A Note on Cherriots Carbon Management Plan

A week ago in a formal Work Session, the Cherriots Board heard a presentation on a "Carbon Management" plan. They saw a greenhouse gas emissions inventory and a list of recommendations.

Presentation on "Carbon Management"

This Carbon Management plan is a subplan nested under a broader Climate Action Plan, and is clearly oriented to the internal operations of Cherriots as a corporation.

A brief introductory memo

Here is a comment on the plan, criticizing it a little for something it does not aim to be. So on the one hand, strictly speaking the plan is immunized already against any critique along these lines. But on the other hand, our broad climate goals should make us hesitate to dismiss the comment.

The most important thing for Cherriots on climate is to increase ridership. The more trips taken on bus, the fewer trips taken by car!

Consider a simple model of one route and one bus with 100 boardings. If we electrify that one bus, it's a lot cleaner. But if we double the ridership to 200 boardings and keep a dirty diesel bus instead of electrifying the bus, the climate impact is not so much the tailpipe emissions of the bus itself, but is the total tailpipe emissions of the car trips not taken by the additional riders. Keeping the entire Cherriots fleet on dirty diesel but increasing ridership greatly is a more positive development than keeping ridership the same and electrifying the Cherriots bus fleet.

Some transit professionals and advocates caution against service reductions caused by higher operational costs in electrification, and argue for just plain improving conventional service.

via Twitter

via Twitter

So as Cherriots focuses on developing the dedicated electrification on the Lancaster route, first announced in 2020, and all the good will and breathless PR it generates, they should not lose sight of other elements in improving service and ridership, even if those remain stuck with conventional fossil fuel buses. (Do note the announcement this spring on signal priority for Lancaster. More things like this!)

Summary of recommendations

The recommendations, then, may be optimizing on the narrow question of Cherriots' own emissions and not enough on total transportation emissions. Cherriots can't control the development of dedicated bus lanes, for example, but bus lanes should not be sidelined in any "culture of carbon management." Merely to focus on electric buses could be another instance of Gadget Green.