Active Towns Fewer Vehicles, Not Just EVs w/ RMI's Ben Holland
In this episode, I connect with Ben Holland, Senior Associate at RMI (Rocky Mountain Institute), for a conversation about why we need fewer motor vehicles, not just electric vehicles, and the inherent fragility of car-centric cities.
Active Towns Landing Page for this Episode (for additional photos and content)
In order to combat climate change, we know that we must electrify the motor vehicle fleet (and other fossil fuel burning engines for that matter) as soon as possible, but what we also need is far fewer motor vehicles on our roads (not to mention far fewer lane miles), especially in our cities.
We also discuss the critical role that walkable urbanism, better land-use patterns, and active mobility networks appropriate for "All Ages & Abilities" play in our quest for sustainable, successful, equitable, and livable communities.
Additional Helpful Links:
Electric Cars Are Great, But Even Better: No Cars an article with Beth Osborne, Director of Transportation for America
Transportation for America: Driving Down Emissions
RMI's Coming Back Stronger Report
RMI: Building Urbanism into Climate Policy
RMI: The Pandemic and Fragility of Auto-Centric Cities
Bloomberg Newsletter: Need To Think Outside the Electric Car
Ben's Guest Opinion regarding opening up West Pearl Street to Diners
CNU - Congress for the New Urbanism
NRDC - (Natural Resources Defense Council)
World Resource Institute (WRI)
IPCC: Mitigation pathways compatible with 1.5°C in the context of sustainable development
Southwest Energy Efficiency Project
UC Davis VMT Induced Demand Calculator
RMI Colorado Induced Demand Calculator
UC Davis National Zero Carbon Plan
Martha Roskowski - Further Strategies
Constantine Samaras - Low Carbon Transportation researcher
Talking Headways/Overhead Wire Podcast Episode: Jeff Wood and Ben
Active Towns Podcast Episode w/ Jason Slaughter of Not Just Bikes
Melissa & Chris Bruntlett's Active Towns Podcast episode and their new book Curbing Traffic
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Credits:
All video and audio production by John Simmerman
Music:
Various mixes also by John Simmerman
Resources used during the production of this episode:
- My awesome recording platform is Ecamm
For more information about my Active Towns effort or to follow along, please visit my links below:
- Website
- Podcast landing pages
Background:
Hi Everyone, my name is John Simmerman.
I’m a health promotion professional with over 30 years of experience and my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization of how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.
In 2012 I launched the non-profit Advocates for Healthy Communities as an effort to help promote and create healthy, active places.
Since that time, I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be, in order to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."
My Active Towns suite of channels feature my original video and audio content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.
Thanks for tuning in; I hope you have found this content helpful.