Europe

Stockholm is seeking bids for a redesign of its city center, and the five plans in contention all seek to fix the damage wrought by modernist planning.

CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) is an abbreviation that may become more common if the coal industry has its way. But The Economist argues that carbon taxes are a better way to improve the environment than investing in CCS technology.

Though challenged with facing a multi-tiered government, Nicholas Sarkozy has nonetheless devised one of the most ambitious plans ever for Paris. To reimagine this bolder, greener "Grand Paris," he has put 10 teams of architects and planners to work.

The $8 billion in stimulus funds allocated to high speed rail marks a turning point in a road-airport dominated U.S. transportation network, but the politics of allocating the funds may prevent results needed to showcase HSR.

Half a year after the area erupted in violence, the South Ossetia region of Georgia is struggling to rebuild.

The economic recession is hard to notice in Berlin. The German capital has struggled economically for years and continues to.

No one expects the $8 billion to build any one single high-speed-rail system in the U.S. But the U.S., with its vast distances and low gas prices, is not Europe or Asia, and some question whether the investment will produce any substantial results.

As air travel security tightens and high speed rail expands, getting in and around Spain is becoming easier on the rails than in the sky.

The Christian Science Monitor editorializes in support of the VMT fee replacing the gas tax just as the latest federal transportation financing commission report recommends, as Oregon Governor Kulongoski hopes to do, and as some will do in Europe.

Residents in Venice, Italy, are upset over a plan by the city to accept a $2.7 million subsidy from Coca Cola in exchange for placement of soda machines throughout the historic city.

A BBC story on Paris's groundbreaking bike-share system greatly exaggerates the threat posed by theft and vandalism.

Theft and vandalism have crippled the citywide bike rental system in Paris, leaving operator JCDecaux uncertain of the increasingly expensive program's future.

Following similar discoveries of fraud in the U.S., the Italian government has uncovered a scheme to increase local revenues by artificially shortening yellow lights.

This three-part series from the BBC looks at bicycles in the modern world -- from Paris to Uganda to India.

According to sources in Europe, the Obama Administration has sought advice from European Union officials about emulating the EU's infrastructure bank.

A massive WWII-era airfield in Berlin has been closed down, but city officials are looking for ways to take advantage of the large space. New ideas abound -- from a proposal for a "red light" district to plans for an artificial mountain.

Coriandoline, a housing development in Correggio, Italy, is the first to have been designed primarily by children. The award-winning neighborhood boasts themed houses and "built-in playability."

A giant crossword puzzle has been painted on the side of a 100-foot tall building in Lvov, Ukraine. Clues to the puzzle are planted throughout the city, and the puzzle's answers are revealed at nighttime with the use of special lights.

Chinese designers are flocking to Prato, Italy and forging a new sort of Chinatown that look more like modern-day China.

Plans to construct a replica of a German palace in Berlin are being met with confusion and derision. It's a project that many critics say has no point.