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Could Hawaii Be Paradise For Hydrogen-Powered Public Transit?

Laura Bliss

April 22, 2019 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Hawaii

Funded by federal grant money, the state, and the Office of Naval Research, Hawaii County public transit has developed its first hydrogen-powered shuttle bus. What’s been called the “fuel of the future,” hydrogen fuel cells create a power source that’s only emissions are clean water vapor. While a seemingly viable and scalable clean-energy source, such development and infrastructure requires large financial investments that many states have yet to prioritize.

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Could Designing a Better Bus Lane Be Done With a Simple Can of Paint?

Laura Bliss

March 09, 2019 |

Pacific Standard |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Everett, Massachusetts

The implementation of "tactical transit lanes," or bus-only lanes, has allowed for decreased commute times for both buses and drivers in cities across the country. Many cities, like Everett, Massachusetts, choose to conduct a rough pilot of the TTLs, relying on community feedback and commute statistics to guide more permanent plans.

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To Build a Better Bus Lane, Just Paint It

Laura Bliss

March 01, 2019 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

Multi-Media |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, San Francisco, California

Rather than go through extensive urban planning processes to improve bus commute times, cities across the United States are simply relying on paint and human behavior to create dedicated bus lanes. Denver, Seattle, San Francisco and others have piloted these bus lanes by setting up cones or painting a bus-only corridor in traffic-heavy areas of the city, cutting down interactions between buses and other vehicles in order to make commuting more efficient.

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How Durham Is Using Nudge Theory to Drive People Out of Their Cars

Laura Bliss

October 30, 2018 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Durham, North Carolina

The city of Durham implemented a series of behavioral and economic nudges to encourage drivers to use alternative modes of transportation to get downtown besides cars. For instance, drivers could opt in to receive emails about bike and bus routes or be entered to win a cash prize if they took the bus. Together, the initiatives helped decrease single-driver trips downtown by over five percent.

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When a Hospital Plays Housing Developer

Laura Bliss

September 21, 2018 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Columbus, Ohio

Hospitals have a complicated track record of community development projects. Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio is working with nonprofit community developers to improve the public health of the surrounding neighborhood, treating "the neighborhood as a patient." By flipping houses into rental units for low-income tenants and making other investments in the housing ecosystem, the hospital is working to keep the current low-income residents in place. By some measures, this hospital is succeeding in ways others historically have not.

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Like Uber, but for Cartographers

Laura Bliss

September 19, 2018 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

Streetcred is entering the realm of crowdsourced maps with a twist. The blockchain-based app will pay mappers across the globe in the form of ether, a cryptocurrency. Another differentiator is that the data will be open and available to anyone, an essential factor as Google Maps recently upped their prices. Though still in the early stages, Streetcred hopes to disrupt the map industry by making map data more accessible than ever before.

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Why Is It So Hard to Figure Out When the Bus Is Coming?

Laura Bliss

May 17, 2018 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, College Park, Maryland

In order for alternatives to driving to be widely adopted, accurate information about service and arrival times needs to be accesible. To fill this need, applications providing bus routes and arrival times are being developed, in some cases aided by crowdsourced information.

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Minnesota Deploys Drones to Care for Aging Bridges

Laura Bliss

January 24, 2018 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

Multi-Media |

5-15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Minnesota

Bridges don't last forever without at least some occasional repair, but how do city officials know when an aging bridge is in need of reconstruction? Typically, an individual has to bungee down to inspect it or specialized (and extremely expensive) equipment must be employed. That's why Minnesota is testing out the use of drones to do the work. Although not able to be used in every instance, these specialized drones that can be flown sans GPS, are able to get to places originally untapped during bridge inspections and so far have proven to be a highly useful tool.

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How Louisville Crowdsourced a Treatment For Asthma Attacks

Laura Bliss

August 09, 2017 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Louisville, Kentucky

The Kentucky metro area has some of the worst air quality in the country, leading to concerning rates of asthma and respiratory disease well above the national averages. But a group called AIR Louisville has implemented a creative, crowdsourced solution that utilizes GPS-enabled inhalers to help patients identify and address asthma patterns based on numerous factors such as avoiding heavily-polluted parts of town, and identifying the best treatments based on lifestyle needs.

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Oslo Is on Track for a Car-Free Future

Laura Bliss

April 13, 2017 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

Multi-Media |

5-15 Minutes

Response Location: Norway, Oslo

In the heart of one of Europe’s fastest growing capitals, cars are rapidly disappearing. To reduce pollution and build a people-first city center, Oslo has promised to ban all cars in downtown by 2019. The multi-pronged effort includes making public transportation services more efficient, building 60 kilometers of new bike lanes, and transforming parking spaces into pedestrian-friendly areas.

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