Environmentalists think one of the greatest threats to our individual, national and global security has nothing to do with weapons, nuclear reactors or bio-terrorism. They think it’s something we are voluntarily doing to ourselves: climate change. Environmental awareness has moved swiftly from being a touchy-feely, tree-hugger cause in the 1990s to a mainstream national security concern today.
As unrest in the Middle East drives up gas prices—a gallon of regular unleaded now costs $3.83 on average—people are thinking twice before taking the car out of the garage.
This trend has experts hoping more people will take public transportation to work and end up sticking with the habit.
“Transit is definitely a good option for lowering your energy use and emissions and studies have shown that it is getting better all the time,” said Jen McGraw, climate change program director at the Center for Neighborhood Technology, a think-tank that focuses on sustainability issues like transportation and community development.
McGraw said that although she feels optimistic about where transit is headed, there are still a lot of variables that can affect the efficiency of public transportation. When it comes to trains, for example, a drop in occupancy can drive down efficiency.
“When you have fewer people riding a vehicle, then you are decreasing the efficiency,” McGraw said, adding that Chicago’s El runs at about 36 percent occupancy and the electricity use per vehicle is less efficient than the national average.
Though the El system is run by clean electric energy, it shares a power grid with pollution-heavy coal plants. “There’s a lot of room for growth in Chicago’s train system,” McGraw said.
According to a report released last year by the Federal Transit Authority, a division of the Department of Transportation, heavy rail transit like subways and metros lead all public transportation systems in the amount of greenhouse gas emissions saved per rider. Heavy rail transit systems produce 76 percent less in emissions per passenger mile than an average single-occupancy vehicle, the report said.
In order to maximize efficiency of trains, cities must keep occupancy up—something that Chicago need to focus more on. Making train information more readily available, updating bus and train tracker mobile applications and keeping transit safe, comfortable and clean are just some of the ways cities can increase ridership, McGraw said.
People often associate convenience with driving their own personal cars to work, but traffic jams, parking issues and getting lost can make the journey via car more of an annoyance than a luxury.
“We’ve been seeing more commercials lately showing people reading their Kindle on the train,” McGraw said. “That’s something you just can’t do when you’re sitting in traffic.”
Jack Kruszewski, 24, rides the Purple Line everyday and says he likes the forced downtime.
“It lets me zone out before school and after school,” he said. “It’s pretty convenient. If I miss one, another one comes five or ten minutes later. And it runs late so I don’t have to worry about what time I go home.”
He said saving money on parking and gas are the main reasons he chooses to commute on the El.
So let someone else do the work while you commute. After all, trains can only keep their straight A marks in efficiency if people actually ride them.
