In a rare victory for national decarbonization targets, a small subset of Americans have successfully eliminated their personal tailpipe emissions by simply standing at unsheltered suburban bus stops for up to four hours a day.
In a rare victory for national decarbonization targets, a small subset of Americans have successfully eliminated their personal tailpipe emissions by simply standing at unsheltered suburban bus stops for up to four hours a day.
According to recent self-reported data from citizens attempting to live car-free in the United States, the transition away from fossil fuels requires minimal capital investment. The primary requirements are a willingness to walk along unpaved highway shoulders in the dark, and a high psychological tolerance for being clipped by 6,000-pound Ford F-150s while utilizing legally designated crosswalks.
While the IPCC’s AR6 report highlights active transport as a critical mitigation pathway for the developed world, our models generally assume the existence of a sidewalk,
The ongoing effort by these citizens is currently one of the few US transportation initiatives reliably meeting its stated net-zero targets. However, systemic progress remains stagnant, as municipal zoning boards continue to mandate massive parking minimums for suburban strip malls while quietly defunding the solitary transit route connecting residential zones to local grocery stores.
As the EPA finalized its latest tailpipe emissions rule last week—granting automakers further leeway to classify heavy-duty luxury SUVs as light trucks—the subset of Americans living without cars confirmed they will continue their daily carbon-reduction strategy of sprinting across six-lane arterial stroads to buy milk. The Federal Highway Administration’s updated pedestrian fatality figures are expected to be filed in Q3, just ahead of the COP29 summit in Baku, where the US delegation plans to tout a historic investment in highway widening.