Moving Toward Sustainable Prosperity

Investments in automobile infrastructure outpaces spending for alternative transit and car production increases

Transportation emits ~80% of the harmful air pollutants; we must decrease emissions to improve health & sustainability

On January 5, the Financial Times* reported that China was considering merging its two large state-owned rail manufacturing companies: the China North Locomotive and Rolling [Read More...]

Spain has committed to building an ambitious high-speed rail network — part of an overall decision to prioritize public transportation investments over highway spending. The country’s crisis will severely test its ability to achieve its ambitions, but it is providing leadership that the United States–confronted with crumbling infrastructure and over-reliance on automobiles–could learn from.

Spain now has the longest high-speed rail network in Europe, surpassing France. Yet France still has a huge lead in terms of passenger travel. European countries remain among the world’s passenger rail leaders. But relative to population, Japan is the overall champion.

Here is another installment in our series of blog posts on rail developments.  Like the earlier posts in the series, this is drawn from our [Read More...]

This blog post was co-authored by Michael Renner and Gary Gardner The Worldwatch Institute has produced two companion reports that assess the state of rail [Read More...]

In June, I needed to travel from Amsterdam in the Netherlands to my hometown of Ulm in southern Germany—a distance of a little more than [Read More...]

High-tech equipment, precision instruments, and miles of electrical wiring at the Siemens production facility in Krefeld, Germany, might fool you into thinking that what’s being [Read More...]

I admit it was in part the thrill of speed that made me take the Maglev train from Shanghai to nearby Pudong International Airport. I [Read More...]