Eric Doherty is a Victoria-based transportation planning consultant and president of Ecopath Planning. He completed a wide range of projects for non-profit, public, and private sector clients.
"Abandoning biofuels as a major climate action in the transportation sector, as must be done, raises the question of how to reduce GHG pollution," writes Victoria-based transportation planning consultant Eric Doherty.
Car sales are declining globally and the real “peak car” moment (when the number of vehicles in operation stops increasing and starts a permanent decline) could also be near.
The role of government subsidies and direct investment in increasing climate pollution in the oil and gas sector has rightly gotten a lot of attention. But transportation, the second largest source of GHG pollution in Canada, must not be ignored.
The climate emergency exploded onto the headlines in 2018, with a relentless series of disasters leading up to the UN COP 24 climate conference in December. But the people cutting climate pollution by creating delightful urban spaces on an unprecedented scale should be headline news in 2019.
If we start treating the climate crisis as a true crisis, there will soon be a rapid growth of clean electric public transit options in communities around the world.
Decades of experience and studies show that the cliché, “you can’t build your way out of congestion,” is correct according to B.C. transit planner Eric Doherty.