to put it to the test during a journey which took me from the ‘Gateway to the Sahara’ in Douz, Southern Tunisia, to Matmata, a desert village of cave dwellings famous for providing the location for Luke Skywalker’s home in the Star Wars movies.
(Note: the author only discovered this fact after arriving - this was not a pilgrimage.)
Our local guides presented us with two options: The camel - trusty ship of the desert, as used for centuries by desert dwellers, and the equally ubiquitous Toyota Land Cruiser 4×4 – the motor vehicle of choice for those needing to travel across challenging terrain.
We gave both modes of transport a thorough workout in an attempt to compare our eco camel against it’s more modern counterpart, making assessments on comfort, emissions, speed, reliability, off-road capability and fuel consumption. The testing process consisted of two days of travel across the desert by camel, camping overnight in the dunes, followed by a further day’s journey in the Land Cruiser.
With apologies to John Lennon, bicyclists in Australia may now be able to show the plans for a revolution in environmentally friendly transportation. They call it a bike bus.
In a recent article on public transportation, Miranda Newsom commented that carshare programs are an excellent transportation option for environmentally conscious and money wise urbanites. Here, we follow up on the carshare option. So, the question becomes…
Toyota Prius Tuesdays and Ford Escape Hybrid Fridays?
What if you could drive a different car each day of the week? Carshare programs make this possible and often even beat the price of owning a car. Carshare members can experience both the freedom of living without a car, which increases interest in public transportation, and the freedom of having a car.
The outcome is more public transportation friendly cities, less congestion, and less auto exhaust pollution. But just who would want to participate in such a program? What are the advantages and what are the drawbacks?
The conclusion of our planes, trains and automobiles race across Europe. (Read Part II)
With the Green Team finally on their way towards England, the Blue Team about to miss the boat and the Red team fuming in traffic the competition is heating up.
16:40 – Red Team, M3, South of London
After almost an hour of solid traffic we’re moving again, but its slow going. The frustration of hours of endless queuing and shuffling around is now starting to take its toll. The heavy dose of air fresher that was obviously applied to the interior of my hire-car is starting to succumb to the natural odours of its previous occupant, which does nothing for my mood.
17:10 – Blue Team, Port of Calais, France
Sipping afternoon tea in the Club Lounge on P&O Ferries’ Pride of Dover as we set sail for England. I made the ferry with seconds to spare and I’m some way behind the Reds, but it’s not over yet. Time to enjoy the one hour crossing and have a break from driving.
17:34 – Green Team, Channel Tunnel
Making real progress now as the Eurostar enters the channel tunnel. In under an hour we’ll be in London and we’re catching up with the Red Team. Somewhere on the water above us the Blue team are slowly streaming across the channel whilst we speed through the tunnel – that feels good.
As EcoWorldly continues its theme with transport news and views from across the globe, two items have come to my attention here in the UK.
Air Pollution
Aviation tax proposals have been outlined by the government. Under the new guidelines, due to come into effect in November this year, it will be the planes, not the passengers, that will be taxed.
New Government figures released showed that emissions from air travel are continuing to rise. Between 1990 and 2006, emissions from aviation fuel use more than doubled.
21 per cent of the UK’s carbon emissions will be attributable to air traffic by 2050, and the Treasury report insisted the proposed tax system would, “introduce fairer duty, more in line with the environmental impact of flights, including the distance travelled”.
Part II of our planes, trains and automobiles race across Europe. (Read Part I)
With the Red Team grounded in Zürich whilst our eco-racers make their way steadily through France things are looking bleak for air travel.
11.45 - Red Team, Zürich Airport (still)
Finally I am sitting in seat 27B, sandwiched between a large gentleman and a fidgety young boy. To my mounting frustration the captain apologizes for the delay in boarding due to bad weather on the inbound flight from London this morning, and tells us that we won’t be taking off for another 45 minutes due to air traffic congestion – a common problem on this route, which will get worse as passenger numbers increase.
12.00 - Blue Team, Somewhere in Eastern France
The scenery in this part of the country is fantastic with the Autoroute representing a roller coaster, rising and falling through the hills, twisting and turning through meadows and forests with dramatic cliffs in the background. For the driving enthusiast this is a treat.
While Mark’s Green Team blazes its way through Europe by high-speed rail, I start my public transportation journey through South Korea in a slightly more humble place: in front of a dried squid.
The squid is between a pair of tongs, which an elderly Korean woman holds over an indoor propane stove. As the squid crisps, I look around. I’m standing in front of one of the dozens of shops and small restaurants lining the spacious hallway of the main bus terminal of Gangneung, a city on the Sea of Japan, where my trip begins.
Already, we’ve come the first advantage of car-free travel: outside of a car, you see things that you probably would never see inside a car. BBQ squid, for example.
High speed trains, jet engines, or solid German engineering? What gets you there faster, in more style and with less stress? There is only one way to find out.
Air travel is widely regarded as the bad boy of the green world, yet it is essential for many of us who must regularly travel due to work, family or other commitments. Therefore the airplane is frequently seen as the only option for international travel.
However, airlines in Europe are coming under increasing pressure from the train as a viable means of long distance travel. In France and Germany the TGV and ICE rail networks are providing stiff competition to airlines on many routes, offering reduced check-in, security and boarding formalities, fewer delays and direct connections between city centres.
Travelling at speeds in excess of 300kmh, these services are encroaching on what has until now been the plane’s primary advantage – speed. Recent upgrades to the Paris to London Eurostar service bring the journey time down to little over 2 hours, and passengers generate less than 1 tenth of the Co2 than they would travelling by air.
But just how realistic is the rail alternative in practice? And how does it stack up against that icon of the industrial age, the automobile? The only way to find out is to pit each against the other in a head to head race across the continent.
Yesterday, Pem Charnley asked for less rhetoric and more investment in public transportation.
This week, we are featuring articles on public transportation around the world.
With the auto industry taking heat for emissions, it’s important to look to other feasable alternatives to personal transit.
How far has any country come toward achieving a high-tech, fully integrated transportation system? Where do we need to improve? These are some of the questions we will seek [...]
Carbon emissions from transport, as a contributing factor to climate change, is a hugely complex subject. Yet we must continue to address it, look for solutions, if we are ever to tackle global warming.
Transport is too vast a topic to discuss as a whole. Instead, I want to just look at our behaviour on the roads. Can it ever be possible to curb this behaviour when we seemingly continue to believe that the car is the only way forward?
Levitating Monorail, Germany. An electric car? Cool. An electric train? Awesome. An upside down electric monorail?? Now that qualifies as unusual public transportation. Believe it or not, this transit system was built over 100 years ago. While Ford was fidgeting with his “quadricycle,” the city of Wuppertal built this transportation marvel that still appears ahead of its time today.
