Democrats want to build more transit infrastructure in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The only problem is that transit emits as much or more greenhouse gases, per passenger mile, as the average car. In fact, transit is less climate friendly than driving in all but a handful of cities.
Now, a new report from the Transit Cooperative Research Program of the National Academy of Sciences attempts to quantify how much greenhouse gas emissions transit can save. Using data from the American Public Transportation Association, the report observes that each passenger mile carried by transit represents a reduction of just 0.329 vehicle miles of automobile travel (page 14). Apparently, about 60 percent of those transit trips would, in the absence of transit, otherwise be walking or cycling trips or would not take place at all.
That means that transit is a huge net generator of greenhouse gases. In 2018, the average car emitted 202 grams of carbon dioxide per passenger mile. In 2019, transit did better than that only in the New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Portland urban areas. The average light truck emitted about 241 grams; transit did better than that only in the above urban areas plus Atlanta, Boston, and San Jose.
But the numbers are even worse for transit if it only takes a third of vehicle miles off the road per passenger-mile. In 2018, the average car emitted 311 grams per vehicle-mile and the average light truck 438. Multiplying those numbers by 32.9 percent means each transit passenger mile saves 102 grams by car or 144 grams by light truck. About 55 percent of light vehicles are light trucks, so the weighted average is 125 grams. Only in New York and San Francisco do transit systems do better than that. Elsewhere, the best thing we can do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to shut down transit.
Except that the National Academy report then goes on to claim that transit “can lead to location efficiency — where destinations like employment and shopping are closer to the households that need them.” Or, more specifically, “transit investments, service improvements, and associated development” can lead to such efficiency. Based on this claim, the paper somehow calculated that each passenger-mile on transit saves an average of 1.6 vehicle-miles of driving (page 16).
This is quite a stretch. Many new transit lines have resulted in no land-use changes. To get any land-use changes, cities such as Portland and Seattle have had to subsidize the construction of so-called transit-oriented developments. Even after their construction, researchers have found that the developments do not significantly change people’s transportation habits. Instead, the developments attract people who aren’t driving that much anyway; people who drive a lot either don’t live in such developments or continue to drive after moving in.
As UC Irvine economist David Brownstone observes in a paper based on research he did for the National Academy of Sciences, most studies that claim that land-use changes will change travel habits (including the studies cited in the previous paper) fail to take self-selection into account. Once that is considered, Brownstone concluded, the effects of changes in density on driving are “too small” to be useful “for trying to reduce VMT or greenhouse gas emissions from residential vehicles.”
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Census data show that in 1980, before Portland built its first light-rail line, 10 percent of Portland-area commuters took transit to work. Portland now has five light-rail lines, a commuter-rail line, and two streetcar lines, yet just 8 percent of Portland-area commuters took transit to work in 2019.
Researchers with the Cascade Policy Institute spent some cold and rainy mornings outside of some of the region’s high-density transit-oriented developments next to Portland’s light-rail lines to see what modes of transportation were used people leaving those developments during rush hours. One development is called Beaverton Round because it is build around a light-rail station. As Cascade’s director, John Charles, reports in a 99-MB PowerPoint show, only 2.5 percent of people leaving the development took light rail (no one took a bus).
Orenco is a gigantic transit-oriented development near Hillsboro. Cascade found 8.5 percent of people leaving in the mornings using light rail, only slightly more than the regional average.
In the city of Portland itself, about 15 percent of commuters reported they rode transit in 2019. Center Commons, on Portland’s east side, is next to a light-rail line and a major bus route. Cascade found 10 percent of people taking light rail and 2 percent taking buses.
Russellville is a large, high-density development that is also on the light-rail line in east Portland. Cascade found 13 percent of people took light rail from there, and no one took buses. All of these developments, incidentally — Beaverton Round, Orenco, Center Commons, and Russellville — received millions or tens of millions of dollars of subsidies.
Cascade also looked at how many people arrived at major work sites on the light-rail line including Intel, which employs about 10,000 people. Just 6 percent of them took the light-rail to work; none took buses.
In general, then, it appears that neither new transit infrastructure nor subsidies to high-density developments significantly increased transit ridership or reduced driving. Thus, the National Academy paper claiming that transit reduces greenhouse gases is pure wishful thinking.
Divide a nations GDP by it’s tons of CO2 per year, that’s the threshold.
