Want to Save the Climate? Invest in Transit.

As the U.S. continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, public transportation has remained essential, particularly for frontline workers. However, transit agencies are still reeling from reduced ridership and farebox revenues. The recently-passed Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act (IIJA) provides historic levels of federal funding for public transportation, which transit agencies in urban and rural America alike will be able to use to maintain and repair their systems and expand services. Spending this money the right way is key to maximizing our investments so we can better connect Americans to the things they need while taking shorter or fewer car trips, which is crucial if we’re going to meet our climate goals. Third Way has partnered with Transportation for America to determine what it would take to build out a national transit system that allows people to access jobs and services using public transit. We find that by increasing federal support for transit operations—running more buses and trains, more often—and for expanding transit services into more places to serve more people, we can make meaningful progress in reducing driving emissions. This will have the twin benefits of improving quality of life for people who can’t or don’t want to drive and reducing our transportation network’s climate impacts.