Bus system blitzed in Seattle Times
As Seattle's Sound Transit debates the timing of another rail-expansion bid, The Cato Institute's Randal O'Toole reminds us that our current mass-transit system--buses--are under-used:
Transit agencies that want to save energy and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions should focus on increasing bus loads or reducing the size of their buses. The average King County Metro bus has 44 seats, yet carries on average just 14 passengers. Concentrating service in areas where loads are higher, and using smaller buses in areas or at times of day where loads are lower, will do far more to save energy than building rail transit.But the music to my ears comes later in his piece, when he confirms what I've been saying for years:
Cities that really want to save energy should focus on the form of transport people use most: automobiles. As Lave noted, "the biggest components matter most," so improving the mode that moves 95 percent of people will do far more than the mode that moves only 2 percent of people.John Lennon imagined a world without heaven or hell, nothing to live or die for and "no religion, too." But imagine something a little more achievable: imagine a government that tried to solve real (while admittedly more pedestrian) problems, namely, traffic congestion. Not only would our lives be a little easier, but there would be less pollution. Some may say that I'm a dreamer...
The most important thing cities can do is relieve congestion. The Texas Transportation Institute estimates urban congestion wastes nearly 3 billion gallons of fuel each year, in turn emitting 28 million tons of CO2. This has more than quintupled since 1982.
posted by Dan Sytman at 8:26 AM
1 Comments:
There's only a couple ways to relieve congestion: make the roads bigger, force people out of their cars by making it too expensive to drive, and lure them out of their cars by building an attractive and convenient system of public transit.
We've tried the first solution for the last 50 years, and the evidence indicates that widening roads just attracts more drivers until congestion very quickly returns to its original levels (only with higher levels of pollution and greater pressure on oil prices).
For the first time, the second solution is now being tested as gas prices rise and congestion tolling spreads. It's having some effect - those cities with good transit networks are now seeing record ridership levels (cities without transit are out of luck). But congestion is still a major problem.
That's because the price of driving is still too low and state and federal government has proved unwilling to invest in the only viable alternative to cars, public transit. Until we get serious about building complete transit systems, congestion will never be solved. But politicians are still terrified of raising taxes or tolls to pay for the needed investment. We need to let them know that we support transit and we're willing to make driving more expensive so that we can stop paying the hidden tolls of congestion, pollution, and road accidents.
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