Calculating the benefits of #publictransit - APTA

Investment in public transportation expands service and improves mobility,  and if sustained over time can potentially affect the economy by providing:

• travel and vehicle ownership cost savings for public transportation passengers and those switching from automobiles, leading to shifts in consumer spending;
• reduced traffic congestion for those traveling by automobile and truck, leading to further direct travel cost savings for businesses and households;
• business operating cost savings associated with worker wage and reliability effects of reduced congestion;
• business productivity gained from access to broader labor markets with more diverse skills, enabled by expanded public transit service areas and reduced traffic congestion; and 
• additional regional business growth enabled by indirect impacts of business growth on suppliers and induced impacts on spending of worker wages. At a national level, cost savings and other productivity impacts can affect competitiveness in international markets.

Global Warming - what must be done - Lokayat

...Gore focuses on individual actions, makes few serious demands on big business and endorses the largely voluntary market-based measures, such as emissions trading, that are contained in Kyoto. He, like most

mainstream environmental groups and the major Green parties, places the onus of solving global warming onto individuals, while relying on the capitalist market, nudged along by so-called “green” taxes and legislative regulations.

Such views reflect a well-meaning but utopian belief that if enough of us decide to drastically reduce our demand on the world’s resources, big business and governments will respond to “market signals” and adapt to a slow-growth or no-growth economy. It is a good thing to organise our lives to live more ecologically. But that alone will not be enough to halt the crisis.

http://lokayat.org.in/content/english-booklets/Crisis-of-Global-Warming-second-edition-2011.pdf