ANY supposed climate scheme no matter how intrinsic or sophisticated is destined to fail, because “X” dollars per ton cost of eliminating a nations CO2 emissions exceeds any nations GDP. That’s why all pet projects fail; when they take down the economy; soon abandoned. Spending hundreds of billions to chase away a few million tons of co2, (Allegedly so) works out to tens of thousands of dollars per ton, which makes NO sense whatsoever. Even At four dollars a gallon, a gallon of gasoline produces 20 lbs of CO2 Therefore a ton of co2 costs 400 dollars to emit, spending 10,000 dollars to deter 400 dollars worth of Carbon dioxide that’ll just be emitted by a nation that doesn’t care (COUGH, China) is a ponzi scheme and a waste of money. Global Energy consumption is 567 Exajoules (567,000,000,000,000,000,000 Joules) or 158 Billion Megawatt-hours. Only 12% of Global energy consumption is delivered electrically. Because heat energy as chemical or mechanical power is more efficient; Given thermodynamic energy losses generating power; and transmission transitioning from conventional energy to renewables means building 16-24 times more powerplants than present and 20-50 times grid expansion.
UC professor Charles Lave insisted on observing the “Law of Large Proportions.” Investing “X” amount of resources on something used by the majority is vastly more beneficial than dealing with a minority. Investing $1 Billion on the option used by 90% of the people will produce far more benefits than investing the same $1 Billion on the option used by no more than 1.0% of the people. Investing money in making cars and power plants more energy efficient and less polluting is vastly more practical then trying to outspend practicality to get people to stop using it. In 1970 US used 14.7 million barrels of oil per day, by 2019 US used 19.4 million barrels. Daily oil consumption rose only 30% in 49 years but driving passenger miles in the US nearly quadupled but oil consumption did not. Since the 1970’s energy consumption of the average Automobile has been cut in half and plane energy usage has been slashed by 70%.
In 2019 US produced 6.577 Billion tonnes of CO2, 28% of which are transportation related, at 10,000 dollars a ton exceeds it’s GDP 3x over. Where as a slight investment in better engine tech and adopttion of better driving habits save 1.4 billion gallons of fuel per year, shaving 14 million dollars at NO cost to you.
As soon as Biden reads this, it’s bye bye transit!
President Biden is going to restore trust in government through scientific integrity and evidence-based policymaking. Under his administration, scientific findings will “never be distorted or influenced by political considerations.” And you can’t claim scientific integrity and evidence-based policymaking while supporting transit at the same time.
Don’t believe me? Here’s a link to his White House Policy. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/27/memorandum-on-restoring-trust-in-government-through-scientific-integrity-and-evidence-based-policymaking/
I live on the suburban edge of a US Midwest county. Every morning, empty buses travel from the bus garage to my neighborhood and start picking passengers up, in ones and twos, on their way to the center city.
And in the evening, empty buses return to the garage.
I wonder if the empty positioning miles are included in the above calculations.
While I agree with LazyReader’s detailed analysis of basing CO2 reduction on a cost per tonne reduced, I do not feel that China is doing nothing. First, since CO2 has a residence time in the atmosphere of hundreds of years it is the cumulative amount produced per capita that is important. China has cumulatively produced much less CO2 per capita than developed countries such as the United States (see https://www.withouthotair.com/c1/page_14.shtml). Therefore, they can reasonably expect that they should be allowed to expand their economy with production of CO2 while developed nations like the USA, UK and Germany should be first to start cutting back on production. Second, China has committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2060.
From https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02927-9
“Under their plan, emissions would continue to rise, from 9.8 gigatonnes of CO2 in 2020 to around 10.3 gigatonnes in 2025. They will then plateau for five to ten years before dropping steeply after 2035, to reach net zero by 2060.”
Plans include a massive increase in renewables, battery storage, nuclear power, and carbon capture and storage. Implementing this is already giving China a lead in renewable technologies. China already has more wind and solar power than any other country. Solar power increased by 16.6%, nuclear by 5% and Wind power by 15.15% in 2020 alone (https://www.statista.com/statistics/302250/china-power-generation-growth-by-source/).
Considering that China’s per capita CO2 emission is 7.38 tons/person/year, compared to the US 15.52 (https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/) China can reasonably expect to keep increasing CO2 production in the short term, while the USA should continue to cut emissions and also commit to becoming CO2 neutral. The only way to do this will be at the most cost efficient way per tonne of reduction. Probably the best way to do this is with a carbon fee and dividend (https://citizensclimatelobby.org/basics-carbon-fee-dividend/) that will prevent politicians spending a fee on CO2 production on useless projects like high speed rail.
Second, China has committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2060.
Also, in 1997, Beijing promised that Hong Kong citizens would be free to elect their local government for 50 years but starting in 2014 the Communist Party of China would only allow Hong Kong to vote for candidates who had been selected by Beijing. I guess they’re not big on honoring their commitments.
To quote a courageous Hong Kong protester:
Don’t trust China. China is asshole.