Transportation: Lots of Room for Improvement
Transportation is responsible for nearly a third of our greenhouse gas emissions, and is responsible for a number of other negative environmental impacts. The entire space used up by roads and parking in the U.S. is the size of the entire state of West Virginia. SUVs and pickup trucks are the top-selling autos in our nation. They are not the most fuel-efficient.
“The average American car weighs close to two tons. You need two tons of steel and plastic and glass to make that car.” – Vaclav Smil, scientist and policy analyst
Cruise ships, private jets and yachts represent nonessential and profligate burning of fossil fuels and emission of CO2. The richest 1 percent of the global population is responsible for half of aviation emissions. These are not the behaviors of a people in an overshoot emergency. So transportation policy will figure prominently in our National Project to End Overshoot.
“The city of Paris has made enormous investments in public transit, built hundreds of miles of bike paths, and closed many streets to cars. Car trips within the city dropped by almost sixty per cent between 2001 and 2018, car crashes dropped by thirty per cent, and pollution improved. The city is quieter and calmer; test scores go up as the air around schools cleans up. Underground parking garages have been converted into warehouse space and mushroom farms. So, serious change is possible—France has even banned some airplane trips between cities that are less than two and a half hours apart by train.” – Bill McKibben, environmental journalist
Our transportation policy will:
- Implement programs and incentives to convert our car culture into a culture of active transportation (walking, bicycling, public transportation)
- This includes grants and other support for making our cities more pedestrian and bicycle-friendly
- It also includes grants and other support to electrify and expand low-energy public transportation
- Eliminate all subsidies of fossil fuels and fossil-fuel powered transport
- Implement a 55 mph speed limit on interstate highways (this vastly increases fuel efficiency)
- Immediately curtail all nonessential air travel by employees of the federal government
- Immediately curtail all nonessential military activities that burn fossil fuels – such as demonstration shows by the Air Force Thunderbirds and the Navy Blue Angels
- Eliminate all nonessential presidential travel (Air Force One has an embarrassing cost and carbon footprint)
- Implement aggressive taxes, fees and other signals to discourage purchase and operation of luxury transportation that wastes energy, especially fossil fuels – private aviation, yachts, cruises
- Implement taxes or fees to disincentivize air travel, especially that which is frequent or recreational
LEARN MORE
The Road to Nowhere
Why is it so difficult to rein in car culture?
Carmageddon – by Daniel Knowles
Paved Paradise – by Henry Grabar
Should I Stop Flying? It’s a Difficult Decision to Make – by Kate Siber
1% of People Cause Half of Global Aviation Emissions – Study