As I sit on the crowded 32 bus for my usual 50-minute-plus journey to get to work, I find myself wondering why no one seems to care that people who ride these buses regularly have to squeeze together as if trying to fit into a human sardine can.

MBTA buses.

The 32, which is almost always packed, worsens traffic on the already congested Hyde Park Avenue. It runs from Wolcott Square in Hyde Park, through Roslindale, to Forest Hills in Jamaica Plain. I’ve been taking the 32 bus my entire life; I lived in Roslindale until I was thirteen, then moved to Hyde Park. However, it hasn’t been until recently that I’ve started questioning the priorities of the MBTA.

Taking the 32 bus to Forest Hills then switching to the orange line to Downtown Crossing is the most convenient way for me to get downtown, where I’ve worked for the past two summers. I could also take the 50 bus to Forest Hills, which is sometimes a longer ride than the 32. The commuter rail, which costs more than twice the amount of the subway, takes only 20 minutes to get to South Station. My other option–taking the 33 or 24 bus to Mattapan Station, then taking the trolley to Ashmont Station, then switching to the red line–requires a little more effort and virtually the same amount of time. No relief.

Many times I have watched the commuter rail speed through Hyde Park Station, breathing in the fumes it leaves behind, trying to catch my breath as I race to catch the 32, and wonder why the people of this area are still cramming into one bus when there is a train that already runs through the neighborhood.

It has become quite apparent to me that the prices for the commuter rail need to be reduced so that common folk like me can afford to take it, otherwise there needs to be an extended train system to accommodate this area. Getting anywhere in Boston through public transit usually requires taking one of the four major lines–red, blue, green, and orange–all of which can only be accessed through a long bus ride from my area.

In an economy that’s stretched thin, like ours is, people have to go to greater lengths just to provide for their basic needs. Now, more than ever, there are so many other factors affecting daily life that to add something as miniscule as transportation to the laundry list is asking way too much for the average person. So instead, many are forced to brave long uncomfortable bus rides with the hope that there is at least one person associated with the MBTA who cares about providing adequate transit for those who need it.

I also cannot help but notice that some slightly more affluent areas of Boston seem to have a far more efficient transportation system than say, Hyde Park. This can only mean that public transportation is not prioritized by areas on a need basis. Don’t let the failing economy fool you; money is still being spent on public transit, just not in logical order. Despite what the MBTA cites as their reasons, the evidence is in the actions.

Maybe when I’m in my thirties they’ll finally get around to it.

Editor’s note: Tiffany Egbuonu is a Posse Scholar and a summer intern at CLF. She is entering her sophomore year at Bryn Mawr College in Bryn Mawr, PA.

Do you find yourself relating to Tiffany? CLF is working to bring accessible and affordable transportation to ALL people in the Boston metro area and beyond. Read more about CLF’s public transit work  here.

Only Rush Limbaugh’s fevered imagination could have hatched the idea that environmentalists caused the Deepwater Horizon oil spill:

RUSH: I want to get back to the timing of the blowing up, the explosion out there in the Gulf of Mexico of this oil rig. Since they’re sending SWAT teams down there now this changes the whole perspective of this. Now, lest we forget, ladies and gentlemen, the carbon tax bill, cap and trade that was scheduled to be announced on Earth Day. I remember that. And then it was postponed for a couple of days later after Earth Day, and then of course immigration has now moved in front of it. But this bill, the cap-and-trade bill, was strongly criticized by hardcore environmentalist wackos because it supposedly allowed more offshore drilling and nuclear plants, nuclear plant investment. So, since they’re sending SWAT teams down there, folks, since they’re sending SWAT teams to inspect the other rigs, what better way to head off more oil drilling, nuclear plants, than by blowing up a rig? I’m just noting the timing here.

Really, he said it.

Texas Governor Rick Perry has a different suspect:  God. An observation that has been treated with some derision even in Texas.

While the list of direct suspects is long and includes government regulators, British Petroleum, the actual operators of the drilling rig and Halliburton.

However, it is very clear that all of us who drive cars bear some responsibility here. The fundamental truth is that as long as humanity is in the business of piercing the protective shell of the earth and pulling out oil there will be calamities like the one  currently unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico.  As Lisa Margonelli of the New America Foundation, correctly, recently wrote in the New York Times: “All oil comes from someone’s backyard, and when we don’t reduce the amount of oil we consume, and refuse to drill at home, we end up getting people to drill for us in Kazakhstan, Angola and Nigeria — places without America’s strong environmental safeguards or the resources to enforce them.”

Yes, we need to stop drilling off the shores of the United States.  But we need to also recognize that so long as we consume oil in anything like current quantities there will be spills somewhere and (not incidentally) we will continue to put dangerous greenhouse gases causing global warming into the atmosphere.

