LRT Network Chosen as Best Practice for Low-Carbon City Creation

The Promotion Council for the Low-Carbon Cities (PCLCC) announced on January 21, 2011, the winners of the first awards for the Best Practices for Low-Carbon City Creation. The grand prize went to "Light Rail Transit (LRT) Network Establishment" promoted by Toyama City, Toyama Prefecture.

Toyama City was rated highly for its efforts in establishing an LRT network to create a more compact city with public transportation at its core. The City's efforts include implementations of LRT for the Toyama-ko (Toyama Port) Line and local train operations in a loop route, a plan to connect streetcar routes north and south of Toyama station, and a plan to extend local trains into the Kamidaki Line, one of Toyama's local railways.

Special prizes went to eight projects, including "Forest Restoration Project through Collaboration with Environment-Oriented Companies" by Shimokawa town in Hokkaido, "Fifty-Fifty Project," a project to give money back to local schools by reducing their electricity and water use, by Ube City in Yamaguchi Prefecture, and "Visualization of Electricity Consumption and Energy-Saving Efforts at Pre-Schools, Local Elementary Schools, and Junior High Schools" by Kyoto City in Kyoto Prefecture.

Municipalities, prefectural governments, related ministries and agencies, and stakeholder organizations founded the PCLCC in December 2008 with an aim to spread throughout Japan the best practices of environmentally progressive cities and to disseminate related information worldwide. A total of 193 groups and organizations are members of the PCLCC as of January 21, 2011.

Bilingual Website on Japanese Eco-Model Cities Now Open (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/030039.html
Conceptual Basis of the Movement to Create and Propagate 'Eco-Model Cities'
http://www.japanfs.org/en/mailmagazine/newsletter/pages/028824.html
Efforts by Eco-Model Cities in Japan -- Part 1
http://www.japanfs.org/en/mailmagazine/newsletter/pages/028927.html

Posted: 2011/05/13 06:00:15 AM