Climate and clean transportation advocates are calling into question a claim by Maine officials that a new toll road proposed outside Portland will reduce carbon emissions by alleviating gridlock. 

It’s a common argument made in favor of highway expansions nationwide, said Benito Pérez, the policy director of the nonprofit Transportation for America. But it relies on a narrow view of data that, in context, tends to show these projects are more likely to increase planet-warming emissions, he said. 

“They’re looking at it from one dimension,” said Pérez, a former transportation planner and engineer. “This is a multi-dimensional issue when it comes to emissions reduction, and it’s not going to work.”  

Maine’s proposed Gorham Connector project has met stiff public opposition in its rollout over recent months. The toll road aims to offer a more direct route from Portland’s growing suburbs into the city, bypassing local roads that officials say weren’t designed to accommodate increasing commuter traffic.

The project has been contemplated since the late 1980s. Its latest iteration builds on a 2012 study that recommended three main ways to improve connectivity between Portland and points west: new approaches to land use and development, expanded bus and passenger rail access, and various road upgrades and expansions, including the new four-lane, roughly five-mile bypass the state is now proposing.  

The Maine Turnpike Authority took more than three hours of comments at its first public input session on the project in March. On July 18, the MTA said it would delay further public meetings on the project and extend its permitting timeline due to a “high level of public interest and concern.” 

In response to questions for this story, MTA spokesperson Erin Courtney emphasized the importance of a multi-pronged approach in achieving the Gorham Connector’s projected climate benefits. 

“Coupled with targeted land use and transit initiatives, we aim to create a more efficient and sustainable transportation system that addresses both congestion and environmental impacts,” she said.

Benefits are ‘negligible at best’

The emissions impact of smoother traffic on the proposed toll road has been one of the MTA’s core arguments in favor of the project. The agency says on the the website for the Connector that it “will ease traffic flow, decreasing the number of idling vehicles, conserving fuel, and reducing exhaust pollutants in alignment with Maine’s Climate Action Plan.” 

But even in isolation, this emissions benefit is typically “negligible at best,” said Pérez. Despite ongoing improvements in vehicles’ fuel efficiencies and even electrification, he said, studies show that more use of expanded roads tends to outweigh this benefit. 

Pérez pointed to examples in the Washington, D.C. area, Salt Lake City and elsewhere where highway expansions that aimed to reduce gridlock instead led to more traffic and further need for expansions years later — a paradox known as “induced demand.” 

A 2015 paper from the University of California-Davis explains this phenomenon: “Adding capacity decreases travel time, in effect lowering the ‘price’ of driving; and when prices go down, the quantity of driving goes up,” author Susan Handy wrote. New roads, for instance, can encourage more low-density development, which in turn fills those roads with additional drivers. This counteracts the value of highway expansions in alleviating congestion, Handy said, and at least partly offsets the emissions reductions that come along with it. 

Courtney, with the MTA, said “the Gorham Connector’s design and goals suggest a different outcome,” arguing that the project is unique as a limited-access highway without many intersections or entrances. 

“By enhancing traffic efficiency and reducing congestion on local roads, it can offer a balanced approach that considers both transportation needs and environmental impacts,” she said. 

Portland resident Myles Smith, a steering committee member with Mainers for Smart Transportation, a volunteer group opposing the Gorham Connector, isn’t convinced. 

“It’s part of a pattern of showing only the rosiest possible scenarios of how, theoretically, on paper, with a lot of other assumptions going perfectly, it might reduce climate emissions,” he said. “It assumes a lot of other things that they have no control over at the Turnpike Authority, like land-use planning and public transportation.”

New measures of climate impacts 

The 2012 study backing the bypass proposal found that implementing a bevy of suggested road improvements and expansions, including the Connector, would decrease local vehicle hours traveled, or VHT — an analog for congestion, measuring how much time people spend in their cars, Pérez said — by about 10% versus 2035 projections. 

It also said the area’s vehicle miles traveled, or VMT — which measures how much people are driving overall — would increase relative to 2035 projections if the bypass was built, but would decrease in scenarios where only existing roads were improved, or where public transit was the focus. 

“This is why we propose a ‘three-legged stool’ approach,” Courtney said — one that also emphasizes dense development and increased public transit access, so that VMT increases might be offset by other benefits. 

