To reduce transportation’s environmental impact, let’s make mobility better

A WMATA Metrobus passes an Exxon gas station. Better transit connectivity reduces fuel consumption and makes it easier for people to get where they need to go. (Photo by me)

Transportation is the U.S.’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. 

Unfortunately, the two most widely discussed methods to address this problem seem to be a virtual end to connectivity as we know it or a more deeply entrenched status quo. 

But with the proper planning, we can make mobility better and more sustainable.

Ferries, like the Potomac Water Taxi's Alexandria-Georgetown route pictured here, can fill gaps in local transit systems. But boats are unlikely to become a mainstream form of overseas mobility anytime soon. (Photo by me)  

Two recent high-profile demonstrations have drawn much-needed attention to transportation’s environmental impact, at both local and intercity levels.

In August, Swedish activist Greta Thunberg traveled from England to New York on a zero-emissions sailboat instead of a commercial flight. Then, on Monday, September 23 and Friday, September 27, protesters inspired by Thunberg blocked streets in central parts of DC.

While these efforts were well-intended, they also gave credence to the false narrative that making transportation more sustainable requires substantial personal sacrifice and inconvenience.

For example, few people will find Thunberg’s 15-day voyage a more appealing form of mobility than the many hours-long flights between Europe and the U.S. Even if boating were to re-emerge as a mainstream mode for overseas transportation, long-distance ferries would likely have more in common with lavish cruise ships – which more than double their passengers’ daily carbon footprint for the time they are onboard, among other environmental harm they cause – than with Thunberg’s Spartan sailboat.

Similarly, on the days of DC’s climate protests, the region’s transit system was not bolstered or expanded. Rather, the street shutdowns adversely impacted users of sustainable modes. For example, Friday’s demonstrations on Pennsylvania Avenue resulted in service disruptions on twelve Metrobus routes, while also obstructing one of the primary protected cycling routes through downtown.

Meanwhile, our leaders – even those who understand the science of climate change – are also having difficulty finding effective sustainable transportation solutions.

They talk a lot about electric cars, which – despite large subsidies for buyers – comprise just two percent of new U.S. vehicle sales as car manufacturers embrace more profitable SUVs and pickup trucks. Even as automobiles have become more fuel efficient over time, their cumulative impact on the environment has worsened due to increases in vehicle miles traveled, a harmful trend that electric cars would not alleviate. To make matters worse, electric cars would not fix the dangerous, inefficient, and inequitable nature of present-day auto-dependency, problems that prominent industry figures like Elon Musk don’t seem compelled to address.

Thus, while electric cars could comprise one component of a better-functioning transportation system, they will not solve our most pressing transportation challenges – environmental or otherwise – alone.

When visiting my cousin in an auto-dependent Michigan suburb, I was pleasantly surprised to see their baby watching an English-language version of the South Korean cartoon Tayo the Little Bus, which features talking buses in Seoul's color-coded livery. Exposure to transit can erode stereotypes and make it easier for people to ride. (Photo by me)

There is, however, another way to address transportation’s environmental impact, which wouldn’t require new technology or a major lifestyle disruption: just making it easier for people to take transit, bike, or walk both within and between localities. In places that give these options even moderately adequate attention, like DC and its inner suburbs, people already embrace them as mainstream ways to get where they need to go – not for their sustainability, but for their convenience.

Going forward, climate activists’ efforts should aim to draw attention to these options’ effectiveness, aligning their goals more closely with the public’s mobility needs and demonstrating to our leaders that their focus should be on system diversification, rather than technological hype.

Reducing local car travel offers the lowest-hanging environmental fruit

Combining sustainable transportation options with fun activities can help introduce people to the connectivity these options provide. Pictured here is the entrance to Bike Lane Brewing, a bicycle shop and taproom situated off the Washington & Old Dominion Trail in Reston, VA. (Photo by me)

Cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks comprise about 60 percent of U.S. transportation greenhouse gas emissions, and thus reducing usage of those modes offers the greatest potential for emissions reduction.

While major infrastructure improvements can take years, effectively targeted activism would help us get much more out of the sustainable options we have. These existing options are capable of serving as viable and often superior replacements for plenty of present-day automobile trips, especially the 45 percent that are fewer than three miles in length. However, currently they are substantially underutilized.

Simply exposing people to sustainable connectivity opens peoples’ minds and dispels the negative stereotypes that currently keep people beholden to automobiles. Thus, leading group transit outings, walks, and bike rides oriented around fun destinations involving outdoor activities, food, beer, and sporting events – as organizations including Circulate San Diego, Washington Area Bicyclist Association, and Coalition for Smarter Growth have done – can educate people on how public transportation and other sustainable options can enhance quality of life. Such group outings demonstrate that these options are more than just an occasional means of conveyance to work or a second-rate alternative to car-based modes.

This sort of exposure also works in cyberspace, positively influencing how people talk and think about mobility. For example, the New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens Facebook group, started by a University of Chicago student studying for midterm exams, has swelled to more than 164,000 members. The global group has given rise to numerous local spin-offs and been profiled in major publications including The New York Times and The Guardian.

On Twitter, sustained pushback encouraged thousands of people to unfollow Voice of America reporter Matt Hilburn, who – in operating the Unsuck DC Metro account – regularly peddles false, often racially-charged stereotypes about DC-area transit and the people who use it while whitewashing the real flaws of car-based transportation. And Daniel Schep and Mark Sussman’s How’s My Driving DC app – integrated with the District Department of For-Hire Vehicles’ reporting system – has given people a louder voice against vehicles that block crosswalks, bike lanes, and bus stops, logging more than 12,000 violations since January.

