New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the largest transit system in the country, will announce plans on Thursday to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by 85% across the system by 2040.
(Bloomberg) — New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the largest transit system in the country, will announce plans on Thursday to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by 85% across the system by 2040.
The plan is more aggressive than New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s pledge to cut emissions by the same amount statewide by 2050 from a 1990 baseline. However, Jamie Torres-Springer, president of MTA Construction & Development, said the agency can move faster.
“We took a look at everything that we are doing and we determined that we can go well beyond the challenge that the governor laid down for us,” Torres-Springer said in a interview via Zoom.
The pledge comes as the MTA is hurdling toward a $600 million budget shortfall this year that’s expected to increase to $3 billion in 2025, when federal coronavirus aid is set to run out. Weekday subway ridership is just about 65% of pre-Covid levels. And, absent additional state help, the transit agency will be forced to implement higher-than anticipated fare hikes, service cuts and layoffs.
Still, the agency is planning for the long term, which includes lofty goals to grow ridership and update facilities — including train yards, maintenance shops, bus depots, and rail stations — to assist in its efforts to reduce emissions. It also expects to transition its entire bus fleet to zero-emission vehicles by 2040, as a part of a previously announced $11 billion deal.
“Money is tight for the MTA,” Torres-Springer said. “The agency must be smart about how we make the investment, and that’s what this framework is doing.”
MTA projections show it could take until 2026 for system-wide ridership to recover even 80% of the usage seen in 2019. The agency has been struggling to lure back riders after many commuters began working from home with the outbreak of the coronavirus. But as more workers return to their commutes, MTA officials have been touting the environmental benefits of public transit.
Before the pandemic, about 7.8 million people — or 5% of the US workforce — used public transit, according to the US Census Bureau.
According to the MTA, the typical subway commute is more than 10 times greener than the same commute by car and 15 times greener than in a rideshare, when looking at the pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per passenger mile for each mode of transit.
“We are providing a huge, huge asset in terms of not just moving people around the region but also addressing climate change,” Torres-Springer said.
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Across the US, governments, transit agencies and private companies have been looking for ways to reduce their carbon footprint. Last year, Amtrak announced plans to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions across its network by 2045.
Likewise, California and New York both have plans requiring all new vehicles sold by 2035 to be zero-emissions. Hochul’s plan also included plans to achieve 100% zero-emission electricity by 2040.
In New York, emissions in the transportation sector have increased 16% since 1990, the MTA says.
(Updates with transit ridership data in eighth paragraph)
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