Here’s the latest breathtaking finding from University of Oregon researchers: Fewer people (the article says “less people,” but it was written by journalists) ride transit during extreme weather events. As if we needed a university research study to tell us that.
There’s a flood, forest fire, tornado, or hurricane near your home today. Why aren’t you out riding transit? Photo by Howard Pelling.
Scholars at the University of Oregon Planning School wanted to know how climate change will affect transit ridership. Since everyone knows that climate change is going to increase severe weather events, they examined how such events affected ridership over the last 17 years. No one should be surprised to learn that ridership fell during such events.
Leave it to urban planners to ask stupid questions and then come up with the wrong policy prescriptions. The researchers decided that, if fewer people were riding transit, the solution is to spend more money on transit!
Light rail trains, for example, have to slow down during hot weather because the wires transmitting electricity to the cars tend to sag. The solution, the researchers suggested, is to “update” the infrastructure. With what? Third rails in city streets?
The real solution is to stop trying to make people dependent on obsolete, unsustainable, and non-resilient forms of transportation when automobiles are far more resilient during extreme weather events. When you have to travel during such weather, it is much better to use a form of transportation that will go when you need to go, can follow alternative routes if some are closed off, and can take you to places that transit doesn’t reach.
In short, climate change is just one more reason to eliminate subsidies to public transportation systems that won’t help us deal with such changes.
The weather events that most disrupt US upper Midwest business and life are called snowstorms. But we struggle through with technologies — snow tires and all-wheel-drive vehicles. And we have the internet and electric power coming into our homes and businesses through underground wires and fiber-optic cables — the old wires-on-poles are so last century.
There are always those who insist on “fighting the last war.” We call them losers.
There is something that doesn’t quite add up with the conclusions of this study. If they are arguing that people don’t use transit while extreme weather events are happening, I would not be surprised. But that is not the same thing as saying that it affects overall transit ridership.
People who are dependent on transit service, or who just use it for a large share of their travel, are still going to undertake trips on a fairly regular basis. They might reschedule trips to avoid a severe weather event (e.g. strong thunderstorm), but they won’t alter their total amount of travel. And, of course, none of this will be affected by the amount of money that is spent on transit. That is simply a non sequitur.
Humanity built it’s first major cities in Mediterranean/Red Sea area? Why, because it doesn’t snow.
Romans, Minoans, Ancient Egypt, Greece… Warmth means civilization…..
PG/E in California is burying all his High voltage transmission lines. The Old high tower on wire schtick is so 19th century.
While burying electric infrastructure is MORE expensive than simple towers it has several advantages.
– Easier access, you just dig a hole or open up prebuilt conduit boxes.
– Invulnerable to EMP/ electromagnetic distortion/solar flares. During Iraq war, we destroyed electric services with cruise missiles that contained warheads filled with old cyclotrons producing huge Microwave bursts that damaged radar/electronics.
– Weather proof.
Plus underground lines aren’t going to start wildfires.