Economic and Environmentally Affordable Transportation Systems
Our civilization requires affordable transportation systems. We need those systems to be centered on people's needs, people's health and the environment. Every five years Congress reauthorizes the Surface Transportation Act, and it is coming up again this year, with a theoretical deadline of September 26. We need to lobby Congress to fund public transportation, not just roads. Until now the automobile, fossil fuel, road building, and trucking industries have benefited from past authorizations. Over 2/3 of the funding in the 2021 bill was dedicated to highways, while just 17% went to public transit and 16% went to Amtrak, (which was actually a huge win compared to past years). Carving out higher percentages of this bill towards public transit and Amtrak is a great way of helping everyone in our society and the environment.
Where can we really make a difference? Leading up to this bill, there will be hearings, policy proposals, and negotiations between elected officials. Speak up now, wherever you can, including town hall meetings, writing letters to local news sources, and communicating with your Congress people. This is a great thing to be doing, something that you will be proud of.
Where else can we make a big difference? In our individual vehicles. When we buy a vehicle, we are telling the car makers what kinds of cars they should build. When you buy an electric vehicle, not only are you benefiting yourself, you are helping move markets.
For people not near public transportation, we need vehicles to get to our jobs, acquire our food, to go where we want to go, to do what we want to do. Without vehicles to get around our entire economy would be much diminished. We can't afford to live without them.
So how do we make available vehicles that are both economically and environmentally affordable? With the average price of a new car sold in the USA being $50,000, economic affordability is a critical issue for most people. China presently is showing the way. Electric cars as cheap as $10,000, affordable to most everyone and good for the planet. They are also figuring out how to make them charge ever faster. That is the reality. We can do it here in the US, and we need to.
For those who can afford a new car, an all-electric car is certainly affordable. In fact, over the lifetime of the car it will be cheaper than any comparable gas powered car. This NPR article breaks down in great detail a case of buying a new electric vehicle versus keeping a gas car. It turns out the electric vehicle is better economically and environmentally over the long run.
For many of us, we can't afford a new car. Buying used is our only option. Used electric vehicles are becoming more and more available and are very cost competitive. However, you do need to make sure you have somewhere to charge it, which can be a challenge if you park on the street or live in an apartment.. If you can't buy electric, buy the most efficient used gas powered vehicle you can until the time that you can go electric.
Affordability is even more critical in terms of the environmental impact of our vehicles on the Planet. A huge amount of what is causing global warming is our continuing to make, buy, and drive gas powered vehicles. Every single gallon of gasoline (or diesel) we burn adds 20 pounds of CO2 to the atmosphere. Just one theoretically efficient gas vehicle getting 40 miles a gallon driven 150,000 miles (an average lifespan), produces 75,000 pounds of CO2. The average miles per gallon of our present car and light truck fleet is worse – 24 miles a gallon. Look at all our vehicles. On average every single one of them is now producing 125,000 pounds of CO2 in the 150,000 miles they will be driven. Now multiply that by all the gas cars we have. It is a huge amount of CO2 we can stop producing if from now on the only new vehicles we buy are all-electric vehicles.
Back to economic affordability. Those of you who can afford a new car, going electric is doubly important because your car will become the affordable used car for someone after you. The sooner we get to all of our vehicles being electric, both new and used, the better off our planet and our lives will be.
Global warming is real. Sea level rise is already happening. Doing all we can to decrease our contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere is one of the main difference makers between the sea rising only 2 feet instead of 7 feet by the year 2100. That's within our kids’ lifetime.
In our lives, there is much joy to be had in knowing you did all you could to keep planet Earth habitable. Please help. Do not be silent. This is a huge issue. Talk up with everyone you know that with the damage we know they cause, making and buying new fossil fuel vehicles is now morally wrong. We and our Planet can’t afford them.