A sustainable future for the world has to reduce car usage, increase walking, biking and transit ridership. Correctly pricing carbon will be key to making this happen.
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Civil disobedience and public-transportation
My friend Heather Ferguson of Chicago Transit Authority circulated a picture from Chicago Tribune, a couple of days ago. To illustrate how taxing the previous week had been for her thanks to the NATO summit in Chicago. Protesters and police came together - although not to make peace - on or around public transportation.
Which got me thinking. Growing up in India, I was always confronted with images in the newspapers, and sometimes within the field of vision, of buses burning. Burnt, because they represented a state the the protestors were protesting against. Which is funny. I am all for protesting. But, public transportation should not be an object of hatred, especially not for mass-movements. Because they provide mass-movement. Even in the most dysfunctional states, public transportation is usually a sign of the state doing some good for the bulk of its citizenry.
I was, unfortunately, able to find endless pictures of people’s wrath being focused on public transportation. Of the state taking safe-guarding measures, as they feared destruction of public-transportation by angry citizens.
So here is a selection of images of one kind or another - i.e. public transportation being vandalized by angry, may I say unthinking, mobs and entire strength of the law and order machine being brought to bear to protect transit. Images are from Chicago, of course, Teheran, Karachi, Bangkok and Indian Kashmir.
Department of Kewl 3: Putting the Mass back into Mass-Transportation
You have probably seen this or some version of this video online. As you can tell from the shot, tourists actually flock to Maekong train-track market to film this. I am forever amazed at the ingenuity of people with not much be ingenious with.
The clip that I am posting combines two of my great loves, transit and food. In the best possible way. With Bourdain providing commentary. No reservations on mass-transportation.
I just made another trip across the north American continent on public transportation. From end to end. V1 had originated from La Guardia, so involved more buses than trains. This trip to San Francisco was all about subways! On both coasts. Started with the F train in Manhattan, a change to the E in Queens, then to the Air-Train in Jamaica. A jetBlue flight. Then an Air BART bus ride from Oakland Airport (where they are building rail access) to Coliseum, to MacArthur BART station and thence to my friends’ townhouse.
Rachel Northrop of Manhattan Green Examiner, examines MTA’s greeness and is pleasantly surprised! Rachel finds the challenges of a hundred year old piece of infrastructure being the engine of sustainability for the largest metropolitan region in the United States, substantial. And shows great appreciation for what the MTA has to do on an ongoing basis.
2 weeks ago
The Earth Day Report:
Every Earthday, April 22nd, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority(disclaimer: I work as the MTA’s Director of Sustainability Initiatives), comes out with a sustainability report. This year we focused on carbon. Turns out every MTA trip prevents 10.4 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions from entering the atmosphere. In the net that adds up to 17 million metric tons. Very likely, making the MTA the single largest carbon-cutter in the United States.
I find myself using the Bleecker Street / Broadway-Lafayette station very often. Due to the legacy of the system, one line is among the oldest - built by the Interboro Rapid Transit (IRT) and the other is relatively new - built by the Independent (IND) Transit Company, a passenger could connect from the southbound IRT 6 train to the IND lines B,D,F and M, but not if you were on the northbound 6. For the past year and half, the northbound 6 platform has been “pushed” south to match up with the southbound platform. And a the IND mezzanine has been “pushed” east to make that connection. A little more about the project here and here.
Department of Kewl 2: Ist that jet engine on top of a train?
Staying with the M-497 Blackbeetle. A fascinating experiment on rails that - a thinking outside the box exercise - that could only happen in another era. In this case 1966. There is a lot of documentation on this, including a wikipedia entry here and another article at “Dark roast blend”, self professedly about “weird and wonderful things”, here. NY Central, the railroad responsible for all this experimentation and the predecessor of MTA Metro North Railroad, among others, unfortunately was a fighting an uphill battle against sagging ridership esp on its longer hauls.
This was, of course, during the Cold War. So whatever happened in the US, had to find reflection (or equally, the other way around) in the USSR. A couple of pictures above document the Russian experiment. Their poster, I find, to be the most compelling image. It has a little legend going down the side, with what I think is a MiG 17 as the top item.
The French too got into the act, marrying the idea with another futuristic vision of railways - the monnorail. Doubly doomed, therefore, to not finding everyday application. High-speed rail has moved in a very different direction. Platforms like the TGV, or Siemen’s Velaro (underlying the German, Spanish, Chinese and Russian HS systems), routinely top the ~180 mph record set by the M 497. But they do so, by following the Japanese lead. Lighter cars, a great dependence on near perfect track alignment, more efficient electric motors, i.e. lots of small, hard-to-perfect perfections in lots of components. Rather than a mega new idea of transforming propulsion.
We just came out with our “carbon report” for 2012 last Sunday Earthday. Turns out every ride that you take on the MTA, helps avoid 10.5 pounds (about 4.5 kgs) of carbon dioxide emissions. Thats a lot. An average week’s worth of rides (about 21) can save the carbon footprint of an iPad. Production, transportation, life-time use. Everything.
PS: The title of this post links to the report. If this floats your boat, like it does mine, enjoy!
Starting this Friday, a couple of days before Earth Day, I am going to post under the Department of Kewl sign. Of things that are public transportation related, but super cool. Starting with this experimental train that holds the speed record for passenger-rail in the US. It was set in 1966. Part 1 is the video. A second part with images, links and explanations, to follow.
Ironically, this experiment happened on New York Central, the precursor of the MTA’s Metro-North Railroad.
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