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In this day and age, It seems common knowledge that public transportation has the ability to help mitigate gas emissions. But just how is that happening? Well, while that is a very complex question with a very complex answer there are two key factors considered here for ease of understanding. Those are:
What kind of fuels are currently implemented and what is the impact?
How is the MBTA system making a difference environmentally and can the difference be seen if it didn't exist?
Looking here, the fuel types utilized over the last 4-5 years can be understood in comparing the quantity of each used and environmental impact respectively.
Noticeably, the system relies on electric propulsion (eg. Subway rails) and Diesel gas (eg. bus) volumetrically and mileage wise as the MBTA moved away from regular gasoline.
This metric becomes even more significant when emissions are taken into account. Using the volume measure from the MBTA and information from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA, 1; EIA, 2), the total pounds of CO2 emitted for each type could be calculated and that's where the power of electric propulsion can be best understood.
Although, it is used roughly 14x more than the next fuel, diesel, it has emitted only half of the pounds of CO2 as its respective competitor.
While that is important information, does it tell the whole story and answer every question? Certainly not. Another thing to think about is what would happen if the T didn't exist? While that is completely theoretical, it can at least be simulated. That simulation can be seen below.
What would happen if the MBTA relied solely on gas (depicted in orange) as most cars do? Here it can be seen that emissions would increase almost 8 fold, this again determined using EIA statistics.
Now what if the MBTA didn't even exist (depicted in red)? That's a great question and using the yearly totals of gated passengers that was estimated.
It was assumed that half of them would be drivers and that they would each drive a quarter of the mileage that the T does. Using 2021 ratios of emissions between drivers and the MBTA (Boston.gov, 2), this forecasted value could be determined and while this number is likely much much larger due to the underestimates in assumptions, that statistic is striking.
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