[The report Public Transportation's Contribution to Greenhouse Gas Reduction, from the American Public Transportation Association, covers some of the same ground. -Ed.]

by Ross Capon, Executive Director, National Association of Railroad Passengers

Art Guzzetti of the American Public Transportation Association gave the shortest presentation at a recent Washington conference, but one with the most relevance to public transit advocates.

He asked, "How much oil does transit save?"

Answer: the equivalent of 300,000 gas station fill-ups daily, or 34 supertankers leaving the Middle East 11 days (34 in a year), or total U.S. imports from Kuwait in a year. But that’s just direct savings. Multiply by a factor of three to reflect indirect benefits, such as the more energy-efficient, denser real estate development that transit enables.

"By how much does transit reduce carbon emissions?" Transit directly saves 6.9 million metric tons annually. Taking into account indirect savings, this number jumps to 37 million metric tons.

He also noted that, in a typical household, just one person switching their commute from automobile to transit would reduce the carbon footprint of that household by 10%. And if that household is able to get by with one less car overall, the carbon footprint of that household will be reduced 30%. There are few household choices that have an impact of this magnitude.

The conference was the "First Transportation Convention," held March 5-7 in Washington, DC. The conference was organized by the City of Irving, Texas, "as an extension of the annual Transportation Summit held in August" in Texas.

Photo credit: M. Jeremy Goldman