VMT is an increasingly common way to measure the climate benefits of transportation projects, Pérez said. Minnesota and Colorado have adopted new requirements toward goals for reducing their overall VMT, mandating that proposed road expansions either contribute to this decrease, or fund climate mitigation projects otherwise. 

But advocates said VMT and VHT alone are not enough to measure the overall climate impacts of a project like the Gorham Connector. A more comprehensive analysis, they said, would include the environmental impacts of construction and would account in more detail for the role of the non-road improvements that the MTA is also calling for. 

A need for coordinated solutions

The 2012 study, in its final recommendations, said all three strategies — changes to roads, transit and development patterns — would need to “work together to provide the desired results” for improving connectivity and reducing traffic impacts in the Portland area. For example, more dense development and less congestion will make new transit approaches more viable, Courtney said. 

The Turnpike Authority has little direct control over those kinds of reforms, but says on its website that it expects “other regional studies” in those areas to be part of the Gorham Connector planning process. 

“The Gorham Connector project, combined with additional initiatives being considered by the MTA and Maine (Department of Transportation) — such as additional park-and-ride facilities, electric vehicle charging stations, and enhanced transit opportunities — will collectively contribute to reduced greenhouse gas emissions compared to a ‘do nothing’ scenario,” Courtney said. 

Smith said these other efforts are moving more slowly and with less state support than the Connector has received, putting these parallel solutions out of step with each other. 

Maine is facing a lawsuit from youth climate activists over regulators’ decision earlier this year not to adopt California’s Advanced Clean Cars II rule, which would have ramped up requirements for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle sales through model year 2032. 

The state is still a long way off from the EV goals set in its 2020 climate action plan, which also aims to reduce light-duty vehicle miles traveled 10% by next year and 20% by 2030. 

Advocates applauded a new emphasis on transit, biking, walking and other alternative strategies to achieve those VMT goals in the recommendations from a state climate council working group for a forthcoming update of the climate plan, due out in December. 

It’s an example of slow progress toward more holistic approaches to transportation and climate planning, which, Pérez said, must extend to technical details like the traffic models that underlie projects like the Gorham Connector in order to succeed. 

“Those models need to think about what they’re measuring — what matters most,” he said. “The mindset is, ‘we’re designing for vehicles,’ and that’s what they’re measuring for, not measuring for the movement of people.”

Critics, studies cast doubt on Maine’s claims of climate benefits from highway expansion is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

The recent expansion of a groundbreaking transportation law in Minnesota means all major highway projects in the state will soon be scrutinized for their impact on climate emissions.

A year ago, the state legislature made headlines with a new law requiring the state transportation department and the Twin Cities’ regional planning agency to begin assessing whether highway expansion projects are consistent with state climate goals, including Minnesota’s aim for 20% reduction in driving by 2050.

A follow-up bill passed this spring expands the 2023 law to include all major highway projects statewide that exceed a $15 million budget in the Twin Cities or $5 million outside the metro, regardless of whether or not they would add new driving lanes. The updated legislation also established a technical advisory committee and a state fund to recommend and help pay for mitigation projects.

“It allows for some evolution of the law,” said Sam Rockwell, executive director of Move Minnesota, a nonprofit advocacy group that supported the legislation. “There’s more flexibility.”

The law requires transportation project planners to offset projected increases in greenhouse gas emissions and vehicle miles traveled to qualify for state or federal highway dollars. Those mitigation efforts might include incorporating funding for transit, bicycle or pedestrian programs or environmental restoration projects.

‘A waterfall effect’

Altogether, the law will now cover more than 12,000 miles of state trunk highways that account for more than 60% of all miles driven in the state. One high-profile project that may not have been covered under the initial law is the upcoming reconstruction of Interstate 94 between Minneapolis and St. Paul, which will now need to account for climate impacts.

The changes come as advocates and officials seek solutions to reverse the continued growth of transportation emissions, which surpassed electricity generation almost a decade ago as the state’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and are a major reason why Minnesota is not on track to meet its climate goals. 

A disconnect has long existed between even progressive states’ climate goals and the status quo of highway construction, which has long focused on maximizing efficiency for drivers. The new Minnesota law is an attempt to integrate climate action into state and local transportation planning, and to recognize that electric vehicles alone won’t be enough to achieve climate targets. 

