How public transport helps the environment
Hanging up your car keys is one of the best ways to reduce air pollution and global warming. You can walk or ride a bicycle, or use public transportation for longer trips. Doing so will help you reduce the amount of greenhouse gases and pollution you produce every day. Transportatoin makes up over thirty percent of all carbon dioxide emissions in the US, and public transportation saves almost one and a half billion gallons of gasoline and almost two million tons of carbon dioxide per year.
Using public transportation has numerous other environmental benefits. If just one in ten people used it every day, the United States' dependence on foreign oil would decline by forty percent. Riding a public bus is seventy-nine times safer than driving a car; riding a subway is even safer. Those using public transportation on a regular basis tend to be more healthy than those who do not, due to the exercise they get walking to and from subway stations, bus stops, and destinations. Families that use public transportation can trim expenses by over $6,000 per year.
The main barrier keeping more people from using public transportation is its lack of availability in many areas. Most people in smaller towns and rural areas can't use it. To get more people to use public transportation and help the environment, localities need to convince those who have access to it to use it more often, and there need to be more public transport options in smaller towns.
Of all modes of public transportation, trains are the most efficient. They usually emit less carbon and use less fuel than buses, but rail systems are much more costly to build. Many of the advantages of train use can be tempered by using buses that run on CNG (compressed natural gas) or those that use hybrid technology. Another idea is rapid bus transit; this system uses long buses and dedicated travel lanes. Used in a medium-sized US city, such a system could lower carbon emissions by 650,000 tons over the course of two decades.
If you have access to public transportation, you are very fortunate. Do something for the planet- park your car and take the train or the bus. If you do not have access to public transportation, talk to your city or state's elected officials about how beneficial it is, and how it can help to mitigate many of the environmental issues of today.