Switch to Transit Make Text Larger Make Text Smaller Print This Page

Opting for the bus, light rail, or other public transit even part of the time goes a long way to reducing your greenhouse gas emissions and saving energy. It also improves your health, by walking to and from transit and reducing vehicle emissions in the air we breathe.

How to take action

  • Get to know your local transit system. Most systems have maps or online trip planners that help you determine which routes are best for you.
  • Explore. Try out the routes that are most useful for you on a day when you're not pressed for time. Learn where connections are and get a feel for the length of time trips take.
  • Switch slowly. Leave the car at home only one or two days per week at first.
  • Look for the advantages. Notice where shops, services, and restaurants are located along your walking and transit route. Make use of them as you pass by to reduce other errand trips by car.
  • Enjoy your time. Riding transit frees you up from driving – you can read or listen to music, and you avoid the stress of navigating rush-hour traffic.
  • Find out if your employer offers a program to subsidize transit passes. Check whether there are reduced-cost tickets available for regular riders on your transit system.
  • Develop a transit-riding family. Take your kids on transit – you get to sit side by side and chat with young children as you travel, instead of having them stuck in the back seat. Explore the parks and kid-friendly locations available on different transit routes. Teach the kids to read the transit map, put money in the ticket machines, and pull the request-stop signal.
  • Take pride in your reduced impact. Calculate how much you've cut your greenhouse emissions.
  • Consider whether using transit would allow your household to get rid of one car permanently. You'd save money and make a real commitment to the environment.
  • If public transit is not an option where you live – create it! Start a car pool.

Why it makes a difference

  • A ride on the bus produces less than a third of the emissions per person as a trip alone in a car. A single public bus takes 40 vehicles off the road at rush hour, saving 70,000 litres of fuel and reducing air pollutants by nine tonnes per year.
  • Riding in a bus is 79 times safer than riding in a car. Riding in a train or subway is even safer.

For more information

Last Modified: Sep 2, 2010

 

Tool Tip Text