Last September, New York City was so badly inundated by Hurricane Ida that some commuters waded through water up to their waists to get in and out of the subway station. Across the country, extreme heat ravaged the west coast, melting Portland’s power cables for trams. This summer, we’re seeing similar headlines, with heat waves warping San Francisco’s BART train tracks and… sudden rainfall interrupt the northeastern commute.
Good to see the NYC subway holding up during a rain storm? #subway creatures pic.twitter.com/SsfB2CrMJF
— Rick (@SubwayCreatures) July 18, 2022
These extreme weather events, which are: increasing severity and frequency due to climate changepose a problem for the millions of Americans who depend on public transportation to get to and from work, school, the grocery store, hospital and social events.
Wild scene in the subway tonight #subway creatures #ida pic.twitter.com/G5MJp1qGhw
— Rick (@SubwayCreatures) September 2, 2021
According to Maria Sipin, a former Transportation Justice Fellow with the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), public transportation is a “lifeline” for many groups of people who already face 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 gain entry to a car, more likely to live further from their workand tend to rely on public transport for their commute (thanks in part to the legacy of redlining and ongoing divestments in minority neighborhoods). When extreme weather affects public transport, it can exacerbate existing inequalities.
It also threatens the country’s ability to meet climate goals: transport is responsible for 27% of US carbon pollution, and public transport is an important tool for reducing those emissions. If train and bus service is disrupted by extreme weather, people may turn to more emission-intensive ways to get around, creating a negative feedback loop that fuels the global temperature rise that caused the disruptions in the first place.
“Transportation is the largest source of emissions in the United States, with 85% of that coming from people who drive their own private cars,” said Alex Engel, senior communications manager at NACTO.
While the switch from those private journeys from fossil fuel cars to electric vehicles is attracting a lot of attention and poised to important boost from the federal government through the Inflation Reduction Actthe often overlooked public transport will continue to be crucial to meeting the climate targets.
“A bus, even if it runs on diesel, is a much better climate solution and produces fewer emissions than a passenger car – even if the car is an electric car,” says Engel.
So what can cities and transport companies do to ensure that public transport remains a viable option for cyclists, even as climate change-induced extreme weather intensifies? The answers are as numerous as the carriers themselves, but many point to approaches that bring many additional benefits.
Some of the most obvious solutions are structural. “Subway lines in many cities in the US are very vulnerable to flooding,” said Yonah Freemark, senior research associate at the Urban Institute. This is especially true of the New York area, where 40% of public transit riders live in the country, according to Kate Slevin of the Regional Plan Association (RPA). That means it’s critical to address potential entry points where water can get into the system, whether from seawater, as New York City saw in the case of Hurricane Sandy, or from excessive rain, as in the case from Hurricane Ida.
Since Sandy, New York has invested $2.6 billion in a wide variety of permanent protective measures, including gates that can be closed behind subway vents and raised barriers around subway entrances — think a lip around the edge of subway stairs that riders step over. before they descend – to keep water out. During extreme storms, temporary measures can also be taken, such as inflatable dams that block the entrances to the metro.
While rail dominates talks over transit, in the U.S. there are just as many trips by bus as by train, the report said. American Public Transportation Association. From Engel’s perspective, this means that climate adaptation must include building high-quality bus shelters that protect riders from the elements in extreme heat and storms.
Sipin adds that ensuring equal access to public transport also means that the infrastructure leading to and from train stations or bus stops is accessible and well-maintained. When sidewalks are poorly paved, curbs aren’t prioritized and bike paths aren’t protected, riders who need public transportation the most — the visually impaired, wheelchair users, or anyone who lives far from the places they need to go — may not be able to travel safely from and to get to public transport stations.
“I think that’s often overlooked because transit and walking and cycling and wheelchair use aren’t always addressed together,” Sipin notes. “It may not seem that sexy or innovative, but those basic investments really help.”
Of course, all of these measures cost money, and Freemark notes that adequate funding is a major barrier to building climate-resilient infrastructure. Slevin highlights the planned New York congestion pricing program, which, once implemented, will charge motorists to enter Manhattan’s busiest streets and use the money to fund MTA repairs, as a way to address the problem of limited funds.
“The congestion tariff plan would bring in $1 billion annually, and 100% of that revenue would go back to the transit system,” Slevin says.
Other cities have taken a different approach. Rob Freudenberg, RPA’s VP of Energy and Environment, describes Philadelphia, which gets an average of 47 inches of rain per year, as a leader in stormwater management. Part of the city’s strategy is to invoice properties for storm water management, he notes. In addition to giving the city additional money to address the problem, developers are incentivized to include green infrastructure and water storage in their building designs through exemptions and discounts, reducing the problem from the get-go.
Planting trees, creating wadis (where landscaping is used to collect rainwater), and otherwise greening streets can also help with public transport flooding, as vegetation and soil absorb water that concrete cannot. And although extreme heat often requires different management than flooding, greening of streets offers a solution in both cases: shade from vegetation can lower temperatures by up to 45 degrees, according to the EPA. Such a big temperature difference could have kept San Francisco’s BART train of partial derailment due to extreme heat this summer. And where planting a tree canopy is not possible to lower the temperature, other solutions, such as painting a train traces white to deflect heatcould be.
Slevin notes that the most robust solutions will not be run by one agency alone. A transportation company will be better able to avoid flooding the subway if the sanitation department keeps the sewage system clear of debris and if the parks department maximizes the park’s ability to absorb excess water, and so on.
“Coordination is needed to meet this challenge because it’s all interconnected,” she says.
But the advantage is that solutions can also be interconnected. Congestion prices can put money into a low-cost transit system while reducing air pollution and traffic. Greening streets can lower temperatures, absorb excess water and improve air quality. Climate-proof bus shelters can make bus travel more comfortable. And all of the above – whatever makes public transport safer, more accessible or more enjoyable – ultimately helps combat climate change.
“It’s pretty amazing how much you can reduce emissions by making transportation an easier option,” says Engel.
Through Whitney BAUCK
Reissued from Nexus media.
Featured image courtesy of New York State Metropolitan Transportation Authority/Patrick Cashin (CC BY 2.0)
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