Under the law, the Twin Cities’ regional planning agency, the Metropolitan Council, must include strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and vehicle miles driven in its next 25-year regional plan in 2026. All metro area communities will then use that plan as the basis for their local comprehensive plans, which are due to the regional council in 2028. 

“It’s a waterfall effect here,” Rockwell said.

The Met Council’s last planning document, Thrive 2040, already outlined a focus on multimodal travel options, encouraging walking and biking options while setting a goal of decreasing vehicle miles traveled per capita by 20% by 2050, in line with the state’s official goal.

Conversations already underway

Many metro area communities are already having conversations about how to reduce dependency on driving. Abby Finis, a consultant who has helped several communities draft climate action plans, said reducing driving can bring broader benefits than simply focusing on electric vehicles.

“It offers more active lifestyles, more opportunities to incorporate nature, and has less impact on natural resources needed for electric vehicles,” she said.

Most communities focus on increasing the ability of residents to walk and bicycle for short trips by adding bike lanes, pedestrian islands and safer crosswalks, she said. Some cities see telecommuting and co-working spaces as options for reducing commutes.

But transforming the suburbs will be challenging, Finis said. Sustaining transit service often requires denser development, which continues to be politically controversial in many communities. 

“I have yet to see any community push hard on those strategies in a way that meets what is necessary to reduce [vehicle miles traveled] and adapt to climate change,” Finis said.

For example, Minnetonka, a western suburb of Minneapolis with more than 52,000 residents, boasts a considerable bicycling community. But transit ridership is low except for a modest ridership at the regional mall, one commercial development area, and park-and-ride lots, said Minnetonka’s Community Development Director Julie Wischnack.

Developed in the 1950s and 1960s, Minnetonka’s current land use is a barrier to fixed route transit. But the city is among a collection of suburbs along Interstate 494 that has been pushing for transit and other commuting options, including telework.

Another member of that commission, Bloomington, faces many of the same challenges. The city has a few dense neighborhoods near transit stops and the Mall of America, but much of the community remains single-family homes and small apartments. A recent report Bloomington commissioned on transportation found that 75% of trips by residents were more than 10 miles. 

Transit, biking, and other modes could replace trips that are less than 10 miles, said Bloomington Sustainability Coordinator Emma Struss. A recent city transportation study suggested several strategies to decrease driving, including transit-oriented development, free bus and rail passes, bike parking, subsidized e-bikes and more transit. Removing barriers to walking and biking were highlighted.

“We’re hearing more and more from residents that they want safe ways to get around the community without needing to take a car,” Struss said.

Similar challenges in larger cities

St. Paul has made changes to create denser neighborhoods, including removing parking minimums for new development and letting up-to-four-unit complexes be built in single-family neighborhoods. The biggest challenge continues to be the spread-out nature of the region, which forces people to drive to suburban jobs and big-box merchants. 

“The fundamental nature of those trips is hard to serve with anything but driving in the car,” said Russ Stark, St. Paul’s chief resilience officer.

Minneapolis has focused less on vehicle miles and more on “mode shift,” or decreasing trips, said the city’s Public Works Director Tim Sexton. The goal is to replace three of five trips by car with walking, biking, or other modes. A city transportation action plan features more than 100 strategies, including creating around 60 mobility hubs where residents can rent e-bikes, scooters or electric vehicles, or take transit.

Patrick Hanlon, the city’s deputy commissioner of sustainability, healthy homes and the environment, pointed out that Minneapolis has one of the country’s best-developed bike networks, which continues to grow. The city’s comprehensive plan drew national attention for removing barriers preventing denser development, which typically leads to fewer transportation emissions. Several transportation corridors now feature bus rapid transit lines.

What Finis described as a “patchwork” of conversations around developments like these are expected to become more comprehensive as the state law’s planning requirements take effect in the coming years.

The legislation has also made Minnesota a national inspiration for other states looking to make progressive changes to highway planning, Rockwell said.

“We know of a number of other states that are looking at trying to replicate parts of this (law), which is great,” he said. “We’ve been on the phone with folks from New York, Michigan, Illinois and Maryland who are trying to bring some pieces of this into their legislative sessions and their legal framework. That’s exciting.”

Minnesota highway projects will need to consider climate impacts in planning is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

By gradually nudging aside its diesel buses, Charlottesville’s transit agency is punching above its weight.

