{"id":8594,"date":"2019-11-11T08:28:28","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T13:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/?p=8594"},"modified":"2019-11-11T08:36:07","modified_gmt":"2019-11-11T13:36:07","slug":"co2-and-the-downeaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/2019\/11\/11\/co2-and-the-downeaster\/","title":{"rendered":"CO2 and the Downeaster"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>by Dick Lemieux<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In her Nov. 5 letter, Jennifer J. Smith questions whether the Downeaster\u2019s average occupancy can be only 20 passengers per train. She counters with her own estimate that it carries about 150 passengers per trip. It\u2019s an irrelevant statistic, but it\u2019s enough to confirm her belief that the Downeaster is \u201cone of Amtrak\u2019s most popular services with fantastic growth.\u201d That\u2019s irrelevant, too.<\/p>\n<p>When comparing transport modes for their air pollution impact, the only factors that matter are vehicle occupancy and vehicle emission rates.<\/p>\n<p>The Downeaster\u2019s 2017 Agency Profile shows it carried 40,742,740 passenger miles on trains that traveled 2,144,482 revenue train miles, for an average of 19 passengers per vehicle.<\/p>\n<p>Per vehicle mile, a Downeaster train produces as much carbon dioxide as 39 cars, as much sulfur dioxide as 72 cars, as much nitrogen oxides as 140 cars and consumes as much energy as 48 cars. Yet, the Downeaster carries the passenger equivalent of just 19 cars with one occupant each.<\/p>\n<p>Why does this matter? It matters because 213 House representatives and 14 senators voted \u201caye\u201d to advance a $300 million rail project in New Hampshire that has no chance of producing better metrics. Gov. Sununu allowed it to go forward without his signature. All three candidates for governor are rail supporters.<\/p>\n<p>Probably none of them would knowingly vote for a project that would pollute our beautiful state but, based on misconceptions, all of them have unknowingly done just that.<br \/>\n&#8212;<\/p>\n<p><em>Mr. Lemieux is a retired highway engineer and transportation planner with more than 30 years\u2019 experience reviewing multimodal transportation plans from NH to Hawaii. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Dick Lemieux In her Nov. 5 letter, Jennifer J. Smith questions whether the Downeaster\u2019s average occupancy can be only 20 passengers per train. She counters with her own estimate that it carries about 150 passengers per trip. It\u2019s an irrelevant statistic, but it\u2019s enough to confirm her belief that the Downeaster is \u201cone of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[111,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commuter-rail","category-legislation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8594"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8597,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8594\/revisions\/8597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}