Exciting news in Wisconsin! Carbon dioxide emissions are down 4% from Jan-June this past year! High gas prices have people driving less than ever before and the results are pretty impressive. The only way to convince people to drive less it seems is to make it cost more.
But another way to keep those emissions down and allow human mobility is to bolster support for public transportation. Everyone knows they’ll save money by buying a bus pass instead of a car–but how many areas have good mass transit options? Unfortunately, driving is the only option for most people.
Instead of dumping money into our nation’s infrastructure of highways and roads, perhaps more funding should be allocated to mass transit systems. It seems like an obvious solution to an obvious problem.
It’s also the obvious solution to the obvious problems facing an aging nation–the Baby Boomers are aging and in a short time they’ll be more dependent than ever on public transportation. (It’s only a matter of time before Enviro-Girl and Co. have to wrestle her mother-in-law to the ground and take away her driver’s license for everyone’s safety! But MIL lives in rural Iowa–how is she to get groceries, get to appointments, get to church? Excellent question without an excellent answer.) In the short run and in the long run, public transportation is a viable solution for American communities.
Do people think this issue is important? This survey indicates it is.
Let’s take a look at what the lobbyists thinkat Maplight.org.
And what do the candidates think? After many online searches, Enviro-Girl couldn’t find out. She learned that Hillary Clinton was the only presidential candidate who mentioned increasing funding for public transportation–otherwise, at the federal level, nobody’s talking about this issue.
Enviro-Girl urges her fellow activists to put this topic right smack in the middle of the table by contacting their local, state and federal legislators and telling them that the better solution to our transportation woes is public transportation. If you’re a tree hugger, you need to make a bigger issue of this. The sooner we get on the bus, the better.
My dad (63 last Friday) loves his bus pass, he got it when he was 60 and he is still working so he loves that he gets on the bus for free to go to work every morning.
When I was a teenager in Indianapolis, during summers when I got in trouble, my punishment was often having my car keys taken off of me and being forced to take the bus (complete with the mile walk needed to get to the bus stop) to go to my diving lessons.
Now, as a 30-something adult, I live in Australia and love public transport. My home is 200 metres from the train station and a bus stop is out my front door.
My parents still live a mile away from the bus stop. During a recent conversation with my mother, I have learned that my dad is now forced into taking the bus to work daily because they can no longer afford the petrol for regular use of both vehicles.
Part of me finds this hilarious. The other part of me is pleased that they are contributing to fewer emissions, even if their hand was forced.
I love public transportation, but my town’s bus system isn’t a wide-ranging as I’d like it to be. Once we move, however, we’ll have more options.
I am seeing far more people on bikes around town these days, which I think is great. And, my husband has biked to work for years. Eight miles round trip up and down some mighty big hills.
Every cloud has a silver lining. I just hope that if gas prices go back down, people don’t go straight back to their old habits of driving everywhere. My city just expanded the bus route that goes past my house. It used to run just once every hour, making it difficult to use for commuting. Now it runs twice per hour–still not very much, but a vast improvement.