Climate-resilient public transport is essential to meet our climate goals and ensure mobility for vulnerable communities.
In September, New York City was great flooded of Hurricane Ida that some passengers waded through water up to their waists just to get in and out of the subway station. Across the country, extreme heat swept the West Coast, melting power lines on the streets of Portland. This summer will see similar headlines, with heat waves damaging BART train tracks in San Francisco and sudden rain disrupted Northeastern flights.
These extreme weather events, made worse and more frequent by climate change, pose a problem for millions of Americans who rely on public transit to get to and from work, school, grocery stores, hospitals, and social services. events. According to Maria Sipin, former Transportation Justice Fellow of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), public transit is a “lifeline” for many groups of people who are already facing disproportionate challenges due to historical discrimination or marginalization. People with disabilities, residents of low-income communities, and Black and Brown communities are less likely to have access to a car, are more likely to live farther from their jobs, and are more likely to be dependent on public transportation for their trips (in part thanks to the legacy of redlining and continued disinvestment in minority neighborhoods). When severe weather affects public transport, it has the potential to deepen inequalities.
It also threatens the country’s ability to meet its climate goals: Transportation is responsible for 27% of carbon pollution in the US, and public transit is an important tool for lowering emissions. If train and bus services are disrupted due to severe weather, people may turn to more energy-efficient ways of getting around, creating a negative feedback loop that will fuel global warming that causes interruptions in the first place.
“Transportation is the largest source of emissions in the United States, and 85% of it comes from people driving themselves in private cars,” said Alex Engel, NACTO’s senior communications manager.
Although the transition of private drivers from fossil fuel-burning vehicles to electric vehicles has attracted a lot of attention and is poised to receive a significant boost from the federal government through the Inflation Reduction Act, the constant neglected public transit will remain critical to achieving climate goals.
“A bus, even if it is powered by diesel, is a better climate solution and contributes less emissions than a private car—even if the car is an EV,” Engel said. .
So what can cities and transit agencies do to ensure that public transit remains a viable option for riders, even as climate change-induced extreme weather accelerates? The answers are as varied as the transit agencies themselves, but many point to methods that provide more co-benefits.
Some of the most obvious solutions are structural. “Subway lines in many cities around the US are very vulnerable to flooding,” said Yonah Freemark, senior research fellow at the Urban Institute. This is especially true in the New York area, where 40% of the nation’s public transit riders live, according to Kate Slevin of the Regional Plan Association (RPA). That means it’s important to address any potential entry points where water can enter the system, whether from seawater, as seen in New York City in the case of Hurricane Sandy, or from excessive rainfall, such as in the case of Hurricane Ida.
Since Sandy, New York has invested $2.6 billion in a wide range of permanent protective measures, including gates that close behind subway ventilation grates and raised barriers around subway entrances. subway-think of a lip around the edge of a subway stairway that riders would walk over before getting off. -so that the water does not come out. In the case of severe storms, temporary measures, such as inflatable dams blocking subway entrances, can also be implemented.
Although rail tends to dominate conversations about travel, just as many trips take place by bus as by train in the US, according to the American Public Transportation Association. From Engel’s perspective, that means climate adaptation should include building high-quality bus shelters that protect passengers from the elements in extreme heat and storms.
Sipin added that ensuring equal access to public transportation also means that infrastructure leading to and from train stations or bus stops is accessible and well maintained. When sidewalks are poorly paved, curb ramps are not prioritized, and bike lanes are not protected, the riders who need public transit the most—the visually impaired, wheelchair users , or anyone who lives far from the places they need to go—may not be able to get to and from public transportation stations safely.
“I think it’s often overlooked, because commuting and walking and bicycling and wheelchair use aren’t always focused on together,” Sipin said. “It may not be sexy or new, but basic investments can go a long way.”
Of course, all these measures cost money, and Freemark says that adequate funding is a significant barrier to building climate-resilient infrastructure. Slevin touted New York’s proposed congestion pricing program, which, once implemented, would charge motorists a toll to enter Manhattan’s most congested streets and use the money to fund MTA repairs , as a way to solve the issue of limited funding.
“The congestion pricing plan will raise a billion dollars annually, and 100% of this revenue will go back into the transit system,” Slevin said.
Other cities have adopted different approaches. Rob Freudenberg, RPA’s VP of energy and environment, described Philadelphia, which gets an average of 47 inches of rain per year, as a leader in dealing with stormwater. Part of the city’s strategy is to charge properties for stormwater management, he said. In addition to giving the city more money to solve the issue, developers are encouraged to incorporate green infrastructure and water conservation into their building designs through exemptions and discounts, which help reduce the problem from in the beginning.
Planting trees, creating bioswales (which use landscaping to absorb storm runoff), and otherwise greening streets can also help with public transport flooding, as plants and soil absorb water. which cannot be done in concrete. And while extreme heat may require different management than flooding, greening the streets offers a solution in both cases: Shade from plants can reduce temperatures by up to 45 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the EPA. A temperature difference that large could have prevented San Francisco’s BART train from being partially delayed due to this summer’s extreme heat. And if planting a tree canopy is not possible to reduce the temperature, other solutions, such as painting the train tracks white to keep the heat away, can.
Slevin says the most robust solutions cannot be implemented by a single agency. A transit agency can better prevent subways from flooding if the sanitation department keeps drains clean of debris and if the parks department maximizes parkland’s ability to absorb excess water, etc. yet.
“There is a coordination needed to meet this challenge, because it is all connected,” he said.
But the upside is that the solutions can be interconnected as well. Congestion pricing can put money into a cashless transit system while also reducing air and traffic pollution. Greening streets can lower temperatures, absorb excess floodwater, and improve air quality. The climate-controlled bus shelters make the bus ride more comfortable. And all of the above—anything that makes public transit safer, more accessible, or more fun to use—ultimately helps combat climate change.
“It’s amazing how much you can reduce emissions by making travel a more convenient option,” Engel said.
This article is a co-publication between Next City and Nexus Media News and made possible by a grant from the Open Society Foundations. It is republished here with permission.
