Sustainability of Cities in Sweden with Gothenburg as an Example

Serendipitously, one of my best friends, Engineering Professor Kei May Lau, who used to be at UMass Amherst, and for the past decade has been a Professor at HKUST in Hong Kong, happened to be in Gothenburg, Sweden this past week. She was invited to speak at Chalmers University.

Since I am now back in Gothenburg as a Visiting Professor for several weeks this summer the timing was perfect - thank you Chalmers!

Kei May marveled at the greenery of this city, which is the second largest in Sweden.

In this beautiful city, there are different modes of transport to choose from and congestion pricing is really working!

In this lovely city, the canals were built by the Dutch. We visited the Gothenburg City Museum today, where I took the photo below of the aerial view of the city. The Gothenburg City museum recently was picked to be the best museum in Sweden.

I especially appreciate the walkability of this city, the safety, the architectural bbeauty and the proliferation of green spaces and parks.

And since sustainability is a theme of my research, I can't help but be inspired here and I thank the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg for my appointment as a Visiting Professorship of Operations Management!

Coincidentally, the new mayor of NYC, Bill de Blasio, was in Sweden last week and visited Stockholm (I was still in Sicily then) to learn about what Sweden does to maintain such a great record of traffic safety, as reported by The New York Times.

A Multitude of Transportation Modes and My Favorite

If you conduct research on networks with a focus on transportation and logistics and teach a variety of related courses on such topics you cannot just sit and stare at a computer terminal (as I am doing now).

You need to be out in the real world to view not only what is happening as a spectator and bystander but also to experience what you research and instruct.

While spending (I just got back the US late on Saturday) another full month in Sweden I never was in a car except for the taxi to and from the airport in Gothenburg (and the rides to and from Amherst to Boston Logan to get to and from Europe).

Imagine -- how many of us in the US can say that we were never in a car for one month!

But the modes of transport that were available to me in Sweden were wonderful:

I could walk and in Gothenburg there are pedestrian walkways, lined with trees and many with bicycle lanes:

I could rent a bike (even the University of Gothenburg makes bikes available, I was told):

 

I could ride trams and I certainly did and loved the experience and, of course, I flew on planes to get to and from Europe.

I took trains.

My colleague even drove me in her golfcart on the island on which he lives in the Gothenburg archipelago where cars are forbidden (imagine transporting furniture on a golf cart).

All in all, my favorite mode of transport besides my two feet which transported me for miles was the ferries and specifically for the beauty of the views and the people that I got to talk to en route. The rides were too short!

I'll have a lot to share in my courses with new students when I return from my sabbatical.

Scenes from Montreal Including Bicycles

I am back from a wonderful conference at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where the weather was delightful until we were ready to board the puddle jumper airplane (where each passenger gets her own aisle and window seat). A red alert was issued because the sky had turned black and the grounds crew can't be out on the tarmac if there are lightning strikes within 5 miles.

Although we had boarded the Air Canada plane, our pilot let us take a vote (how civilized) as to whether we wanted to wait on the plane before the alert was lifted or to go back to the waiting area. Luckily, the pilot's vote had more clout (the vote was split and one passenger was neutral) so we marched back in, caught some dinner, and two hours after the scheduled departure time we were off and had a bumpless flight.

I had spoken to my husband earlier and there had been a hailstorm in Amherst with our yard almost white.

Montreal is an amazing city and I managed to get a good deal of walking in -- caught a parade on Saturday of "twins," with one duo dressed up as a bride in white and a bride in black, and with bagpipers and even bands of twins -- very festive and fun.

What impressed me, as well, was the number of bicyclists, even around 6:30AM, with nice bicycle lanes and bicycles to rent (a bit like Paris).

However, this past Sunday, a tunnel collapsed around 9:15 AM (the Ville-Marie) tunnel and 15 tons ended up on the ground with, amazingly, no injuries. There has been a lot of pres recently about the bad state of infrastructure in Montreal due to salting of the roads and bridges in the winter resulting in deterioration of the infrastructure and insufficient funds invested for maintenance and repair. I heard that this is rather "local" to Montreal, however, and having been to Toronto and Waterloo last April was impressed by the quality of the roads there.

The last photo above is of the red alert light at the Montreal airport outside of our gate.