Vancouver Winter Olympics Sets Public Transit Records
The gold medal for transit goes to Metro Vancouver's public transportation system during the 2010 Winter Olympics, with record increases in ridership.
Vancouver's TransLink agency reported an average of 1.6 million riders per day used transit during the first week of the competition. Preliminary figures suggest bus loads were up 34% over normal to 975,000 passengers per day and the West Coast Express commuter rail carried 19,538 riders per day, up 78% from February 2009. The Expo/Millennium route on SkyTrain, an elevated rapid transit system, increased 54% to 369,700 riders per day, including a single-day record of 488,000 on Sunday, February 14. It normally carries about 150,000 passengers on a Sunday. In addition, the SeaBus ferry service between Vancouver and the North Shore doubled ridership to an average 48,000 passengers per day.
TransLink CEO Ian Jarvis said one goal of the public transportation effort was to reduce vehicle traffic in downtown Vancouver 30% during the Olympics, which close on February 28. Passengers with event tickets have unlimited access to the TransLink system on the day of each event. The agency added 48 extra train cars and a third ferry to meet the demand and has used every available train during peak times. See the TransLink press release.
Report: Copenhagen Accord Pledges Fall Short of Climate Goals
Pledges by 60 countries to cut their GHG emissions over the next 10 years will not be sufficient to hold global temperatures to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The report notes that an emissions path with a medium likelihood of keeping temperature rises below the 2°C mark require annual global GHG emissions to be at or below the equivalent of 40-48.3 gigatons of CO2. The pledges are estimated to achieve the equivalent of 48.8-51.2 gigatons of CO2 per year by 2020.
The report also notes that GHG emissions should peak sometime between 2015- 2021, and over the following 30 years, global GHG emissions need to fall 48%-72%, or about 3% per year. Climate scientists generally agree that global temperature increases should be held below 2°C to avoid catastrophic climate change impacts, which means that countries must find a way to bridge the "gigaton gap." See the UNEP press release.
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EREE Network News is a weekly publication of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).
