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Transit Helps Fight Climate Change
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Art Guzzetti of the American Public Transportation Association gave the shortest presentation at a recent Washington conference, but one with the most relevance to public transit advocates.
He asked, “How much oil does transit save?”
Answer: the equivalent of 300,000 gas station fill-ups daily, or 34 supertankers leaving the Middle East 11 days (34 in a year), or total U.S. imports from Kuwait in a year. But that’s just direct savings. Multiply by a factor of three to reflect indirect benefits, such as the more energy-efficient, denser real estate development that transit enables.
“By how much does transit reduce carbon emissions?” Transit directly saves 6.9 million metric tons annually. Taking into account indirect savings, this number jumps to 37 million metric tons.
He also noted that, in a typical household, just one person switching their commute from automobile to transit would reduce the carbon footprint of that household by 10%. And if that household is able to get by with one less car overall, the carbon footprint of that household will be reduced 30%. There are few household choices that have an impact of this magnitude.
The conference was the “First Transportation Convention,” held March 5-7 in Washington, DC. The conference was organized by the City of Irving, Texas, “as an extension of the annual Transportation Summit held in August” in Texas.
--Ross Capon
Posted by NARP
Tags: apta, climate change, transit, transit-oriented development,Travelers Leaving Cars Behind; Will Federal Funding Recognize This?
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Among the multitude of reports about growing ridership on Amtrak and mass transit, here are links to four.
Last night, Brian Williams on NBC Nightly News opened a major report with this:
“Transit is booming. Ridership is now at its highest point in 50 years. The bad news: because it’s largely been underfunded for decades, mass transit may not be ready for all the Americans leaving their cars behind…”
Here is the video:
The free Washington Examiner yesterday ran a story headed “Gas prices send travelers to Amtrak.” The report said October-to-April ridership was up 10.6% nationwide and 11.2% in the Northeast Corridor compared with the same months a year earlier.
The lead story in yesterday’s USA Today was headlined, “Mass transit breaks records; Rail, bus ridership up as gas prices rocket.” The text highlights one sad irony (also covered on the NBC report): although South Florida Tri-Rail commuter rail ridership was up 13% during the first quarter and up 28% in April, “the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority…faces an $18 million budget hole that may mean cutting train service by more than half.”
Today’s Tampa Tribune carries a story keyed to NARP’s year-ago predictions about the price of oil and gasoline under the headline “A New Train of Thought.” The article begins with this:
One year ago, the National Association of Railroad Passengers predicted the average price of gasoline would top $4 a gallon, a forecast that is close to becoming a harsh reality.
What drew less attention was the organization’s prediction that the cost of flying would soar. In fact, aviation fuel prices are up nearly 85 percent over 12 months, an increase that has contributed to the loss of commercial airline service for 30 small U.S. cities and fewer flights at most other airports.
Perhaps the most important quote is mine in the Tampa article:
“The press has been filled with articles of this nature [about growing train ridership] in recent weeks. What is hard is to get Congress to do anything about it.”
The Climate Security Act now on the Senate floor presents one opportunity to increase funding for passenger trains, but support for this bill has become shaky because the economic climate has made some erstwhile supporters nervous, while longtime opponents of climate change bills are pumping away with statements focused on how the bill would further increase energy and electricity prices.
--Ross Capon
Posted by NARP
Tags: amtrak, brian williams, capon, climate change, legislation, nbc nightly news, news media, tom costello, transit,Will US Transport Priorities Change?
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
A major reason why mobility for Americans is so much more at risk than for Europeans is that federal, state, and many local governments have been making the wrong transportation investment—and land use—choices so much of the time for such a long time.
The pendulum may be starting to swing. On Sunday, The Washington Post, which in recent decades has endorsed just about every local superhighway proposal in sight, ran an editorial under these headlines: “Screeching to a Halt; On mass transit, the nation is falling perilously behind”. Here is the last paragraph:
“Last year, a bipartisan commission recommended sharply higher levels of funding for transportation of all kinds, including mass transit. The panel’s recommendations included raising the gas tax. Although Transportation Secretary Mary Peters was on the commission, she declined to endorse its findings. Her head-in-the-sand posture neatly captured the administration’s abdication of responsibility.”
So, we believe, does the Bush Administration’s threat to veto the House’s Amtrak bill.
And the lead story in today’s Washington Post is headlined “Fuel Prices Challenge Cars’ Reign; $4 Gas Transforms Buying Habits, Affecting Everything From Vacations to Pizza Orders”.
Of course, the Commission advocates spending big bucks on all forms of transportation, which implies that no tough choices need to be made. However, that is not necessarily true, since both Presidential candidates are sounding like fiscal hawks on government spending. From our perspective, a key test of public policy is the ability to tilt towards energy-efficient transportation—trains, bicycles, walking—regardless of whether overall transportation spending increases significantly or at all. Energy efficiency and sustainability should be a crucial determinant of our transportation spending priorities. Period.
--Ross Capon
Posted by NARP
Tags: funding, news media, transit,Off-Shore Attacks on Light Rail
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
“What’s going on here is a battle between commuters who want to get to work and a bunch of people who don’t want to look at trolley cars while they play golf. If the public understands that’s what this fight is about, then the Purple Line will be built.”
--Ben Ross, president, Action Committee for Transit (Montgomery County, MD)
This quote, one of the more effective rebuttals to anti-transit advocacy that I’ve seen, appeared in a July 13 Washington Post article about a strange web site fighting the Purple Line. The Post reported that “the site’s owner is listed as a company based in the Madeira Islands off the coast of Portugal that allows clients to register Web sites anonymously…State tax records shed a little more light: Its founder is a board member at Columbia Country Club in Montgomery, whose 100-year-old golf course would be bisected by the transit line.”
Perhaps the Columbia Country Clubbers should visit Newton Massachusetts, where the Woodland Golf Club, founded in 1896, has long coexisted first with steam and diesel-powered commuter trains and, since July 4, 1959, with the Riverside branch of MBTA’s Green Line.
Next to the above article, The Post ran a nice report on plans for streetcars in Washington, DC, with a map showing potential linkage (at Silver Spring) with the Purple Line. Some trolley cars could even enter service late next year, said the headline.
--Ross Capon
Posted by NARP
Tags: light rail, nimbys, streetcars, transit,©2006 National Association of Railroad Passengers | » NARP website
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