Tag: Environmental Justice

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An Argument for Free Mass Transit

In my hometown of New York City, there has been increased attention lately on the issue of fare evasion—when someone seeks to avoid paying the fare required to get on a bus or subway train.

I made a tweet on social media pointing out that an easy way to get rid of fare evasion is to get rid of fares. Tweets aside though, I really think mass transit should be free, and there are some compelling arguments in favor of it.

Chief among them is the environment. If we really want to do all we can to take care of the environment, there needs to be more mass transit, better mass transit, and more incentive to take mass transit. Why? Because driving a car results in significantly more CO2 emissions per trip per mile than mass transit—either bus or rail.[1] This is another way of saying that driving a car is significantly worse for the environment than using public transportation. By making public transit free, especially in a time when driving is getting more expensive due to soaring gas prices, we are adding an incentive for people to ditch vehicles that are bad for an environment that desperately needs to be taken better care of by us as human beings.

Speaking of expensiveness, free public transport would create a means of getting around that even the poorest people in the working class can afford. This is not currently the case, which is a part of why some people are so poor that they can’t afford to get jobs.[2] After all, it costs money to drive to and from a job interview (let alone work), and currently with most public transportation, it costs money (for some, too much money) to take a bus or a train to and from a job interview or work. And then there are many others for whom the money used on a daily basis for public transit means money not spent on other basic necessities, such as food or paying off certain bills. Free public transit eliminates the potential barrier to a job for some, and the difficult choice of having to choose between paying for public transit and paying certain key bills for others.

There is a third argument in favor of public transit that should get highlighted, though: it means that government resources don’t have to be used on addressing fare evasion. There are some cities, such as mine, that are using government resources, such as more police officers in subway stations, in order to try and address fare evasion. However, if there are no fares to evade, then critical police (and government) resources can be directed in other, hopefully more productive, ways than trying to catch someone who didn’t pay $2.75 at a subway turnstile. I wasn’t joking when I said on social media that one easy way to eliminate fare evasion entirely is to eliminate fares entirely.

By this point in my post, you may be thinking the following: “Brendan, this sounds nice, but who’s going to pay for this?” Each person will have a different take, but personally, I think we should start with people who could take mass transit yet drive instead. Currently, mass transit is at least partially paid for on the backs of fares that need to be paid regardless of how wealthy or poor you are. What this means is that someone who is homeless can at least in theory find themselves needing to pay a fare to get on mass transit—something that shouldn’t sit right with anyone. After all, doesn’t that sound like knocking someone when they are down? Which, perhaps, is what having to pay a fare for mass transit in the first place does to so many of us.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200317-climate-change-cut-carbon-emissions-from-your-commute

[2] I wrote a blog post on this issue: https://blindinjusticeblog.com/2019/11/18/some-people-are-so-poor-they-cant-afford-to-get-jobs/

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On Plastic Bag Bans, From an Environmental Perspective

A couple years ago, a ban on single-use plastic bags came into effect in my home state of New York to much fanfare. Now that this ban has been theoretically[1] in effect in my home state for a couple of years now, and now that several other states and municipalities have enacted similar bans over the past several years,[2] I think it is time to honestly evaluate plastic bag bans from an environmental perspective.

I should start by saying that single-use plastics are not what I, or anyone else who cares about the environment, should advocate for. Environmental advocates point out that single-use plastic bags are bad for the environment in a multitude of ways, ranging from impacts on the climate to harming our wildlife.[3] A status quo of single-use, non-recyclable plastic bags (or single-use bags of any kind, for that matter) is simply not sustainable for ourselves, our fellow animals, or our planet in the long-term.

