Shedding The Straw Builds Momentum As Earth Day Draw Nears

Rob O’Grady is an engineer and father of three who has been stirred to action by his reflections on environmental issues and his everyday encounters with the perversity of our current system. Trained in the discipline of “sustainability engineering,” he discerned early in his career that to talk of sustainability in the world of business and politics was “to pour from the empty into the void,” because the underlying context is subversive of such efforts. Rejecting a career dealing in irreconcilable contradictions, he went into the construction industry and helped to build a thriving company that employs some 150 people. But he continued to think about environmental and economic issues.

For decades, transportation has been considered as a link to all aspects of life worldwide. In this case, the world’s natural environment, social well-being and economic development all usually depend on transportation systems. In most cases, safe, clean, sustainable and equitable transport systems help countries, especially in cities and urban centers, to thrive. However, a wide range of research shows that transportation systems in most of the cities and urban areas are unsustainable. In fact, some of these transportation systems are considered to be a threat to the environmental, social and economical aspects of future generations. In this perspective, therefore, changing such trends in transportation requires the collaboration of various stakeholders at regional, national and international levels. In this paper, therefore, a wide range of definitions of sustainable transport are discussed. More so, some of the aspects of smart transport for modern cities such as cycling and the role of women in sustainable transport were explored.

The Anthropocene requires significant shifts and innovation in policy as well as human action and behavior. While much research attention has focused on society and policy makers, we know significa…