Hundreds of cities in up to 40 countries are today expected to take part in World Car Free Day 2011. The day is marked annually on Sept. 22, with organizers encouraging people to walk, bike, use mass transit, work from home or find other alternatives to cars.

Organizers write on the World Carfree website that the annual event is a reminder that “we don’t have to accept our car-dominated society.” The event also is a chance to “take the heat off the planet, and put it on city planners and politicians to give priority to cycling, walking and public transport, instead of to the automobile,” the site says.

California is going to start building its a 800-mile high-speed rail system with a 65-mile segment that goes through Fresno but doesn’t connect the city with any of its large Central Valley neighbors. Work on the $4.15 billion first segment, which will include a station in downtown Fresno and another near Hanford, is scheduled to begin in late 2012.

Rail officials say the first segment is merely one piece in what will be a massive project, and that the system won’t begin carrying passengers until it links San Francisco to Los Angeles anyway.

If you don’t like tight spaces, then the Schweeb may not be your preferred mode of transportation.

Google is backing this eco-friendly monorail system in their Project 10^100 initiative, which was a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible, selecting Shweeb as an organization with the most forward looking transportation vision. People from around the world submitted over 150,000 ideas that they wanted to bring to life.

Inhabitat writes, “The system is ‘user-powered’ it immediately gets sustainability points, but the system has also been praised for its speed. A combination between traveling in tubes à la Futurama and ‘Sky Cycling,‘ Shweeb’s bike-powered monorail currently has a 200m cycle track in Rotorua, New Zealand, where is it billed as an “adrenalin-fueled” adventure. There, users are suspended from the track in transparent pods and can ‘cycle’ around the landscape at speeds of up to 45km/h.”

In sad and ironic news today, the owner of the eco-friendly human transportation company, Segway, has died after falling off a cliff while riding his two-wheeled vehicle. The body of 62-year-old James Heselden was found in the River Wharfe alongside one of his Segways. He was pronounced dead at the scene, West Yorkshire police said.

A police spokesman said: “A Segway-style vehicle was recovered. He was pronounced dead at the scene…At this time we do not believe the death to be suspicious.”

It is still unknown exactly how the accident occurred but it is being speculated that he was either testing a new Segway model, or inspecting his estate, which contains the fatal cliff.

The company released a statement on its website Monday reading: “It is with great sadness that we have to confirm that Jimi Heselden OBE, has died in a tragic accident near his home in West Yorkshire. Jimi Heselden, 62, was Chairman of Hesco Bastion Ltd, the world leading manufacturer of protective barriers and owner of Segway Inc. Jimi is perhaps best known for his charity work with Help for Heroes and the Leeds Community Foundation. A £10m gift to the Foundation earlier this month saw his lifetime charitable donations top £23m. Our thoughts go out to his family and many friends, who have asked for privacy at this time.”

If love is defined as dropping a bunch of cash on a ultra cool Tesla Roadster for the wife you’ve cheated on multiple times, then Tiger Woods really loves Elin Nordegren. Amid speculation that a divorce is in the works, Tiger and Elin were trying to hang out on the DL over at a dealership in Santa Monica last Thursday. E! reporter Ted Casablanca said the pair drove off the lot in a “brand-spankin’-new, charcoal gray Tesla, the electric sports car of the century.

What do you think? Can a Tesla Roadster make up for sleeping with half of America? It’s a start.

NASA has put a stop to the landing of Space Shuttle Discovery, which will stay in orbit for another day, due to cloudy weather. The Space Shuttle Discovery was slated to land at Kennedy Space Center, but mission managers in Houston canceled the landing just an hour and a half before the scheduled landing.

Discovery has two more chances to land at Kennedy Space Center tomorrow morning and NASA says the crew has enough supplies to stay in orbit until Wednesday.

The Obama Administration has announced new fuel efficiency standards that will boost mileage and cut emissions. Announced today, the new standards call for a 35.5 miles-per-gallon average within six years, up nearly 10 mpg from now.

The requirements for the 2012-2016 model years pleased environmentalists as well as automakers.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said, “Putting more fuel-efficient cars on the road isn’t just the right thing to do for our environment, it’s also a great way for Americans to save a lot of money at the pump.”

The government said that the rules will cost consumers an estimated $434 extra per vehicle in the 2012 model year and $926 per vehicle. However, the Transportation Department and Environmental Protection Agency said car owners would save more than $3,000 over the life of their vehicle via better gas mileage.

Starting this month (just in time for Spring), Google has started providing bicycle directions as part of its Google Maps service. The new feature comes with directions for cyclists in 150 cities in the United States. Google already incorporates public-transit and walking directions in addition to automobile driving directions, and the cycling community has been asking the wizards at Google to add bike routes for a while now.

The routing suggested for cyclists is designed to avoid freeways and high-traffic areas, and to select easier routes and terrain by avoiding hills. To make it even more useful for the cycling community, Google expects to have a mobile version available in the near future.

In 2009, Obama pledged $10.5 billion towards high-speed rail development. It looks like the first state to receive some of that money will be Florida. Obama has designated $2.5 billion to the state to begin the first phase of their train system that will run from Orlando to Tampa.

Phase 1 will run along the heavily traveled I-4 corridor and take passengers to Orlando Airport, Orlando, Disney, Lakeland and Tampa at speeds above 120 mph. Phase 2 will connect Orlando to Miami by two different routes. The system will eventually connect all the major cities in the state and points in between.

The first phase will cost $3.5 billion, so after the government funds the state will still have to raise $1 billion from private investors to complete the project. Florida expects the first trains to be running by 2014.

Oregon State University (OSU) has an amazing team of wood science researchers that have recently proposed the idea to change the filler currently used in rubber tires. The standard filler is Silica but these researchers suggest changing that to micro-crystalline cellulose which is derived from plant fiber. This change would result in tires that would be more cost effective, fuel and energy efficient and better performers.

The development of this new tire is showing that it also has comparable traction to the standard rubber tire in wet conditions and is found to have decreased rolling resistance in high temperatures which contributes the improving the tries’ fuel efficiency.

Although this is still in the research phase, the next test will be for long term durability.