A stopped ride-hailing car blocks DC's H Street Streetcar. (Photo by me)

Future on-street demonstrations, operating in line with the law, would further strengthen this voice while also increasing the safety, capacity, and efficiency of existing roads. Vigilante efforts, such as marking bike lanes via rudimentary equipment such as plungers or plastic cups, have effectively drawn attention to the lack of protection paint provides cyclists and in some cases catalyzed construction of safer permanent infrastructure.

Going forward, activists should organize to keep drivers from parking or stopping in crosswalks, bike lanes, and bus lanes – particularly near schools and other sensitive areas – reducing society’s tolerance for such aggressive and dangerous behavior. Aforementioned How’s My Driving DC, for example, organized a day-long “Data-Informed Bus Lane Blitz” in August during which volunteers reported nearly 300 illegal blockages of pilot bus lanes to the District’s government; local officials have since made the bus lanes permanent.   

And finally, climate activists’ energy would change the dynamics of community planning.

Currently, local planning processes favor small groups of people who oppose any type of change, irrespective of whether or not they benefit the public good. This makes it difficult to develop a coordinated, easy-to-use transportation network, complete with land use patterns oriented around it.

But when larger-scale interests have a strong presence at meetings associated with these planning processes, progress happens. For example, earlier this year cyclists packed an Advisory Neighborhood Commission meeting on a proposed contraflow bike lane in Northwest DC that had been burdened by local opposition; the results of that meeting were favorable, and the bike lane is now in operation. And in DC’s Maryland suburbs, the Action Committee for Transit helped the public overcome the Columbia Country Club and other small groups of residents to make the Purple Line, which is now under construction, a reality.   

Intercity trains, both fast and slow, are often preferable to short-haul flights    

Karlsruhe, Germany's train station, as seen from a TGV train bound for Strasbourg and Paris. (Photo by me)

While air travel is a smaller overall contributor to greenhouse gas emissions than cars, emissions at high altitudes have a more dramatic effect on the climate, meaning improvements to intercity transportation also could have substantial benefits. However, efforts should focus not on overseas flights that provide essential global connectivity other modes currently can’t replicate, but instead on shorter flights serving corridors where sustainable modes can outperform planes. Rail improvements on such shorter-distance corridors, where per-mile aviation emissions are highest, would not only liberate people from security checkpoints and the antics of carriers like Spirit Airlines, but would also reduce automobile travel.

High-speed rail – including the U.S.’s Northeast Corridor, even though that route doesn’t meet the standards of higher-quality systems overseas – consistently supplants air travel along the corridors it serves by facilitating faster, more comfortable, and more affordable door-to-door mobility for travelers. By serving airport rail links and codesharing with airlines – common overseas, and doable even in the U.S. – regional high-speed rail providers even reduce the carbon footprint of overseas trips.

All too often, however, small-scale interests have politicized high-speed rail to further their own agenda. Thus, activists can help bring more scrutiny to these actors. For example, grassroots efforts helped get former congressperson Jeff Denham (R-CA), a vocal opponent of his state’s high-speed rail project who had chaired the House Rail Subcommittee, out of office in 2018. And persistent scrutiny from Streetsblog has helped fact-check Los Angeles Times reporter Ralph Vartabedian, who has written a number of misleading articles about the California project. 

 

Overnight trains are also re-emerging in parts of the world as a viable alternative to air travel. With their afternoon-to-morning runs, enjoyable social environment, and comfortable accommodations, in certain circumstances they are preferable to flying, as well as driving. Long-distance trains also provide essential connectivity to small towns and rural areas, and with infrastructure improvements they can become practical across greater distances – for example, a one-night train averaging 100 mph, just a fraction of what full-on high-speed rail is capable of, could travel from one U.S. coast to the other (currently a three-night rail trip).

Amtrak's long-distance routes, like the Crescent train pictured here in New Orleans, could play a much more prominent role in American mobility than they do. But politics keep the national system's future foggy and unclear. (Photo by me) 

But in the U.S. the national Amtrak system, operating primarily on freight company-owned tracks, faces substantial reliability issues and a financial future that always seems uncertain. The threat of delays – most frequently due to passenger trains having to slow or stop to make way for freight trains – makes the system a less viable option than it should be, particularly for business travel. The ongoing funding uncertainty, meanwhile, has contributed to recent erosion of onboard amenities that is correlated with a decline in long-distance ridership (even as passenger numbers on regional Amtrak routes rise).

Thus, climate activists should expand their focus beyond cities, using existing intercity rail routes to get out to rural areas, where they can interact with residents and local officials. Such efforts don’t have to be overly resource-intensive – for example, the Rail Passenger Association’s Summer by Rail internship, undertaken by one person each year, highlights culture and daily life in often-forgotten parts of America that trains connect. Over time, such efforts would demonstrate the benefits of the connectivity Amtrak’s routes provide and draw attention to the substantial benefits of system expansion, as well as increased dispatch priority for existing routes. 

Transit routes with frequent service and dedicated lanes, like Mexico City Metrobus Line 7 pictured here, draw high ridership due to the effective connectivity they provide. (Photo by me)

Improving sustainable forms of mobility can help save the planet.

But in order to achieve this goal, we must remember that the environmental benefits of transit, biking, and walking are just one of many upsides that improvements to these options offer the public. And a focus on that full array of upsides is what will get people on board.