By Claudia Ward–de León
I live in rural New England, a place where driving a car is my only option if I need to get to a doctor, a specialty store like a hardware or sporting goods shop, or to visit friends or family. A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, Freedom to Move: Investing in Transportation Choices for a Clean, Prosperous, and Just Future, finds that this status quo, this dependence on personal vehicles in towns like mine across the United States, is inequitable and expensive, and that inaction is not only costly for our wallets, but also for our bodies and our planet.
Were we to transform our current transportation system to one that prioritizes people instead of highways, could that have a positive impact on climate change, access to transit for all, and economic opportunity? The new analysis examines those questions.
Our results show that moving away from the United States’ outdated transportation system to one with more alternatives to driving could reap enormous benefits: over the next 25 years, the nation could meet its climate targets while saving up to $201 billion in reduced energy infrastructure costs, $355 billion in reduced spending on gasoline, and $128 billion in reduced health costs, as well as thousands of lives saved due to better air quality. In addition, we found that creating more alternatives to driving would allow the country to reach net-zero heat-trapping emissions by 2050 more efficiently, while also making it easier for everyone to get around.
Kevin Shen, a transportation policy analyst and advocate at UCS and co-author of the report, says, “We cannot make progress on mitigating climate change without a transformation in the way we get around. That means expanding public transit options and making it more convenient and safer to navigate our communities by biking, walking, or rolling, a term that includes using wheelchairs, strollers, scooters, and more. This is in addition to making vehicle charging more accessible at home, work, and across communities so more of us can confidently switch to electric vehicles.”
The report findings and Shen’s words ring true for me and my personal experience with transportation. I’ve spent time living in both transit deserts and in places where an abundance of transportation options were right outside my door.
BIG CITIES AND SMALL TOWNS
BOTH HAVE NEEDS
Boarding the bus with my grandmother for a trip to the market is one of my earliest memories. I remember the rising sun illuminating her faded coin purse, the metallic sound of the coins as she fished for the right fare. The smell of freshly laundered clothes and aftershave drifting through the aisles of the bus, and the rumbling of the bus as the driver shifted to a different gear. We didn’t ride another bus together for nearly a decade; I emigrated to the United States, and she remained in Central America. For the bulk of my childhood and teenage years I got around in cars.
That’s because the US suburbs where I grew up lacked reliable public transportation. When I moved to Boston in my 20s, I sold my car within the first few weeks of moving and was blissfully car-free for about 10 years. Within the first year, I had my preferred bus route for getting home. I knew which subway station was closest to each touristy spot when I had out-of-town visitors, and I knew what time the last train left so I could get home on the cheap from a Saturday night out with friends. I had become one of the freshly laundered workers who relied on transit to get me to and from work every day.
Then the pandemic upended life.
We cannot build our way out of the mess that is transportation in this country by laying more asphalt. We need a transformation in the way we move people and goods around the country.
I moved away from Boston and its high rents to a more rural area with greater access to green space. Today, as a remote worker, I am fortunate enough to not have far to go within a given week. The decisionmakers tasked with town planning had the foresight to create a town center where a grocery store, post office, library, movie theater, family-owned hardware store, and a handful of coffee shops and restaurants are all within a 10-minute walk from home. Unfortunately, this kind of intentional planning isn’t the case for many rural towns, where access to a car and the ability to drive are a lifeline to groceries, health care, and social contact. And despite the great planning and a regional bus line with a handful of in-town stops every hour, I’m sad to report my car-free days have come to an end: the bus cannot get me to all the places I need to go.
Looking back at all those subway and bus rides and additional miles I logged on my bike and on foot in my 20s and 30s is an interesting exercise, both from a financial perspective and from a climate activism perspective. Not only was I able to save money normally spent on insurance, parking, and maintenance (about $12,000 annually in today’s dollars, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics), but in just one year of using public transportation to get to and from work, I avoided nearly 2,400 miles of driving. In 10 years: 24,000 miles. Multiply that by all the commuters I shared a train with, and the numbers are truly impactful.
Yes, there were bus delays and broken air conditioners on subway cars that made some commutes sticky and uncomfortable, but the multitude of urban transportation choices helped make my car-free life work. I always got to where I needed, saved money, and lowered my personal share of heat-trapping emissions.
In light of the UCS findings, I think about what would happen if Boston and other US cities invested even more in transit? What would public health outcomes be for predominantly Black and Brown communities if their schools, homes, and playgrounds were no longer next to smoggy, noisy high-ways? How would the lives of those of us living in rural areas change if we had more expansive bus service, convenient and thriving Main Streets, and our shuttered rail stations once again became viable links to important destinations? What if every public library, truck stop, shopping center, and parking garage had a bank of high-speed electric vehicle chargers?
MOVING BEYOND THE FREEWAY
“The way we transport people and goods is unsustainable. We cannot build our way out of the mess that is transportation in this country by laying more asphalt,” says Shen. He and co-author David Cooke, senior vehicles analyst at UCS, found that the huge investments the United States has made in expanding highways have increased traffic and transportation-related pollution, to the benefit of the oil and auto industries—all while leaving few options for communities and non-drivers other than car ownership and its expensive costs.
“The good news is the technology is already available to lower the heat-trapping emissions produced by moving people and goods across the country. We know what we need to do,” says Shen.
Transportation is one of the areas where the right policies, infrastructure, and individual choices can make a significant impact on climate change, not to mention the impact they can make on improving livelihoods and lives—including health outcomes. For someone like me who has lived in both rural and urban areas and who has experienced both an abundance and a dearth of transportation options, it is clear that we need to act now to make sure decisionmakers put climate and equity considerations at the heart of transportation policy and infrastructure decisions.
Claudia Ward–de Leó́n is a communications strategist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Source: ucsusa.org, Catalyst Magazine, Fall 2024