The city of 45,000 at the edge of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains is matching the likes of larger counterparts in New York, Chicago and San Diego with a carbon-curbing proposal to convert to a zero-emission public transit fleet by 2040. By then, its routes will be served by electric buses.

Granted, some environmental advocacy organizations urged a speedier transition and are disappointed the city won’t retire its last diesel bus until 2039.

However, groups aligned with the Community Climate Collaborative (C3) — which emphasizes social justice in its work to reduce emissions — are relieved the city was willing to address route and ridership issues in addition to a commitment to wean itself off diesel and avoid compressed natural gas as a power source altogether.

“I think this is a victory,” said Caetano de Campos Lopes, C3’s director of climate policy. “We are very pleased that the city’s approach was so thorough and holistic.”

As it stands now, Charlottesville Area Transit (CAT) plans to double the size of its fleet from 38 to 76 by 2034. That peak fleet will be a blend of diesel and electric buses.

CAT is on track to roll out a pair of  pilot programs to add at least two battery electric buses and then at least two hydrogen-electric fuel cell models by 2029. The transit agency will stop ordering diesel buses in 2027, meaning the last ones will come into service by 2028 or 2029. 

While CAT is owned and operated by the city, the University of Virginia and Albemarle County contribute a small amount of its non-capital budget.

De Campos Lopes was reassured in late February when the Charlottesville City Council voiced unanimous support for advancing zero-emission fuel choices, because compressed natural gas was still under consideration the previous year. At its June 17 meeting, the council is scheduled to take a final vote on CAT’s Transit Strategic Plan.

C3 had collaborated with several dozen private companies and environmental, social justice and faith groups to pressure the council to adopt a measure in favor of zero-emission buses, particularly battery electric. It submitted a petition with 640-plus signatures last autumn.

Ben Chambers started his position as the city’s transportation planning manager in November 2022, when the community was in the thick of a back-and-forth exercise about its fleet makeup. The University of Virginia graduate is no stranger to the region or its routes, as he drove a University Transit Service bus while earning a religious studies undergraduate degree in 2006.

Over the last several years, he said, his most difficult task had been explaining to the public that CAT can’t turn on a dime to purchase zero-emission buses and upgrade their accompanying charging and fueling infrastructure.

He praised the council for conducting its deliberations openly so the public could better understand the process.

“For a long time, the constant refrain in the community has been ‘Get cleaner buses,’” Chambers said. “We’ve come to a solution that may not please everybody, but at least people understand how it’s going to work. We’re in a much better place now.”

Don’t let money overshadow emissions

C3, which released a transit equity and climate report in 2021, prodded the city to think beyond financial considerations when it found out that same year that CAT was on the verge of studying how to fuel its future buses.

The nonprofit and its allies feared the city would lean toward a known entity, compressed natural gas, and shy away from less time-tested technologies such as battery electric and hydrogen fuel cells.

That choice, de Campos Lopes said, wouldn’t align with the city’s ambitious target set in 2019 to curb greenhouse gas emissions 45% by 2030 and 100% by 2050. The transportation sector is a leading source, with an estimated 30% of total emissions.

Indeed, a recent analysis for CAT by the Northern Virginia-based Kimley-Horn engineering firm revealed that running CNG buses would amount to only a slight drop in emissions when compared to diesel.

In contrast, that same Kimley-Horn report stated that switching to battery electric buses or fuel cell buses powered with green hydrogen would reduce greenhouse gas emissions 99.4% and 99%, respectively, compared to the baseline diesel fleet.

Both technologies come close to achieving carbon neutrality, assuming the Virginia Clean Economy Act is heeded. Dominion Energy is supposed to achieve a carbon-free electric grid by 2045, with Appalachian Power following suit by 2050.

Both types of buses use batteries to power their electric motors. Fuel cell models use hydrogen to charge a battery, while the other uses electricity from the grid.

Initially, CAT had eyed compressed natural gas as one option because it’s cleaner than diesel and the gas buses didn’t cost that much more, Chambers said. Plus, both Richmond and Williamsburg had demonstrated success with gas buses, which qualified for funding under the federal government’s low- and no-emissions grant program.

“That CNG option caused a lot of mistrust,” he continued. “People thought CAT was trying to get around their request for clean energy buses. We dropped CNG mostly because of the feedback we got from the environmental community.”