And where do we use oil in the U.S. ?  The federal government reports that the answer is that 71% of our petroleum use is “for transportation” – in our cars, trucks and airplanes.

As CLF noted in our “5 Steps in 5 Years” Climate Vision, the state and federal governments are literally paving the way  towards a car-dependent future by spending 75 percent of our transportation capital budgets on roads and highways and 25 percent on transit.  To be blunt, the old hiker slogan has some truth to it – that “The Road to Hell is Paved.”

So the next time you are in the drivers seat of a gasoline powered vehicle take a look at yourself in the rear view mirror and stop to consider your own complicity in what is unfolding in the Gulf.  But don’t be paralyzed by guilt – take action.  Urge your elected representatives to pass comprehensive climate legislation and to make a massive investment in transit and smart, livable and walkable communities.

The average American spends 2 ½ hours a day in the car. That’s about 73,000 hours in a lifetime—and tons of havoc wreaked on the environment. The transportation sector is the fastest growing single source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the country, which pollute the air and contribute to global warming.

Tackling this challenge means both reducing the amount of driving by smarter development and building transit and reducing the pollution pouring out of each car. Four out of five of the New England states did the next best thing—reduced the amount that cars would be allowed to pollute in the first place.

Yesterday, the Obama Administration adopted those regulations nationwide, unveiling the first-ever federal clean cars standard that will limit the maximum level of GHGs that can be emitted by new cars and trucks. The new laws are expected to cut GHG emissions from new cars by 34 percent between models made in 2009 and those made in 2016—a change equivalent to taking 21.4 million of today’s cars off the road.

This decision is a major victory for CLF. When it comes to clean cars, we’ve been here since the beginning. For two decades CLF has fought for stronger limits on tailpipe emissions from cars.

Early national tailpipe emissions and fuel efficiency standards adopted in the 1960s and 70s improved the fuel economy of the average American vehicle from 13 miles per gallon in 1975 to 22.6 mpg in 1987 and began the process of reducing pollution from cars. Over the course of the 1980’s and 1990’s CLF worked in New England to ensure that our states in partnership with California would lead the nation in a journey towards lower emissions cars.

That journey took a new and interesting path in 2002 when the state of California adopted the Pavley standards, also known as the California Clean Car Standards, which set stringent emission standards for global warming pollutants  from cars.

CLF participated in the California process, urging that the standards be written in a manner that would allow them to be implemented in our states.  Once the standards were in place CLF then, working with allies in many states, launched a largely successful effort to get the standards adopted in the New England states.

It wasn’t easy. The automakers fought back by suing in both California and in New England. CLF served as “local counsel” to a coalition of environmental groups as we all worked with the states to achieved victory in two landmark cases in Vermont and Rhode Island in 2008, forcing automakers to comply with state emissions regulations and in effect implementing the “clean cars program” in every New England state except New Hampshire.

The momentum from the legal victories in Vermont and Rhode Island, as well as the parallel victory our allies achieved in court in California, provided key fuel for the effort that led to the adoption of those state standards on the national level.

But the work’s not done. Today, CLF is focused on pushing hard for the adoption and implementation of a Northeast/Mid-Atlantic Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) to gradually lower the carbon content of fuel. In 2008, CLF successfully worked with the governors of 11 northeast and mid-Atlantic states as they formulated and signed an agreement in which they pledged to develop an LCFS in the future.

CLF also continues to aggressively protect the right of the states to develop a statewide LCFS, and deter opponents who could threaten the longevity of those standards. CLF served as a third party legal counsel on behalf of the state of California in federal litigation challenging the state’s precedent-setting LCFS. Lastly, CLF is forcefully engaging with congressional staff, senators and representatives to fend off federal legislation that would thwart the ability of the states to continue to lead the LCFS effort and the next generation of car standards.

President Obama’s adoption of the California standards nationwide, ending a longtime battle between states and automakers, demonstrated to us at CLF that what happens here in New England really can serve as a model for other states, and that states have the power to create momentum for sweeping change that can influence policy on the federal level. CLF is proud that New England continues to lead the nation in taking action to identify and solve environmental problems and will continue to fight to ensure the states have, and use, the tools to provide a powerful model for national action.

CLF in the News:

New Federal Car Emissions Standards Hailed in Maine, Anne Mostue, MPBN
White House Follows Vermont’s Lead on Clean Cars, Paul Burns, vtdigger.org

The other day I got an email from the folks at Zipcar asking for support from Zipcar members who live in Brookline MA to speak up regarding proposed revised zoning ordinances to encourage car sharing, and this note is to ask for your support of these updates. The proposed changes are “Warrant Articles” 12 and 13 on the November 2009 Town Meeting Warrant.  Here’s a quick overview prepared by Zipcar:

• A limited number of shared car parking locations will be permitted in all areas except those zoned for single family dwellings.
• A special permitting process would be available for those locations where member demand requires us to provide more than the number of spaces allowed under Article 13.

