Anyone who reads the paper has heard the claim; if you ride the bus or light rail, you’ll prevent such and such amount of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.  I have rarely, however, seen an actual estimate of fuel usage of buses.

Until last week, that is, when the local transit authority revealed it had 1 million passengers, and used about 316,000 gallons of diesel fuel in taking them to their destination.

Most of the passengers use it to commute to Minneapolis from Eden Prairie, and the fuel usage is equivalent to running about 100 buses to and from the city daily.  Interestingly, that is about the ridership; inbound in the morning, outbound in the evening.  So it’s doubtful that they can carry many more riders without adding buses.

It’s not cost effective; they take in $1.7 million in fares, and the taxpayer pays the other $7 million--and this doesn’t even cover the cost of their capital.  Overall, it would be cheaper if most commuters simply drove to work--and the government simply provided parking in Minneapolis instead of a park-n-ride in Eden Prairie.

But now about energy; if the average ride is 15 miles (doubtful; they do other routes that aren’t commuter routes), they get about 45 miles per passenger-gallon.  Pretty good, eh?

Not so fast.  Remember, it’s diesel, and you haven’t accounted for either the fact that the rider drives extra miles to the transit station, and the transit authority’s use of energy isn’t accounted for--never mind the “transit only lanes” that are found.  The long and short of the matter is that transit ends up just about as efficient as your ordinary passenger car--which gets you to your destination far faster, with less pollution, and with far less damage to the roads.

Transit isn’t about the environment.  It’s about government, and it’s about control.