(The following story by Lee Bergquist and Thomas Content appeared on the MIlwaukee Journal Sentinel website on August 17.)
MILWAUKEE, Wisc. — An unintended consequence of the high price of gas is that it’s helping to lower our carbon footprint.
Carbon dioxide emissions in the transportation sector are down 4% in the first half of the year in Wisconsin. This is an abrupt reversal of the years of steady increases in emissions from cars and trucks.
The sharp drop stems from several factors, all tied to the price of gas, which is $1 a gallon more than it was at this time last year.
As a result of higher prices, we are driving less and using more mass transit.
In Wisconsin, motorists drove 1.1 billion fewer miles in the first six months of the year, federal highway statistics show.
This 4% drop in miles driven compares with a 3% drop nationwide for the same time frame.
If the trend holds, Wisconsin is poised to reduce carbon emissions from transportation by nearly 1.2 million tons this year, according to a Journal Sentinel analysis.
Tailpipe emissions are the second-leading source of greenhouse gases after power plants. Emissions from power plants are increasing each year. When power plants and other sources are considered, the effects of reduced driving represent a cut of 1% of Wisconsin’s total annual carbon output.
Sharp turnabout
A drop in car and truck emissions would be a sharp turnabout in the course of a single year. State figures show emissions from cars, trucks, buses and airplanes have risen by an average of 1.3% a year since 1990.
“Four-dollar-a-gallon gas is already changing the way people drive,” said Steve Hiniker, executive director of the 1000 Friends of Wisconsin. With a representative of General Motors, he oversaw recommendations on transportation for the state’s global warming task force.
“It’s very significant to have such a dramatic change in behavior in such a short period of time,” Hiniker said.
John Pearse, controller at the General Motors assembly plant in Janesville, agreed with that sentiment during a June meeting of the task force in Sun Prairie.
But he said GM could not endorse all of the policies the panel was forwarding to Gov. Jim Doyle.
Pearse emphasized that market factors such as the price of gas are influencing people’s driving decisions more than some of the panel’s recommendations.
The aim of the task force is to find reductions that will result in a 22% drop in carbon emissions by 2022.
Sign of change
In Milwaukee, perhaps the most visible sign of change is the crowded train cars on Amtrak’s busy Milwaukee-to-Chicago corridor.
Ridership hit an all-time high in July, totaling 78,644 riders, when gas prices in Milwaukee were above $4 a gallon for most of the month, Amtrak said. Compared with July 2007, ridership was up 38%. Through the first seven months of the year, ridership has increased 29%, or nearly 100,000 riders.
“It is a very conscious decision for me to take the train,” said daily commuter Jeremy Poling of Whitefish Bay, an engineer and a sustainability analyst with A. Epstein and Sons International Inc., an architecture and engineering firm.
Three major suburban commuter lines with service to Milwaukee are reporting increases in ridership this year.
Waukesha County’s bus service to Milwaukee has jumped 11.4% in the first six months of the year over 2007; service from Washington County is up 7.6%; and service from Ozaukee County rose 6.2%.
“The biggest factor is the gas prices, especially when it went to $4 a gallon,” said Bob Johnson, director of Waukesha Metro Transit.
At peak commuter periods, buses “are stuffed to the gills,” Johnson said. “It’s a good time to be in transit.”
In Milwaukee County, overall transit ridership is down slightly in the first six months of the year, because of a combination of fare increases, service cuts and a change in the way that Milwaukee Public Schools purchased fares for students this year.
But a pair of key indicators of commuter transit use – adult cash fares and a pass that features an employer subsidy – rose 7.7% and 5.9% respectively.
Higher gas prices could influence long-term housing trends as well, which in turn could help to reduce carbon emissions.
Kerry Thomas, executive director of Transit Now, an advocacy group for mass transit, has fielded calls in recent months from people looking to relocate closer to mass transit.
Some are interested in knowing the route of the proposed commuter rail line between Kenosha and Milwaukee, she said.
Last month, Lynn Formella Winston of Hartland returned to Wisconsin with her husband, Chad, and three children after nine years in suburban Chicago.
Her husband’s commute between Buffalo Grove, Ill., and downtown Milwaukee had gotten longer because of construction delays and more expensive since he started the drive in January.
The move was driven by family considerations, but the environmental effects also factored in.
“We made a list of the pluses and minuses, and the carbon footprint thing was one of the reasons,” Lynn said.
For others, environmental considerations are not a factor.
Jeff Thomas runs a Milwaukee video production company and commutes at least three days a week by car to jobs in metro Chicago. He thinks that for many commuters, driving remains the best option.
“If the price of gas would drop tomorrow, everyone would forget about this whole green mentality,” he added.
Whether he is shrinking his carbon footprint “never entered my mind,” said attorney Scott G. Thomas, who has worked for insurer AIG in Chicago since 1999 and uses Amtrak almost every weekday.
“I’m not a bunny hugger,” he said. “I’m 53 years old. I don’t have kids. I don’t think about the future.”