Eco-Friendly Garden Decor

When fate hands us lemons, let’s try to make lemonade
Dale Carnegie

The concurrent housing, financial and energy crises not only create a vital imperative – to divorce ourselves from attitudes and lifestyles that are largely responsible for the hardships so many now face – but present an extraordinary opportunity to ensure a sustainable future for all Americans while revitalizing the economy. The way to achieve this is by train, bus and ferry.

A substantial investment in our mass-transit systems – particularly in projects to increase their availability and make them "greener" – would create jobs, give us a competitive edge in the global marketplace and, perhaps most important, offer a bold new front in the battle against climate change. Studies show that shifting ridership from cars to mass transit dramatically lowers carbon dioxide emissions contributing to climate change. This reduces road congestion, making autos still on the highway more fuel efficient. The U.S. produces 45 percent of the world’s automotive carbon emissions, so the impact this could have is profound.

Over the last two years, I've gotten an in-depth look at mass transit's potential. As a member of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Sustainability of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority – North America's largest mass-transit network – I've been involved in developing a blueprint for the most ambitious greening of a regional transit system ever undertaken. (The MTA services a 5,000-aquare-mile area that includes New York City, Long Island, the Hudson Valley and parts of Connecticut.) Our report, released earlier this month, calls for the MTA to draw 80 percent of its operating energy from clean, renewable sources by 2050 and capture two-thirds of the four million new residents expected to move into the region by 2030.

The key to absorbing this growth is through transit-oriented development (TOD), which clusters a neighborhood-style mix of residential space, shops, businesses and services around mass-transit hubs, vastly reducing residents' needs to hop in a car. ...