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I'm seeing a lot of writing that says that a "big get" for reducing GHG emissions from transportation would be zero-emission transit buses and trains. As a small part of a broad strategy, this is great, but it can't be the headline. Sadly it often is. 1/8
There are 10 billion transit trips out of the 411 billion trips Americans take annually. A passenger car carrying one person emits 89 pounds of CO2 per 100 passenger miles, while a full bus emits only 14 pounds. 2/8
Yes let's electrify the 10 billion trips, but where's the conversation about getting 50-100 billion of those trips on transit? Yes let's get the full bus to 0 pounds of CO2 but shouldn't we get some of the 89 pounds onto buses? To do so, don't we need to talk about both? 3/8
What seems to underlie the focus on vehicle tech is a core belief that neither the built environment nor people ever change (in spite of the fact that both are always changing). So we decide we can only make inefficient travel behavior happen in more efficient machines. 4/8
We don't acknowledge that our transportation system & development patterns force behavior. You can't take transit that isn't there. You can't get to a bus stop that is across a highway with no crossing. You can't walk to things that the government mandates be built far away. 5/8
We need to make it possible to shorten trips, share trips & move trips to more efficient modes. This has positive environmental benefits *and* provides more equitable access to the things people need. Real access should be available whether you can afford your own car or not. 6/8
When I was in college in BRLA, I couldn't get a job for lack of a car but couldn't get a car for lack of a job. I grew up firmly middle class & it was still a problem. EVs are wonderful, but would they have fixed my problem? How much worse is this for those who grew up poor? 7/8
So I don't like leading w/ perfecting something most people don't have. Esp when wealthier people gobble up the very few parts of America w/ any decent transit, our priority can't be to make existing transit perfect while doing almost nothing for those who don't have it. 8/8