In addition, some green groups said the transit agency was acting in bad faith by keeping diesel as part of its fuel mix. 

The timing for looking beyond all fossil fuels was right, Chambers said, when usage data about electric buses was becoming available from other transit agencies and funding opportunities became abundant.

“We could finally have that conversation about electric buses, but we weren’t just responding to what the mob wants us to do,” he said. “We want to balance the hue and cry for alternative fuel with the need for reliable bus service.”

The transit agency is in the midst of devising a zero emission transition plan to submit to the Federal Transit Administration this fall, Chambers said. The document includes details such as a turnover timeline and specifics about bus storage and storage infrastructure.

On the pilot program front, the city is set to order as many as five battery electric buses this summer — each one roughly twice the cost of a $500,000 diesel model — that are scheduled to join the fleet in 2027. CAT will wrestle with details such as driving range, maintenance requirements, and whether it makes sense to install on-site solar to charge the buses.

“I have serious concerns about longer routes and the impact of terrain because we’re quite a hilly town,” he said. “We’re talking about big heavy machines and the details can get technical.”

Bringing up to five hydrogen-powered buses on board by 2029 — at between $1.2 million and $1.3 million each — will be trickier. Most pressing is finding a nearby source of hydrogen fuel that doesn’t contribute to emissions of heat-trapping gases.

“We’re investigating the idea of on-site generation,” Chambers said. “But if we need to truck it in, where would it come from?”

CAT won’t necessarily choose one technology over the other as it replaces its diesel models, he said, adding that having both choices available provides an added benefit of resiliency.

Money for the pilot programs is a mix of federal, state and local dollars, with the bulk of it from the federal government. The exact funding formula is still in the works, he said. 

“Lucky for us, we won’t be the first out of the blocks,” Chambers said about gaining insights from transit agencies “on the bleeding edge to learn about the headaches they had to deal with.”

For instance, neighboring Blacksburg has put battery electric buses on the road, and leaders in Oakland, California; the Champaign-Urbana region of Illinois; and Montgomery County, a suburb of Washington, D.C.; have experience with hydrogen fuel cell buses.

He admitted that Charlottesville was a bit leery about delving into alternative technologies because of continued hassles with the 10 hybrid diesel buses it purchased about 15 years ago. Some of those models are still in the fleet. Parts of the hybrid drivetrain failed regularly and replacement parts were often on back order. As well, CAT had problems fully charging battery packs that didn’t last as long as promised.

“CAT couldn’t keep them on routes,” he said. “We didn’t want to end up with that same scenario.”

Getting everybody aboard the bus

Susan Kruse, C3’s executive director, said she recognized that some groups focused solely on climate issues were frustrated by the city’s plans to boost greenhouse gas emissions in the short term by not pivoting away from diesel immediately.

Her group tried to play the role of mediator because “it was best to take the time to get everyone literally and figuratively aboard the bus,” she said. 

“Sure, we would rather see buses move to zero emissions faster. But this is a great example of how moving toward a carbon-neutral community is difficult. This issue is complicated and we have to take the time to get it right.”

Generally, diesel buses cycle out of use after 12 years of service or accumulating 500,000 miles on the odometer.

It’s vital that CAT’s strategic plan calls for addressing shortcomings that frustrated riders, Kruse said. CAT will be doubling the amount of service, adding routes on nights and weekends, and limiting wait times between buses to 30 minutes.

She and her colleagues are especially pleased by the local environmental impact of battery electric and fuel cell buses powered by green or “gray” hydrogen produced using natural gas. A transition would improve air quality and reduce noise levels, according to the Kimley-Horn report.

For instance, the changeover would eliminate emissions of pollutants such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides and volatile organic compounds, all gases that are harmful to humans. For example, nitrogen oxides can irritate airways, aggravate asthma and other respiratory diseases, and lead to emergency room visits and hospital admissions.

As well, cleaner buses would reduce the tiniest bits of particulate matter by 25% when compared to diesel. The microscopic particles endanger human health because they can deeply embed in lungs and also enter the bloodstream. Regardless of bus technology, particulate matter is still produced by wear and tear on a vehicle’s brake pads and tires. 

C3 advocates and Chambers agree that Charlottesville’s achievements can be a model for smaller municipalities shifting to carbon-free buses. After all, the timeline for its proposed transition is ahead of Denver and Washington, D.C.

