Think twice about 'green' transport, say scientists

[Enviro-mental]

Hey guys,

I found this article that makes you rethink taking public transport is better than even driving a 4x4 per km. There is mentions of other costs of public transport (e.g the train) that people do not take into account.

Here is the full article:
Think twice about 'green' transport, say scientists

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

[thelawnet]

I was quite amused when my sister + her boyfriend travelled 'green' from Norwich to East London, but there was engineering work, so it involved a train, a replacement bus, another train, and an underground train. The carbon cost would have been less driving her small car instead.

Of course she can say the train is running anyway, but then so are Ryanair's 1p flights.....

[Cellarman]

Makes me feel even less guilty about travelling away in my motorhome!

[christina]

I try never to use the "train" -after commuting for 35 years from various points round the country (uually trying to get onto a better railway service lol), I can't bring myself to board a train again!

We do have a 4x4 but we do live in the countryside AND we very rarely use it, our average annual mileage is 2,500. Our average mileage for our motorhome (we only go to Scotland, at the moment) is approximtely 4,000. We are trying our best to be green but just can't bring ourselves to stop our trips to Scotland as its soooo beautiful!

As for buses, well don't get me started on those....they pump out their toxic fumes and choke everything and everyone around them. Years ago I decided to give up my car and use public transport because we were being told to do so, bus always went early (I used to think it was cancelled every morning but in fact it was going as much as ten minutes early, which meant I had to stand along a busy road for another 20 minutes breathing in car/bus/lorry fumes), when it arrived at the station it would sit there pumping out rubbish, the air was literally blue from the gunk coming out of the exhaust and the smell was appalling. No need to be a smoker to get lung cancer, just stand at the station every morning.

Rant over!

Have a wonderful day - ps I don't work anymore!

Christina

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by Enviro-mental

Hey guys,

I found this article that makes you rethink taking public transport is better than even driving a 4x4 per km. There is mentions of other costs of public transport (e.g the train) that people do not take into account.

Here is the full article:
Think twice about 'green' transport, say scientists

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

The logic in the argument is somewhat flawed, to whit

Boston has a metro system with high energy efficiency. The trouble is, 82 percent of the energy to drive it comes from dirty fossil fuels

but if you chose to drive instead the car would be 100% powered by fossil fuels

The paper points out that the "tailpipe" quotient does not include emissions that come from building transport infrastructure -- railways, airport terminals, roads and so on -- nor the emissions that come from maintaining this infrastructure over its operational lifetime

that is a good point in relation to traveling lesss , but is irrelevant to the argument they think they are making because infrastructure embodied energy is also aplicable to private car travel - garages, road network, motorways etc - and if private car travel was lessened then such maintenance would be greatly reduced. Not to mention the other hidden carbon costs of private car use such as the advertising, sales, transport of new vehicles, embodied manufacture (which is less for 1 car than it is for one train , but not for the several hundred cars that would be needed to carry the same number of people as one train)

A saloon (sedan) car or even an 4x4 that is fully occupied may be responsible for less greenhouse gas per kilometer travelled per person than a suburban train that is a quarter full, the researchers calculate.

only if the train isnt travelling that route anyway - if it is then its greenhouse gas is a given, and you are creating additional greenhouse gas by taking the car that would be far more than the incremental increase for the train of adding your weight to its load.

In summation the argument is badly constructed and ill thought through and unless they are badly misquoted in the article i would be amazed if a scientific paper on this made it through peer review (though it is also possible that there is no scientific paper and they have meerly written some puff for the article)

It would also be interesting to know who is funding their "research" - I would not be suprised to find it was connected to the us automotive industry

[thelawnet]

Originally Posted by eeyore

It would also be interesting to know who is funding their "research" - I would not be suprised to find it was connected to the us automotive industry

You can get route planning from Transport Direct - Britain's free online route planner & journey planner

This is government sponsored. THey give carbon costs for car and public transport. Public transport is often higher. A big train off-peak with few passengers is very polluting.

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by thelawnet

A big train off-peak with few passengers is very polluting.

indeed - but thats an argument for more people to use the train rather than their cars, as if the train was full the carbon cost per head would be significantly less than that of a car.

[Paul mabbott]

You're living in a time-warp. We have fleets of new environmentally friendly 'buses that generally come on the time projected on the electronic timetables. We have interconnecting trams and trains; park and ride stops.
It is not perfect but to approach perfection we need to get more people on to public transport and out of their cars.

Originally Posted by christina

I try never to use the "train" -after commuting for 35 years from various points round the country (uually trying to get onto a better railway service lol), I can't bring myself to board a train again!

We do have a 4x4 but we do live in the countryside AND we very rarely use it, our average annual mileage is 2,500. Our average mileage for our motorhome (we only go to Scotland, at the moment) is approximtely 4,000. We are trying our best to be green but just can't bring ourselves to stop our trips to Scotland as its soooo beautiful!

As for buses, well don't get me started on those....they pump out their toxic fumes and choke everything and everyone around them. Years ago I decided to give up my car and use public transport because we were being told to do so, bus always went early (I used to think it was cancelled every morning but in fact it was going as much as ten minutes early, which meant I had to stand along a busy road for another 20 minutes breathing in car/bus/lorry fumes), when it arrived at the station it would sit there pumping out rubbish, the air was literally blue from the gunk coming out of the exhaust and the smell was appalling. No need to be a smoker to get lung cancer, just stand at the station every morning.

Rant over!

Have a wonderful day - ps I don't work anymore!

Christina

[Paul mabbott]

That would be a pertinent comment if your sister had been the only person on the 'bus/tube. As it is, it's rather a stupid comment.

Originally Posted by thelawnet

I was quite amused when my sister + her boyfriend travelled 'green' from Norwich to East London, but there was engineering work, so it involved a train, a replacement bus, another train, and an underground train. The carbon cost would have been less driving her small car instead.

Of course she can say the train is running anyway, but then so are Ryanair's 1p flights.....

[Paul mabbott]

Originally Posted by eeyore

indeed - but thats an argument for more people to use the train rather than their cars, as if the train was full the carbon cost per head would be significantly less than that of a car.

... and also, fares could be lowered!