Friday, January 6, 2012

The Joys of Public Transportation

Throughout our travels we have been using massive amounts of public transportation- bus, train, metro, and airplane. Public transportation offers decreased airborne pollution compared to automobile carbon emissions. One of the airlines we have been flying on, Ryanair, claims to be the greenest and cleanest airline in Europe. They achieve this by operating the youngest and most fuel efficient fleet. Thereby, reducing its CO2 emissions of each passenger per kilometer traveled by 52%. The Ryanair planes are all smaller air-crafts which also assists in reducing the amount of fuel burned.
Using public transportation such as bus, train, and metro has resulted in economic gains for the areas as well. For instance, every dollar taxpayers invest in public transportation generates $6 or more in economic returns. This is especially important as urbanization becomes more popular and as areas may be facing economic difficulties. additionally, public transportation fees equate to much less than all of the expenses associated with private transportation. We have experienced a great majority of the people in Athens and the various cities we visited in Italy using the bus and metro systems since they have easy access to it. The metro systems in Athens and Florence seemed to have better maintenance and we figured this was due to the heavy tourist traffic.

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