Earthsky FC_SHELL, Interviews
Private: When will the U.S. have mass transit?
03-23-2007 - Human World
Lee Schipper: _We don’t live in a mass transit friendly configuration. What I see is a continued roller coaster of oil prices. And everybody will scream crisis when gasoline is $3 or $4 a gallon. We might make or buy more efficient cars. But that doesn’t solve the transport problem. It just helps ease the energy problem._
That’s Lee Schipper, of Embarq, part of the World Resources Institute in Washington, D.C. Embarq calls itself “a catalyst for sound solutions to the problems of urban mobility.” Schipper said getting people out of their cars and into the bus won’t be easy, here in the United States.
That’s because America’s landscape of scattered suburbs and devoted commuters make it difficult to encourage mass transit on a nationwide scale. Schipper said it takes 25 to 50 years to create a successful public transportation system. Still, a few cities have started down that long road.
Lee Schipper: _L.A., because it filled up all the available space, is now acting pretty responsibly, trying to make a change._
Los Angeles has set out new bus routes that provide quick trips down the city’s most crowded transportation corridors.
Lee Schipper also said, “One of the problems is that communities don’t want to impose on themselves the things that make collective transit work. Things such as building relatively high density housing and jobs along high transit corridors, things that actually control sprawl. And sprawl itself isn’t bad, it’s the congestion and fuel waste that go along with it. ”
Check out “Embarq”:http://embarq.wri.org/en/index.aspx
Check out “L.A. Metro”:http://www.mta.net/default.asp
*Our thanks to:*
Lee Schipper
Director of Research
EMBARQ – The World Resources Institute’s Center for Sustainable Transport
Washington, D.C.
How about mitigating the negative aspects of sprawl – like congestion & heavy traffic – by insisting that we reserve some green spaces and put in pathways? That way, bicycling and walking could be a viable alternative to the automobile – giving us a way to burn calories instead of gas. Additionally, these paths could provide people (especially the elderly) with newfound freedom. We could drive or ride in slower-moving electrical vehicles (like on golf courses), thereby removing ourselves from the dangers and unpleasantness of harried highway driving.
Since this year began, I’ve been riding the bus to and from work … and it’s heavenly. My favorite part is when we cross the bridge over the highway, and I look down and see the line of cars and realize I’m not in it!
I agree about green spaces and pathways, Bruce. I’d like to see those as well.
Promoting mass transit (low emissions) and “bike” pathways makes great sense and should be encouraged. America can use the excercise as well. I hear a lot about biofuels, but I wonder how ethical it is to be using potential food sources and/or tying up argicultural land to create fuel to burn in our cars. I think nuclear power also deserves renewed attention – perhaps the problems associated with this energy source can be overcome with future research. The last time I was on a plane I thought how small the world has become because of the ease with which we can travel by air…and how big the world will become again once we can no longer afford too because we are burning up all our fuel driving around looking for a parking space that is a few feet closer to the door.
The big problem with nuclear power is what to do with long-lived radioactive waste. I understand that some high level radioactive waste takes over 20,000 years to decay.
See http://www.history.rochester.edu/class/EZRA/longTerm.htm
The answer is in individual choice and allowing market forces to work.
One great advantage of mass transit is it provides much improved fuel efficiency through simple economies of scale without resorting to exotic technologies or unproven fuel sources. For example, four people carpooling in a small car that gets 40 MPG achieve 160 passenger miles per gallon (PMPG). A Diesel bus, at 5 MPG and 50 passengers achieves 250 PMPG. Light and heavy rail systems are even more efficient than buses.
The problem, as I see it, is so few people these days are willing to think long-term, like the 25-50 years ahead it takes to build a decent transit system.
And far too many people are still fixated on cars, cars, cars. When it comes to highways, no project is too expensive or pointless—see the “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska, or the “big dig” in Boston. When it comes to mass transit, no project is too small to endlessly complain about the cost, and loop through “feasibility studies” over and over again.
One reason mass transit prevails in Europe and Asia is that the population is much more concentrated, and even the distances between cities are smaller than in most parts of the US, and many mass transit lines are already taxpayer subsidised. We can, should, and in fact, do, have mass transit of some type (light rail, subway, commuter rail, bus, etc.) in most places where it makes good economic sense, and where it’s more convenient for the potential public ridership to do so…
If you try to impose mass transit where it either makes no economic sense (too much distance and too few riders per square mile) or is not convenient (does not serve the destinations people want to work or shop or live), you won’t get sufficient ridership and will have to subsidise it from the general revenue (taxes) or some other pot of money…and it all comes from somebody’s pocket. There are a number of private, for-profit commuter railways in Japan because they can turn a profit…they’ve been paid for over the years by private developers, major businesses, and department store companies to bring workers/shoppers to their places of business while allowing them to live in more pleasant smaller towns.
Most major US cities have bus, subway and lite rail where it’s economically feasible to do so…but one man’s suburban sprawl is another man’s (or womans) breathing space, and dream home in a dream neighborhood. Cars are not only personal freedom and a private security barrier, they are economic freedom…you can choose to take employment with a company not served by mass transit, for example. We love cars for a number of reason, and by and large, they still make sense for most Americans…we still have the space and the fuel, and the incomes with which to buy private vehicles. You may personally feel free to live in crowded, congested, crime-ridden cities so you can ride their mass transit and behave in accordance with your personal environmental code of ethics, but don’t try to dictate to the rest of us that we have to do the same.
Sorry, but I’m immediately suspicious of anyone who says riding a bus is heavenly…
J.D. Huggins
Doug, you’re suspicious of my love of bus riding?
Let’s see. Get up in the morning, shower, dress, grab my stuff, get in my car, fight traffic, get to work by 8:45 …
Or get up, shower, dress, grab my stuff, walk down the street (exercise!), smell the morning air, enjoy flowers blooming in people’s yards, sit at a bus stop in the morning sunshine, let someone else drive, get to work by 9.
I call that heavenly!
To each his (or her) own.
Deborah