Transit and Climate Change
By Ryan McGreal
Published December 06, 2005
(Earlier, I posted a copy of a letter I sent to Council on the city staff recommendation that HSR raise its fares by 15 cents. Here's another take from Environment Hamilton.)
Dear Councillors,
Please vote against a fare increase.
The recommended option would add 15 cents to the fares and $40 to the senior's annual pass. The staff report from HSR says that such an increase will "result in an estimated permanent loss of 780,000 passenger trips annually". These passengers will presumably seek private transit of some kind - and lead to more cars on the road.
The increase in bus fares has implications for air quality and climate change. In the last few months, some very disturbing scientific findings have been released. These include:
- A record 40 smog days in Hamilton
- Calculations already that 2005 is the hottest year on record
- A recent report of 30% decrease in the flow of the Gulf Stream towards Europe
- Rapidly decreasing ice cover in the arctic that is reported to have "passed the point of no return"
- Thawing of a million square kilometres of permafrost peat bog in Siberia that could release billions of tonnes of methane, a potent greenhouse gas
- Reports that Antarctic ice sheets are slipping much more rapidly into the sea
- Reports that carbon levels in soil are dropping in the UK enough to cancel out cuts in CO2 emissions This is apparently another positive feedback mechanism
- An Atlantic hurricane season that has broken records for numbers of named storms, intensity of storms and insured damages incurred.
Some cities in North America, such as Seattle, have free transit in their downtowns, which decongests the roads and keeps the air clean. People who travel by public transit create 65 percent fewer GHG emissions than if they travel by car.
We need to be encouraging, not deterring, our city from riding the bus.
Ryan McGreal, the editor of Raise the Hammer, lives in Hamilton with his family and works as a programmer, writer and consultant. Ryan volunteers with Hamilton Light Rail, a citizen group dedicated to bringing light rail transit to Hamilton. Ryan wrote a city affairs column in Hamilton Magazine, and several of his articles have been published in the Hamilton Spectator. His articles have also been published in The Walrus, HuffPost and Behind the Numbers. He maintains a personal website, has been known to share passing thoughts on Twitter and Facebook, and posts the occasional cat photo on Instagram.
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