Skip to Content
Streetsblog USA home
Streetsblog USA home
Log In
ATU

Transit Union and Sierra Club Join Forces for Earth Day and Beyond

Earth Day is a week from tomorrow. How many people will drive to their local environmental festival without even a second thought to how they got there?

The ATU and the Sierra Club are teaming up to promote transit as a solution to fast-rising transportation emissions. Photo: ##http://www.carnewschina.com/page/701/##Car News China##
The ATU and the Sierra Club are teaming up to promote transit as a solution to fast-rising transportation emissions. Photo: ##http://www.carnewschina.com/page/701/##Car News China##

The Amalgamated Transit Union and the Sierra Club will announce tomorrow that they are joining forces to highlight the connection between transportation and climate change.

Transit is important, "not only to people who ride it but also to everybody who breathes oxygen in the world," said ATU President Larry Hanley. That's why the union is strengthening its coordination with the Sierra Club.

“They completely get the importance of mass transit,” he said. “It’s just that we haven’t found ways to formalize our public relationship in the past. That’s what we’re going to do now.”

Transit advocates, including the ATU, have been working to advance the full range of arguments for transit with the Transit Is Greater campaign. The ATU’s new “Transit > Pollution” leaflet [PDF] is all ready to be rolled out at bus stops and train stations around the U.S. and Canada, where the union will be encouraging riders to become more active in the push for better transit. They’ll also be doing climate-themed events with the Sierra Club in May, and beyond that with events they're calling "Transit Tuesdays.

“We’re working with elected officials and candidates for public office to get out and ride transit with us, to organize riders to contact Congress for a better transit bill,” Hanley said, referring to the pending reauthorization of the MAP-21 transportation bill. They’re also planning a rally May 20 on Capitol Hill, after which members of the ATU and the Transport Workers Union will visit Congressional offices. Sierra Club locals and other community groups from around the country will support that event with phone calls to their representatives.

While initially timed around Earth Day, the partnership launch also coincides with a spike of interest in climate change following the release of a new report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that issued a dire warning about the consequences of inaction. “Climate change, to those of us who don’t believe in voodoo but believe in science, is a real serious concern,” Hanley said. “We’re watching polar ice caps melt at the same time that our Congress has turned its back on the things that could slow that down -- like mass transit.”

Even many lawmakers concerned about environmental issues don’t pay enough attention to the power of transit to allay climate change, said Hanley. “That’s really the whole point of what we’re doing in May and throughout 2014,” he said. “We’re going to remind the ones who should know and alert the ones who don’t about the value of mass transit.”

According to the IPCC report, emissions from transportation could rise by 71 percent from 2010 levels by 2050, while the scientific consensus holds that the world needs to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by then. The transportation sector is projected to be the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in the world.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog USA

Friday’s Headlines Transform and Roll Out

Will autonomous vehicles really make us safer? Maybe in the long run, but maybe not in the short run.

May 23, 2025

Talking Headways Podcast: When You Don’t Really Need an Ambulance

Let's talk about the realities of non-emergency medical transportation, long a quiet backwater of urban transport planning.

May 22, 2025

Thursday’s Headlines Are Open 24 Hours

Between an egg surcharge and now EV chargers, late-night diner chain Waffle House looks ready to thrown down with the Trump administration.

May 22, 2025

How A Single Transportation Emergency Can Keep Parents From Achieving Their College Dreams

Abigail Seldin of Scholarship America about the 3.8 million U.S. students who are earning degrees while raising families.

May 22, 2025

Republican Senators Press Attack on CA’s Clean Air Laws

Anyone hoping that Congressional Republican leaders would follow generations of precedent regarding the role of the non-partisan Senate Parliamentarian or the Government Accountability Office (GAO) had a very bad day yesterday.

May 21, 2025

What It’s Like to Grow Up Car-Free In Chicago

"There's a good mix of time where you don't want your parents to drop you off, but you have to, because you don't have your own car," Quetzal said. "I never had that."

May 21, 2025
See all posts