Setting an example doesn’t just apply to public transit, Chambers said, emphasizing that other communities view the university city as a test bed for plucky endeavors.

“In Charlottesville, we tend to think a bit bigger than our britches when it comes to policy decisions,” he said. “We do new bold things because we like to see if we can get it done.”

Charlottesville, Virginia, shows how small cities can take a lead on zero-emissions public transit is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Rhode Island is not on track to hit its greenhouse gas reduction target in 2030, and a primary reason, advocates say, is transportation emissions. 

Transportation accounts for the largest share of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions, at nearly 40%, according to the state Department of Environmental Management’s latest greenhouse gas inventory. 

And yet, said John Flaherty, deputy director of Grow Smart RI, “We are still spending hundreds of millions of dollars to expand highway capacity.” 

He is among a growing number of advocates calling for the state to get much more aggressive about investing in mass transit and other transportation emissions mitigation measures. The trend in those emissions has been up and down over the last decade, according to the emissions inventory, which noted that “significantly more zero-emission vehicles across weight classes will be required to meet Act on Climate emission reduction mandates.” 

That law sets enforceable targets of a 45% reduction in overall emissions below 1990 levels by 2030, 80% by 2040, and net zero by 2050.

An update to the state’s greenhouse gas reduction plan, approved last month by the Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council, known as the EC4, said the state is not yet making enough progress to achieve the 2030 goal. 

While the state has made progress in shrinking emissions in the electricity sector, transportation emissions aren’t dropping nearly quickly enough, said Anna Vanderspek, electric vehicle program director at the Green Energy Consumers Alliance, during a recent webinar on the topic.

“There are two strategies that we need to pursue at the same time,” she said. “One is we need to reduce vehicle miles traveled, which means more active mobility and more public transit. Rhode Island has great plans that need to be funded to do all that. 

“And the other side of this is that we need to make sure that any of the vehicles that do remain on our roads are electrified as quickly as possible.”

The alliance is working with two state lawmakers — Rep. Terri Cortvriend (D-Portsmouth, Middletown) and Sen. Alana DiMario (D-North Kingstown, Narragansett) — to introduce legislation that would help speed vehicle electrification. 

They want the state to adopt California’s Advanced Clean Cars II regulations, as well as its Advanced Clean Trucks regulations. 

The first requires auto manufacturers to gradually increase the proportion of electric vehicles they sell, starting with the 2026 model year, to eventually reach 100% by 2035. It also sets increasingly stringent standards for gasoline vehicles. 

The second requires manufacturers of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles to sell an increasing percentage of zero-emission trucks from 2024 to 2035.

There are currently about 6,275 electric vehicles registered in Rhode Island; the EC4 report says the state needs 86,000 on the road by 2030. But Vanderspek said she thinks that’s a significant underestimate. Massachusetts, with six times as many residents as Rhode Island, has set a goal of 900,000 electric vehicles by 2030, she said.

Rhode Island has published a policy guide for improving access to EV charging infrastructure, and it recently created a rebate program for purchases of electric vehicles and electric bicycles. 

Advocates are also calling for policymakers to prioritize ramping up the statewide bus system, which operates under the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority, or RIPTA. 

“It’s thought of as something that only poor people or handicapped people use, not as something for everybody,” said Patricia Raub, coordinator of RI Transit Riders, an advocacy group. “Unless we get a lot more middle-class people saying, ‘Oh, it’s fairly convenient,’ we’re not going to cut down our emissions and reach our goals.”

A Transit Master Plan approved by the State Planning Council in 2020 calls for doubling the level of RIPTA service, adding more weekend service, extending routes, and adding a high-capacity transit corridor over 20 years. That much-expanded service is necessary to make it convenient enough to attract more riders, Flaherty said. 

Nearly 80% of Rhode Island’s population can walk from their home to a public transit bus stop within 10 minutes, he said, but less than 3% of the population use the bus system to commute to work. And a big reason for that is that “taking transit can take you two to four times as long to get where you’re going” compared to driving. 

But the state has yet to put any funding toward the plan, which will cost an estimated $94 million to $154 million annually. 

Likewise, a Bicycle Mobility Plan approved by the State Planning Council in 2020 also lacks funding. That plan would dramatically expand the state’s network of bike paths and on-street bike lanes to improve connectivity, equity and safety. 

