Filed under: Air Pollution, Climate Change, Environment, Environmental Policy, Policy | Tags: Cars, Google, Logjam, Public Transportation, Urban Sprawl
[I originally published this post at the Breaking The Logjam blog, where I periodically blog. Here's the original. Here's the post explaining my participation at BTL.]
Not to belabor the blog discussion brought up in Lars’s earlier post regarding public transportation (good post, Lars!), but as I was listening to today’s panel discussion, and the point about whether or not public transport was a viable solution for a large part of the U.S., I was reminded of an article I read earlier last year in the New York Times which seems to offer a possible solution to some of the cultural, geographical and logistical difficulties with replacing our car-driven culture with more and better mass transport systems.
Google has managed to build up and run one of the major mass transit systems in the Bay Area to shuttle their employees to and from work. It appears to be wildly successful. Could not other iterations of similar systems be put together by other large-scale employers (or groups of smaller employers) to help lessen the congestion (and its accompanying pollution) problem due to the US’s uniquely sprawled geography? (according to the article Yahoo and Ebay have already started imitating their transport system). If we view congestion and pollution as an externality brought about by large employers locating in areas where most of their employees have to commute long distances every day, would it be insane to expect these employers to foot the bill for alternative transportation systems?
Also, as an aside, since Google explicitly sells their transportation system as a fringe benefit to attract employees, the idea that Americans are unwilling to change their car-driving desires seems to weaken a bit. I for one would rather rely on an efficient and comfortable transport system than have to put up with suburban commuting (but maybe that’s just me).
