Comment from Peter Black
April 28th, 2009 at 2:35 pm

It's pretty legendary that Rep Oberstar got stuck in traffic to your press conference Eddie. How appropriate…

Comment from Jen
April 29th, 2009 at 3:02 pm

So glad to see you EDF-ers finally have a blog to tell the world about all the amazing transportation work you do!

Comment from Walt Brewer
May 1st, 2009 at 7:23 am

Reinventing Transit" compares greenhouse gas generation of what is
> called a new generation of public transit with current private autos.
> Without context of total passenger-miles delivered by transit modes and
> autos their CO2 emissions are compared. Figure 3 gives an impression
> autos emit 48% more than buses and at least 134% more than rail transit.
> Unfortunately the data selected from the FTA reference is only for SOV’s
> rather than autos as generally used even though that data is in the FTA
> reference. Making the correct comparison, buses emit 10% more per
> passenger-mile than autos.
>
> And the several examples of new generation transit presented are
> dominated by buses. To the casual reader, and unfortunately also to
> decision-makers for transportation investment, the general flavor of
> "Reinventing Transit" is one of significant environmental improvement if
> additions like the examples shown are carried out. (assuming reasonable
> costs, although other pollutants such as NOX are not discussed.) When
> using all the FTA facts the opposite is true.
>
> Indeed light rail, the most popular of current transit additions, shows
> a 43% advantage for the electricity generation sources chosen. However
> first and last mile emissions need to be added. As the FTA reference
> shows buses dominate transit’s small share of passenger-miles for most
> metro areas outside NY/NJ. There the total rail picture is skewed
> because of heavy and commuter rail installations.
>
> Isn’t it reasonable to ask for a reissue using the correct bus and auto
> comparisons?
>
> Indeed as noted data needs to be updated considering recent economic,
> and fuel price events. What is called surging transit demand has
> absorbed less than 10% of the highway use reduction. Renewed interest in
> economy autos calls for an upgrade of the FTA data for CO2 and other
> energy-related info for autos.
>
> This report attempts to extrapolate future directions for transportation
> environmental improvement from a narrow selection of data. Considering
> EDF’s public interest responsibilities as a tax free not for profit,
> wouldn’t pie charts be more useful showing emissions from all modes in
> the context of likely mode shares using options representative of
> feasible future improvements? Improvements to transit vehicles are
> coming. Because of the priority and magnitude for personal transport,
> the several auto improvements underway carry at least a 25 times
> "leverage" factor impact on total CO2 and energy use. Automated personal
> systems need to be included considering the long-term global
> implications because of their promise to replace autos with even greater
> effectiveness.
>
>
> –~–~———~–~—-~————~——-~–~—-~
>

Comment from Edward Burgess
May 5th, 2009 at 3:29 pm

Walt thanks for your comments. You raise some important questions that deserve further explanation. I hope to address these here and more fully in a later post.

Your observation is well taken that the average number of passengers per automobile is higher than 1, and thus per capita emissions for cars should be lower (in hindsight this is misleading and should have been corrected). However, the basic comparison remains similar when construction and maintenance inputs are also factored in. Keep in mind that Figure 4 represents emissions from just the operational side (i.e. fuel consumption). To get at the true CO2 emissions for each mode, we ought to consider construction and maintenance too. I encourage you to read page 4 of the FTA's document which addresses this point in particular: http://www.fta.dot.gov/documents/PublicTransportationsRoleInRespondingToClimateChange.pdf
It reports on results from a UC Berkeley study (Chester, 2008) showing that the life-cycle CO2 emissions of buses are advantageous compared to cars, even with current US levels of ridership and vehicle occupancy.

Also, it's important to remember that thinking of aggregate emissions in this way assumes typical U.S. levels of transit ridership will remain as they are currently. But what is extraordinary about the cases we highlight is that all of them show very high levels of ridership, above the average. So on an individual project level we are almost certainly seeing benefits, even if the comparison nationally is less impressive. The simple fact is that buses (and trains and cars for that matter) become more efficient (less emissions per capita) when more people are riding them. And if the nation moves towards innovative projects like these, that efficiency will only increase.

I also like the idea of predicting future mode shares based on near-term improvements, but that sort of complex analysis was beyond the scope of our study. Just as you pointed out the world's economy is going through some major shifts which have bearing on statistics such as miles driven and transit ridership. We'll do our best to keep up to date with the latest data and trends as they become available.

Let me conclude by saying that we are not advocating that cars should be eliminated or that we should stop pursuing better efficiency for vehicle engines (EDF has been a strong proponent of the latter). But we are saying that there are innovative strategies for transit that can lead to better GHG performance from the transportation system as a whole.