A Plunge in Mass Transit Ridership Deals a Huge Blow to Climate Change Mitigation

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16072020/climate-change-new-york-city-metro-subway-coronavirus-mass-transit

By Kristoffer Tigue
Jul 17, 2020

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Vogel's sentiment appears to be playing out across the country as transit agencies from coast to coast report lost revenues ranging from hundreds of millions of dollars to several billion. And in some of the nation's biggest cities, budget deficits are hitting agencies so hard that they're considering permanent cuts to subway and bus lines.

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In fact, many of the nation's transportation agencies, including all 85 transit operators in California, are now calling on Congress to inject fresh aid into local and state public transportation systems or risk service reductions in the coming years—a move that experts say would have enormous consequences for efforts to curb climate change as demand for transportation returns to pre-pandemic levels.

Congress provided some relief when it issued $25 billion in the CARES Act for transit agencies back in March. But transportation advocates say that funding is now clearly inadequate to address the scale of the economic crisis the industry faces. The financial impact Covid-19 has wreaked on all U.S. transit agencies is estimated to be more than $40 billion through April 2021, according to a recent analysis by TransitCenter, a national public transportation advocacy group.

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For years, environmentalists and other mass transit advocates have pointed to public transportation as a way to reduce pollution and help curb climate change. But as cities across the country come out of lockdown, and people begin moving around again, commuters by the thousands appear to be choosing driving over public transportation.

One recently updated study found that traffic, and carbon emissions, quickly rebounded across the world in early June as lockdowns began lifting. And in the United States, phone and other device data suggest that while all of the nation's traffic plunged during the height of the pandemic in April and May, only public transit use remains below pre-pandemic levels as states reopen.

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If that trend continues, it means even more traffic congestion—and carbon emissions—than before the pandemic, said Elizabeth Irvin, a senior analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

As the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., the transportation sector is responsible for nearly a third of the nation's total emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

But when compared to cars and trucks that burn gasoline for fuel, mass transit's carbon emissions are far lower. Trains and buses move more people with relatively less power and in some cases can operate on the electrical grid rather than burning gasoline.

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