This week’s post is by Edward Burgess, coauthor of Environmental Defense Fund’s new report Reinventing Transit.
Last week, Congressman James Oberstar, chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, was slated to speak at the launch of EDF’s new report Reinventing Transit — but he got stuck in traffic! The irony was not lost on one commenter in the StarTribune.com blog who noted, “You couldn’t ask for a better footnote to the report.”
Watch our report video showing how people across the country are getting on board these innovative transit systems.
Editor’s note: Yep, that video’s changed places. Our embedding system is acting up, so here’s the video on YouTube.
Oberstar’s absence was a clear illustration of how traffic congestion is sapping time and productivity across the country. Cars stuck in traffic don’t just waste time, but they also waste fuel. This has consequences for the environment in terms of health and global warming. In fact, about a quarter of our country’s greenhouse gas emissions come from cars and trucks (see graph of breakdown of transportation sector).
In the wake of MARTA announcing a 60 million dollar budget shortfall, Atlanta got hit with more bad news for anyone hoping to ditch their cars. AMTRAK and the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) are putting the proposed system of light rail, trails, and planned development into jeopardy.
The Atlanta BeltLine is a solution. While Atlanta does have a rail and bus system now, MARTA, the rail portion is pretty limited and the buses are a bit unreliable. The BeltLine was going to change the face of Atlanta’s transit system, connecting neighborhoods and making alternative transportation a viable option for more folks in the Atlanta area. They describe the BeltLine:
Our vision is that the BeltLine will be a continuous, connected corridor of parks, trails, greenspace, quality development and transit - completely unique to anything in any other U.S. city. It will connect in-town neighborhoods and promising business centers throughout the city and will link directly into MARTA rail and other public transit systems. Ultimately, the BeltLine is how Atlanta chooses to develop over the next 50 years.
Why would anyone want to stop a project like this?
Earlier this year, the Phoenix light rail system and the Arizona Republic teamed up to sponsor a contest promoting light rail safety. To attract entries, which were due Sept. 30, they offered this prize: a year’s worth of free travel on the light rail system, which officially opens on Dec. 26.
Well, 500-plus entries are in, and the promotion organizers are now working to select a winner. (Readers of the Arizona Republic’s Website, azcentral.com, will choose their favorites, and the top nominees will be passed along to Metro officials for a final decision.) While the top pick hasn’t been identified yet, though, some of the bottom ones have.
Gas costs have skyrocketed, and with them, the cost of flying. This greenie isn’t 100% upset: with the cost of fuel increasing exponentially in the past few years, people are examining their transportation patterns and needs and trying to find cost- and fuel-effective methods of getting from Point A to Point B. Smaller, more fuel-efficient cars are selling well, and ridership on public transit is up. But for many Americans, particularly those in smaller cities and towns, public transit is non-existent. For those living anywhere but the East Coast, Amtrak is slow, unreliable, or non-existent. We’re a country for whom the cost of cheap fuel has promoted individual car use to the detriment of other forms of transportation.
Use of public transportation in the United States rose to its highest level in 50 years last year, with a growth rate of 2.1%.