“We have some great bike paths, but projects get done here and there, almost as an afterthought,” said Kathleen Gannon, board chair for the Rhode Island Bicycle Coalition. “To be effective, infrastructure has to be integrated into a network, and not isolated. And more people would choose cycling if they had a safe way to do so.”

The EC4 report mentions both the transit and bike plan, but says the Department of Transportation should look to their recommendations “as resources are available.” 

Charles St. Martin III, a transportation department spokesperson, said in an email that staff examines maps of proposed projects in both the transit and bike path plans to identify where overlap may occur with existing planned projects, “allowing incorporation of bike, pedestrian and transit components” into those projects.

As an example, he said a planned $48 million rehabilitation of the Ashton Viaduct Bridge over the Blackstone River will include new cycling paths to provide a connection to the Blackstone River Bikeway. 

The department has invested more than $200 million on bicycle and pedestrian enhancements around the state since 2016, he said. 

The department’s 10-year State Transportation Improvement Program includes $6 billion worth of projects through 2031. Work on roads and bridges makes up 88% of the estimated capital spending. Bicycle, pedestrian and transit projects account for 11%.

R.I. must accelerate transportation emission cuts to hit 2030 target, advocates say is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Getting on board with public transit options can help employers recruit and retain workers, while also promoting equity and reducing some greenhouse gas emissions. That approach helped Laketran, Ohio’s Lake County regional transit system, take home top honors in June at a program celebrating Paradox Prize winners.

Launched in 2019 by the Cleveland-based Fund for Our Economic Future, the Paradox Prize aims to solve the problem of “No car, no job; no job, no car.”

Cleveland, like most American cities, is heavily car-dependent due in part to housing and land-use policies that have encouraged suburban sprawl while neglecting urban neighborhoods where jobs and housing were once in closer proximity. Getting to jobs in outer suburbs via public transit — if possible at all — can require multiple transfers, adding hours to commutes. 

That creates an additional burden on low-wage workers, as well as leads to higher per-capita emissions than denser cities elsewhere. Black residents, who are both less likely to have access to cars and more likely to be harmed by tailpipe pollution, bear the brunt of this disparity. Segregation patterns that began with historic redlining continue in Cleveland and elsewhere in Ohio.

Other urban areas in Northeast Ohio have similar problems on a smaller scale. And rural areas have generally had few public transit options, especially for people working shifts that begin earlier or last longer than 9 to 5. 

“Transportation is everyone’s business,” said Bethia Burke, president of the Fund for Our Economic Future. “Improving job access for the 4 million-plus residents who call Northeast Ohio home is imperative for anyone working toward a more equitable economy.”

Laketran’s initial $75,000 grant jumpstarted Transit GO, which lets Lake County employers offer free transportation to workers on several local routes. The program has helped roughly 400 workers earning an average of $12 per hour at 175 employers. A $25,000 bonus from the Paradox Prize and an additional grant from the Ohio Department of Transportation provided more funding.

Laketran’s local tax levy will continue the program past its pilot stage. Laketran also will be expanding weekday service to start at 5 a.m. and end at 9 p.m. to accommodate more work shifts.

Transit GO helps employees financially, although there aren’t income cut-offs. “If you can get to work for free, it allows you to use the money you have on other stuff, like food and groceries and all the other things we need in our lives,” said Laketran CEO Ben Capelle.

“This program also helps introduce people to transit that maybe wouldn’t have known about it before,” Capelle said. “And, more importantly, employers can use it as a selling point for why you should work for them.”

Meanwhile, Cuyahoga County’s MetroHealth System used part of its Paradox Prize funding to provide some free monthly transit passes for frontline workers, teach people how to use public transit, and provide incentives for using transit and other means for commuting. Employees who don’t get free passes can use the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority’s Commuter Advantage program, which lets them buy monthly transit passes with pre-tax dollars.

Without the program, retail food service aide Mike Baleski said it would have been harder to get monthly passes, especially when the pandemic temporarily shut down his local library branch. Additionally, the program “saved me a lot of money,” he said.

“Metro[Health] cares and is supportive of how we get to work,” said facilities management specialist Karen Walker. She especially appreciated help with logistics as her personal physical mobility situation changed. Otherwise, she might have had to consider retirement, she said.

