April 28, 2016
Meeting Seattle’s housing and transportation needs equitably
While putting together my last post about the private sector’s emphasis on millennials and tech innovations to solve the present transportation congestion issues faced by the City of Seattle, I started thinking about recent conversations I’ve had with friends. We’re all gainfully-employed, well-educated millennials, and most of us are transplants to the City. Most of…
April 26, 2016
Paper review: “Incentives for promoting Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) adoption in Norway”
Electric and hybrid vehicles accounted for more than 60% of the new cars in Norway last month, which fortifies the country’s position as the global frontrunner of vehicle electrification. This level of enthusiasm among consumers could be enabled by the multiple incentives offered by Norwegian government: (1) vehicle purchase tax exemption, (2) value added tax (VAT) exemption, (3)…
April 11, 2016
Tesla to the rescue!
On March 31st, Tesla unveiled its newest car, the Model 3, and started taking reservations for it. In the first 72 hours 276,000 cars were pre-ordered, a number that rose to 325,000 in the first week. To put these numbers in perspective, there were 665,000 electric vehicles on the road globally at the end of 2014, and 550,000…
April 8, 2016
BMW launches ReachNow carsharing service in Seattle
This morning, BMW launched its free-float carsharing service, called ReachNow, in Seattle. This is exciting to me as both a sustainable transportation researcher and a citizen of Seattle. ReachNow’s service model is free float carsharing, meaning that travelers can use their smartphone to book a car up to 30 minutes ahead, and drop if off…
April 7, 2016
Traffic Congestion in an urbanizing world – can Millennials and technology bring an end to the gridlock?
There has been a lot of focus on the transportation habits of Millennials compared to previous generations. As cities continue to attract new, young citizens, these shifting trends have captured the attention of public and private companies alike. Seattle in particular is experiencing both rapid growth rates (at or above 2% for the past few…
April 4, 2016
The “fifth mode” – Hyperloop, transportation, and urban development
Hyperloop could be happening When Elon Musk started talking about the super futuristic transportation mode Hyperloop for the first time in 2013, I think a lot of people must have felt like those hearing the idea of aircraft in 1910 when the Wright brothers first introduced it to the world. It just sounds too Utopian: using two massive…
April 1, 2016
What will BMW carsharing mean for Seattle?
car2go is a popular car-sharing program with about 75,000 drivers and more than 700 vehicles, which launched in Seattle about three years ago. Due to the demand for free floating car-sharing system in the city, the Seattle City Council has agreed to welcome BMW and its car sharing system, (formerly known as DriveNow, but with…
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