Sustainable mobility and green strategies discussed for city of Los Angeles

On Feb. 27th, Gurminder Singh, founder and co-chairman of the Green Technology Institute at the University of California Los Angeles, spent time with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters discussing green city and sustainable transportation strategies.

Peters was in town to give a speech in Long Beach, while the mayor of Los Angeles took the opportunity to appeal to the Bush administration for more mass-transit money. He urged Peters to begin considering his vision for a "subway to the sea."

Singh supported Villaraigosa's appeal for the "subway to the sea" extension of the present Metro Redline as a way to reduce surface traffic on the Wilshire Boulevard corridor and on the West Highway 10. Singh added that Los Angeles needs to have both a sustainable mobility strategy together with an integrated green city plan as a way to reduce vehicle emission and greenhouse gases.

Singh and leading local experts have been developing an energy and higher-efficiency model for tackling transportation challenges, sustainable city planning, vehicle emissions and reduction of greenhouse gases in order to mitigate the expected growth of population and traffic over the next decade.