In response I sent the following email to members of Brookline Town Meeting:

Dear Town Meeting Members,

I am writing to you today in both my personal capacity as a Brookline resident and in my professional capacity, as a climate and environmental advocate, in order to urge you to vote in favor of Warrant Articles 12 and 13.

Almost ten years ago I had an opportunity to discuss the idea of car sharing with the founders of Zipcar just prior to the creation and launch of that enterprise. I urged them to press ahead with the concept and company and I joined shortly after the launch and have made heavy use of their services ever since. I can directly testify that the presence of Zipcar (particularly in Brookline Village) has allowed my family to manage with only one car. Car sharing reduces demand for parking, consumption of land by cars and traffic on the streets as cars are juggled among parking spaces. It supports and enhances public transportation use and activity in our commercial and residential centers (like Brookline Village, Coolidge Corner and Washington Square) and town policy should encourage and foster its expansion.

Zipcar started with a single green Volkswagen New Beetle in the Springfield Street municipal parking lot in Cambridge and its early expansion brought it naturally to Brookline. Through organic growth and merger it has now expanded across the continent (from California to Canada) and even across the Atlantic to London. We should be proud of the role that Brookline played in providing this good enterprise with a base for growth and should recognize that it continues to provide value to our residents and a benefit to the Town. The proposed Warrant Articles are reasonable measures that will facilitate this important community benefit – whether it is provided by Zipcar or another car sharing service.

Please let me know if I can provide you with any additional information or answer any questions on this, or any other, subject.

Seth Kaplan

I firmly believe in the value of car sharing (really, the wikipedia entry is quite good) as a tool for reducing car ownership and usage and for boosting transit use and helping build vital urban communities.

Some members of Brookline Town Meeting have suggested that they are concerned about noisy and disruptive college students traveling to and returning from cars stored in residential areas. This is a legitimate concern – but I would point out that Zipcar (and pretty much every operation of this sort) requires that members be at least 21 years of age and having shared cars in the neighborhood has the positive effect of providing local students (and recent grads) with an alternative that allows them to avoid owning a car that will clog up local streets.

Environmentalists tend to be the kind of people who hang on to things.  Keenly aware of the impact of constantly buying new things – whether it be cars, appliances or other “hard goods” – the kind of folks who are CLF members (and are likely reading this) tend to avoid buying new things.  This is especially true where buying something new, like a new car, simply means shifting the use of the old item to someone else.  Driving a new efficient hybrid car is not a satisfying experience if you are aware that your older, less efficient car, will end up back on the road.

However, if you own an older car and want to move to a newer more efficient model while being sure that your old car will be scrapped and taken off the road the Federal Government has a deal for you.

Here are the basic rules for the program, as presented by the Feds:

• Your vehicle must be less than 25 years old on the trade-in date
• Only purchase or lease of new vehicles qualify
• Generally, trade-in vehicles must get 18 or less MPG (some very large pick-up trucks and cargo vans have different requirements)
• Trade-in vehicles must be registered and insured continuously for the full year preceding the trade-in
• You don’t need a voucher, dealers will apply a credit at purchase
• Program runs through Nov 1, 2009 or when the funds are exhausted, whichever comes first.
• The program requires the scrapping of your eligible trade-in vehicle, and that the dealer disclose to you an estimate of the scrap value of your trade-in. The scrap value, however minimal, will be in addition to the rebate, and not in place of the rebate.

Fortunately, the supply of cleaner and more efficient cars available for sale continues to expand, thanks in large part to the rules requiring a shift in the new car fleet mandated by the rules adopted by the Northeastern states (following the lead of California).   We are proud to note that CLF played a key role in defending those rules in court.

Update (August 6, 2009):

Unless you have been living in a cave you will have heard that the program is on the verge of running out of money and efforts are being made to “refuel it”.

Attempts at looking at the potential environmental benefits of the program range from the skeptical to the mildly positive to the fiercely negative.  A good middle ground was the comment of a leading environmental lawyer reported by CNET News:

“It’s not that it’s a bad idea; just don’t sell it as a cost-effective energy savings method,” Michael Gerrard, director of the Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University said in an academic journal. “From an economic standpoint it seems to be a roaring success. From an environment and energy perspective, it’s not where you would put your first dollar.”

The critiques of the program have some serious validity.  Would it be better for this money to be spent on public transit operations ?  Would a fundamental change in the funding paradigm that would shift money from roads to transit (as CLF has called for in our Five Steps for the Next Five Years climate vision document) be much better? Absolutely yes.

But my pragmatic bottom line is that this program has far more environmental benefit than so many other things the Federal government does and pays for that it is hard to get worked up about this one.