However, when one looks at the environmental impacts of reusable bags, the reality is more complicated than one may realize. Columbia University’s Climate School noted that bags designed to last longer “are made of heavier materials, so they use more resources in production and therefore have greater environmental impacts.”[4] Therefore, bags designed to be reusable need to be reused many times over in order to have a climate footprint equivalent to our traditional single-use plastic bag brethren—50 to 150 times for a cotton bag, 10-20 times for a durable polypropylene (PP) bag, and 5-10 times for a somewhat less durable but still reusable polyethylene (PE) bag.[5]

But, there is a catch—as the United Nations Environment Programme noted, in order to have cotton bags, PP bags, and PE bags with an equivalent environmental footprint to single-use plastic bags, people need to keep on reusing the bags, and the bags themselves need to be durable. Unfortunately, a problem that my family, as well as people around me, have run into is that some bags are not very durable and have a tendency to fall apart before using the bag the number of times we need to in order to make them even environmentally equivalent to single-use plastic bags. I know some people who have used certain reusable plastic bags at least once a week (if not more than that) for years now, in which case the bags they’ve used have ended up being better for the environment than single-use plastic bags. However, I also know some people who’ve seen reusable bags fall apart after being used only on a few occasions.

While I would still not advocate for single-use plastic bags, unfortunately the reality of reusable bags is that it is questionable whether they are better for the environment than the single-use ones. Before drawing conclusions about the overall environmental footprint of various reusable bags in relation to single-use ones, I would personally first like to see how long the average cotton bag, PP bag, and PE bag lasts. If they don’t last the requisite number of times to have an environmental footprint equivalent to single-use plastic bags, then perhaps our traditional plastic bags that we get (or used to get) at grocery stores, as bad as they are, may yet be better for the environment than the reusable bags we’ve resorted to in some municipalities and states.

I will leave my readers with one last thought, a thought that might actually be the inspiration of a future blog post: just because something is reusable doesn’t automatically mean that the thing is good for the environment.

[1] I say “theoretically” because enforcement on the ban has been shaky at best. Here’s a news story about these issues with enforcement: https://www.thecity.nyc/environment/2021/7/26/22595273/nyc-plastic-bag-ban-violators-getting-away-with-breaking-law

[2] The National Conference of State Legislatures notes the states and notable municipalities with various plastic bag bans and fees: https://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resources/plastic-bag-legislation.aspx

[3] https://www.nrdc.org/stories/single-use-plastics-101

[4] https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/04/30/plastic-paper-cotton-bags/

[5] https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/31932/SUPB.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

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Transit and the Environment

An Amtrak train

A couple years ago, I traveled to see one of my best friends get married. That was a special day for me, seeing one of my best friends marry the love of his life.

The day before and the day after the wedding, the train ride I took was very pretty. However, I experienced and learned more about how second-rate of a train “system” Amtrak, the intercity/interstate passenger rail system we have in the United States, really is.

My experience was interesting, to say the least. I was obsessed about making my train in good time because this was the only train going between New York City and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (my destination). My Pittsburgh-bound train was delayed, by as much as forty minutes at one point, because we were stuck behind two freight trains—something that wouldn’t happen if Amtrak owned its own tracks and therefore had control over which trains travelled through and when. The café car on the way back to New York had food about twice as expensive as fast food at a highway exit (and less edible than McDonald’s).

Then, there was what I learned before, during, and after my train ride. Before the train ride, I already knew that some major cities in the United States, such as Las Vegas, Nevada and Nashville, Tennessee, do not have any train service. During my visit, I learned that Pittsburgh, a city of about 300,000 people, had only three train departures a day at the time: one that left for Chicago at 11:59 PM, one that left for Washington, D.C. at 5:20 AM, and one that left for New York at 7:30 AM (the train I took back to New York).  And since my train ride, I’ve learned that it’s actually quite common for trains to be delayed because Amtrak does not own many of the tracks it provides service on, therefore creating a situation where they are often stuck behind freight trains and delayed by many minutes.

It’s as if Americans are being actively discouraged to take commuter rail. And that is horrendous for the environment.

The largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States is transit.[1] These greenhouse gases, which trap heat and help make the planet warmer, make our air toxic and contribute to global warming.[2] Considering the fact that transit is the number one cause of these emissions, it is appalling that transit’s role in damaging the environment, as well as the role it needs to play in helping the environment, seems to get discussed relatively little.

