Weathering the Storm: Can Transit Survive and Thrive in a Changing Climate?

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When most people think about climate change and resilience, their minds naturally picture electric vehicles, green buildings, and the otherwise large-scale implementation of new technologies that will (hopefully) reduce humans’ impacts on the environment. However, one impact that always seems to be left out of the discussion is the impacts of climate change on our urban and regional transit systems.
Mark Barnes, writing in Geography Compass, has cited a distinct lack of preparation and attention in the US given to making sure our public transportation networks not only continue to function long-term in a changing climate, but are also protected from extreme weather and storms (Barnes 2015). In the case of the latter, at stake is billions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure – one needs only to think of the damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy and the flooded subway stations of New York and New Jersey. In the case of the former, at stake is the day-to-day performance of our transit systems and the livelihoods of the millions of Americans who depend on them daily.
Under the previous federal administration, generous funding was allocated to cities and transit systems affected by or at distinct risk extreme weather and climate change. This allowed receiving jurisdictions to make implement needed system upgrades or repairs that would help mitigate or prevent damage from climate change and extreme weather. Funding – to the tune of $3.9B – went primarily to denser, mid-Atlantic cities like New York, New Jersey, and Boston and D.C., where flooding is already prevalent and expected to worsen in the coming years (Barron-Lopez 2014) and where Barnes feels the most “interventionist attention” is needed (Barnes 2015).
Closer to home, scholarly research into the impact of extreme weather and climate change on transit has been piecemeal but still a promising step in the right direction. Weather impacts on transit ridership has been investigated in Tacoma, Washington, showing significant drops in ridership during harsh weather, and future flooding along Johnson and Fanno Creeks here in the Portland region has been shown to be a threat to our future transportation systems and commute patterns in the region (Chang et al, 2010).

 

Studies are one thing, but if TriMet, PBOT and ODOT are fully prepared for future climate-related impacts on our public transportation system, there has yet to be much fanfare about it. Rising summer temperatures are a known burden at this point, playing havoc with MAX overhead wires and rail spacing. The 2015 incident of a MAX train flooding certainly made headlines for the news cycle, and triggered some operational policy changes within TriMet, but if it has led to deeper efforts to protect vital infrastructure remains to be seen by this writer.
-Justin Sherrill




Barnes, M. (2015) Transit Systems and Ridership under Extreme Weather and Climate Change Stress: An Urban Transportation Agenda for Hazards Geography. Geography Compass, 9: pp. 604–616.
Barron-Lopez, Laura. "Transit gets $3.6b to fight climate change." Hill, 23 Sept. 2014, p. 10. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A408785301/ITOF?u=s1185784&sid=ITOF&xid=b85ba42c. Accessed 23 Oct. 2018.
Chang, Heejun, et al. “Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Flood-Induced Travel Disruptions: A Case Study of Portland, Oregon, USA.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, vol. 100, no. 4, 2010, pp. 938–952.
Stover, Victor W., and Edward D. Mccormack. “The Impact of Weather on Bus Ridership in Pierce County, Washington.” Journal Of Public Transportation, vol. 15, no. 1, 2012, pp. 95–110.


Comments

  1. Dr. JoeNovember 2, 2018 at 3:35 PM

    Another now often forgotten impact of Sandy: it flooded a warehouse where a big chunk of the Citi Bike (bike share) equipment was being stored, delaying the launch and impacting the service area for some years after. It's not only traditional transit that's affected! see: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/15/nyregion/bike-share-equipment-apparently-damaged-by-flooding.html?module=inline

    ReplyDelete

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