Transit cleans the environment
If people switch from driving to transit, especially at peak hours when vehicles pollute most, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions could decline. Again, however, this result would occur not because people rode transit more, but because they drove less. While the environment might be cleaner if people stopped driving and rode trains, it would also be cleaner if they stopped driving and walked (conversely, if people stopped walking and rode trains, transit use would increase but environmental quality would not change). Nevertheless, transit’s environmental credentials are well-established in political rhetoric and popular conversation. LA’s Proposition C, for example, was formally called the ‘‘Passenger Rail and Clean Air Bond Act.’’ And the closing credits of An Inconvenient Truth, the Academy-Award winning documentary about global warming, urge viewers to ‘‘use light rail and mass transit.’’6 Thus voters concerned about the environment might support transit spending.