But how should discussions on transportation and the environment start? I have a few ideas:

  1. It must be recognized that transportation is a major reason why our air is dirty and the environment is not in the shape that it should be. As I said before, transit is the biggest emitter in greenhouse gases, and until we recognize that, transit won’t be a factor that is considered seriously when reviewing environmental policies.
  2. If the United States is serious about cutting transit emissions, the country must prioritize mass transit over cars and airplanes. Study after study shows that buses and trains are way better for the environment than cars and airplanes. Yes, ultimately there need to be disincentives for driving and flying within the lower 48 states,[3] but if you’re in Las Vegas and have zero Amtrak service, then your only options for intercity travel are either a car or an airplane. There need to be greater disincentives for driving within cities, but if public transportation does not take you to where you want to go, then you have to drive.
  3. Municipalities should make their areas easier to walk or ride a bike. The city kid in me always used to give a bemused chuckle when I heard people talk about needing to drive everywhere, even if it’s three minutes away, because they couldn’t walk anywhere. That needs to change. By making spaces easier for pedestrians and cyclists to navigate, we can cut down on the countless three-minute drives to schools, grocery stores, doctors, etc., that wouldn’t be necessary with good pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure.
  4. We need cars and planes to burn less in the way of greenhouse gases. While cars and planes are so damaging to the environment, some people will still need to use cars and/or planes to function personally and/or professionally. Policy looking to reduce greenhouse gases coming from transit should look to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that come from a car or a plane.[4]

After reading all of this, readers can see why I’m so mad about the state of Amtrak and public transportation in the United States in general. Sound environmental policy would work on building Amtrak into a world-class system, work on building other public transport infrastructure, and improve infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists. Sadly, the United States currently does the opposite—it makes environmentally friendly modes of transport as slow, unreliable, expensive, miserable, and in the case of walking and riding a bicycle, as unsafe as possible. Hopefully, with Earth Day having recently happened, and with a concrete proposal on the table to invest in public transit at the national level,[5] we can push our politicians to advocate for more extensive mass transit in the United States, and push ourselves away from cars and airplanes whenever it is possible to do so.  

[1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions#targetText=The%20largest%20source%20of%20greenhouse,Greenhouse%20Gas%20Emissions%20and%20Sinks.

[2] Yes, I believe in global warming/climate change.

[3] While climate activist Greta Thunberg recently traveled between Europe and the U.S. by a zero-emissions yacht, those travels took a week (I think) and many of us do not have a week to spend in the ocean because of family and/or job commitments. Therefore, airplane still seems to be the most convenient mode of cross-ocean travel, as environmentally unfriendly as that is.

[4] Note that this does not necessarily mean going over to electric cars. Electric cars have their own set of environmental risks, including from the cars’ batteries—something this article talks about: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/10/17/fact-check-electric-cars-emit-less-better-environment/3671468001/

[5] President Biden’s infrastructure plan calls for spending $80 billion to improve passenger rail service: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-biden-infrastructure-mass-transit/analysis-biden-infrastructure-plan-bets-big-on-u-s-return-to-mass-transit-after-covid-19-idUSKBN2BN3O2. I am not enough “in the weeds” of transit policy to know whether this will be enough money to make Amtrak a respectable national rail system, but considering that the amount of fiscal support Biden wants to dedicate to passenger rail dwarves the approximately $2 billion a year Amtrak currently receives in government support (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/09/amtrak-passenger-railroad-needs-up-to-4point9-billion-in-government-funding-ceo-says.html), it’s a proposal worth discussing.

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On Litter and the Coronavirus

The other day, I was struggling to come up with an idea of what to write about for today’s post. It’s not that I lack blogging ideas…It’s just that most of my blogging ideas didn’t feel particularly relevant right now, given what’s going on in the world. And then, I saw this:

Litter in a business area near my home. The photo is from me.

Just as the situation was starting to go downhill in New York City (over a month ago), I said to my younger brother that the coronavirus would bring out both the best and the worst in humanity. And the fact is that images like this, images of massive litter around businesses that have been shuttered for weeks due to the coronavirus, truly bring out some of the worst in humanity. Instead of throwing garbage in a nearby garbage can, it appears that dozens of people have seemingly taken advantage of the closed businesses (and subsequent lack of monitoring of litter) by using the streets as their personal garbage cans for their food wraps, coffee cups, and worse…personal protective equipment (PPE), such as gloves and face masks.