The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority also teamed up on another Paradox Prize project to address fare equity. One change in the works is a phone app to track the cost of weekly passes until they add up to a more cost-effective monthly one, said José Feliciano, intergovernmental relations officer for Greater Cleveland RTA. Once that happens, lower-income riders won’t pay more than if they had been able to shell out $95 for a full monthly pass in the first place.

Plans call for the system to eventually tie into a broader retail network where people could put money on their accounts. That approach could help people in households without savings, checking or credit union accounts, Feliciano said. 

Additionally, Greater Cleveland RTA made free monthly passes available to people in The Centers’ (formerly the Centers for Families and Children) job-training programs. Greater Cleveland RTA also advised The Centers on efficient routing and planning for the organization’s vehicles. And Sway Mobility provided an electric car for The Centers’ staff to use on a shared basis to go to and from the organizations’ facilities.

Sway Mobility also participated in a Lorain County project that provided three electric cars for the general public and clients of a homeless shelter and a job re-entry program to reserve on an hourly basis. The nonprofits got free use of the cars; members of the public paid a low hourly fee. That team also used its Paradox Prize grant to expand public transit routes and hours.

Door-to-door service

Existing transit routes don’t run between various good-paying manufacturing jobs and some of Northeast Ohio’s poorest ZIP codes. So, the Cleveland Clergy Coalition and American Association of Clergy and Employers teamed up with Manufacturing Works, a business-support nonprofit.

The team’s Paradox Prize project used church vans that sit idle during the week to help workers from primarily Black neighborhoods on Cleveland’s east side get to manufacturing jobs in outer suburbs. The program provides free rides for interviews and then free commuter rides once workers land the jobs.

“This is a ministry, and our job is to help them to get ahead in life,” said Alsay Shivers, a deacon with Cleveland’s Sure House Baptist Church and mentor with the Cleveland Clergy Coalition. “We also listen to them and mentor them on life skills,” he said.

Akron METRO RTA and ConxusNEO also developed a door-to-door van service to help people in parts of Akron get to job hubs elsewhere in Summit County and later Portage County.

Yet another Paradox Prize project showed how public transit can work in rural areas. Community Action Wayne/Medina worked with Wooster Transit and Wayne County Mobility Management to let riders reserve door-to-door rides to and from work throughout Wayne County. Riders paid just $2.50 each way, making a round trip cost roughly what a gallon of gas cost in June.

The Stark Area Regional Transit Authority will be continuing the program, said Jan Conrad, mobility manager for Community Action Wayne/Medina. SARTA also teamed up with other organizations for a separate Paradox Prize project called Start Career Connect. The program helped individuals find jobs at nearly 140 employers. Funding also provided free bus passes until workers could pay for their own bus service or other transit.

The Paradox Prize projects stressed building on existing public transit systems when possible. Yet many public transit systems still face challenges. The number of rides generally hasn’t recovered to pre-pandemic levels. And critics say Ohio lawmakers have long underfunded the state’s public transit systems.

Capelle thinks that in the long term transit systems will need to plan for perhaps fewer office commutes, yet more flexibility for other types of rides. For now, Laketran has been financially conservative and is in relatively good shape, Capelle said. Also, he noted, the system’s first 10 electric buses have so far had lower maintenance costs than anticipated.

Meanwhile, creative commuting ideas aren’t limited to Northeast Ohio. Columbus-based SHARE Mobility uses a computer platform to schedule and run planned van services for companies’ workers, for example.

“We’re basically a school bus for adults,” said CEO and co-founder Ryan McManus. He hopes companies will eventually provide transportation as a routine benefit, in much the way they currently provide healthcare insurance.

Many companies have long asked if prospective employees have transportation. “That is veiled language that discriminates,” McManus said. One in 13 Ohio households doesn’t have a car. Nationally, about one-sixth of Black households don’t have a vehicle.  

“Who has access to a car is not equal across our society,” McManus said. “But why is every person expected to get to work on their own?” Meanwhile, U.S. employers are still looking to fill roughly 11 million jobs, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data through the end of May. For many companies and workers, “transportation is the key to filling jobs,” McManus said.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify José Feliciano’s role at Greater Cleveland RTA.

Ohio’s Paradox Prize projects offer transit solutions for car-dependent communities is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.