OOH, OOH...Carbon Footprint!

[Jay2TheRescue]

Freighters don't count. The same rule applies though... The crew wouldn't be there unless the cargo needed transporting. For example. If a cargo ship had a million pairs of shoes on it going from China to the US, then the carbon impact of the freighter is divided by 1 million and that portion of the carbon footprint belongs to the end user of the shoes.

[dkjones96]

Trains beat out all forms of transportation when it comes to efficiency. Followed closely by greyhound buses.

A trip on Amtrak is on average ~450mpgpp and a train can transport 1 short-ton ~400 miles on one gallon of fuel while a fully loaded semi only gets that same ton ~130.

Greyhound says a fully loaded bus gets 350 mpgpp.

[GasSavers_BEEF]

the issue with trains is that they are limited by the tracks and also, those figures are assuming that the train or bus is at full capacity.

I agree with what you said but once you reach your destination, you still have to get a taxi or something else to get from the bus depot or train station to where you are headed ultimately. also the time factor. new york to L.A. how long would it take on a train vs air travel. I don't know myself but I would assume it would take a lot longer by train or bus. in this world, time is money.

I understand that this thread is more about carbon footprint and less about efficiency (time wise). more time than not, it is more cost effective to fly regardless of travel expense or ecological affects.

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

Depends on the trip. Buffalo to NYC is about 6 1/2 hours by car... it's 7 1/2 hours minimum by the current Amtrak service, but I'm seeing 9+ hour durations listed. By air, flight time is about an hour, maybe an hour and a half if it's a slower turboprop commuter aircraft or you spend 15 mins circling the busy airport waiting to land... BUT you have to allow 2 hours to check in at the airport and pass checks, and another half hour to get out of the damn place at the other end, with probably another hour waiting for the right connections on public transit to get into the heart of the city or sit waiting in traffic in a cab. So air could be up to 5 hours.

Return by air costs about $150 at it's cheapest, plus probably another $10-40 to get into the city. @ 364 miles by road, many cars will do it with 2 tanks of gas... around 85 bucks with $3 gas and a 25mpg car. Train is not much better than air at about $125 round trip...

Anyway, to a lot of people, that trip will probably seem more attractive by car @ 25mpg for about half the price of air travel, taking potentially only 30% longer. That's for a single person, car seems even more attractive for more than one, but then mpgpp is better at least.

There are plans... dreams maybe it's been on the table so long, to have a high speed rail link between Buffalo and NYC, with claimed transit times of 3 hours... (Would have to go 125mph all the way methinks) ... at that point the car trip would become considerably less attractive.