I share this, not because I’m accusing any of my readers of being litterers (my guess is that quite a few of my readers will be horrified with the photo above), but because people need to be aware of the accumulating litter near empty businesses (at least in New York City, because I can’t speak for anywhere else), as well as the subsequent environmental and public health issues that will exist here. There are the environmental issues caused by litter, such as animals mistaking the litter for food and potentially choking on it (and dying from it). But then there’s the public health issue—whoever ends up handling this garbage will have to deal with germs from the PPEs. And at that point, you’re hoping that the germs on the PPEs are not coronavirus germs.

As far as I can tell, this issue of accumulating litter (particularly by the areas near shuttered businesses) is not getting that much media coverage…at least not yet. Given that fact, I think that it’s important to at least raise awareness of this issue on here, so that it is shared with others. It is also important to, if any of us have the opportunity (and if we feel comfortable), say to someone who looks like they are about to litter something along the lines of, “Excuse me, but would you please wait to throw that away until you can put it into a trash can?”

I hope others are doing well, and I certainly hope that none of you are staring at images even half as disgusting as what I have in the image toward the beginning of this post.

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Earth Day 2019: Focusing on Policies that Don’t Intend to Hurt the Environment…But Hurt the Environment Anyway

Sometimes, it’s not easy being green. We are often required to drive to/from work, drive our kids to school, drive to get to other family members’ places, have a job that requires someone to drive…on and on it goes. The bottom line is that even if we don’t want to put more pollution in the air, our living habits are such that we often have no other choice.

And here’s the thing: so many of these things are the result of policies that don’t intend to hurt the environment per se, but do so nevertheless. 

But how? Here’s a list of several policies not intended to hurt the environment, but that hurt the environment anyway:

  1. Approaches to land use have often favored development of car-reliant suburbs over transit-reliant areas. For decades, the focus was (and still is) on building around the highway. One of the most famous examples in the post-World War II era was with parts of Long Island in New York being built around the Long Island Expressway, but there are many other examples of this. Policy that allows for the building of areas that are destined to be mass transit deserts leads to heavy use of the car and heavy pollution.
  2. Poor funding for mass transit means fewer mass transit options, and pushing people towards the car. If there’s no mass transit available to take because of a lack of funding for mass transit, what choice is there other than to drive a pollution-emitting car?
  3. School choice policies mean that kids have to be driven or bused to the schools of their choices. What I say here may be controversial, as school choice sounds great and is popular with many. However, one of the consequences of school choice is that, instead of having to walk to the neighborhood school (especially in urban areas), kids have to be driven to far-away places. No pun intended, but if governmental bureaucrats invested energy into making all schools good, there would be no need for kids to have to be driven for miles, while emitting pollutants into the air.
  4. Speaking of schools, many school districts have school lunches that prominently feature food that emits high levels of greenhouse gases. As things like red meats are a large part of the lunch fare at many schools, school districts are heavily using food that emits high amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Lean meats and vegetables are not only healthier for kids than red meats, but they are healthier for the environment.
  5. We’re not doing enough to make housing affordable. In places like New York City and Washington, DC, people often drive long distances to work because nearby areas are simply not affordable. In short, affordability crises are not just bad for people’s pocketbooks, but bad for the environment because people have to drive to work.
  6. Many municipalities recycle but don’t provide easy access for people who want to recycle certain kinds of items. That’s how you end up with copious amounts of e-waste inside a home (including my home)—sometimes a city, even one that purports to be environmental (such as New York City), doesn’t have easy access for people who want to recycle said e-waste (or other waste).

Obviously, this is a rather car-heavy list. Regardless of that, my point is that there are many governmental approaches and policies that are not malicious to the environment per se, but end up doing a great deal of harm to it. And, during this week of Earth Day, we should be aware of such policies.