UBC Study Shows Trams the Greenest Way to Go

By UBC Design Centre for Sustainability

It’s not surprising that a Ford Explorer is not the most sustainable form of transit, but who knew that there are also drawbacks to the bus and Skytrain?

“The cost per ride on Skytrain is more than the cost per ride in an SUV,” says Professor Patrick Condon of UBC’s Design Centre for Sustainability. “If you banked the 2.8 billion proposed for the UBC line, you could buy a new Prius for every entering undergraduate, every year, forever. Makes you think doesn’t it?”

With Translink facing a funding shortfall, the provincial government is expected to reassess the practical and financial options for a Skytrain line to UBC. The government announced plans for a $2.8 billion extension of the Millennium line to UBC last January at a cost per kilometre more than twice that of the Canada line, presently under construction.

In a comparison of the modern tram, trolleybus, Skytrain, LRT, diesel bus, articulated diesel bus, Toyota Prius and Ford Explorer, a recent study by Patrick Condon and Kari Dow of UBC’s Design Centre for Sustainability found the tram to be the greenest and cheapest of them all. Titled “A Cost Comparison of Transportation Modes,” the study examines the relationship between land use and transit, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the most cost-efficient transit system over the long term. Modern trams, used in Europe and closer to home in Portland, Oregon, have negligible carbon emissions yet are more convenient, cost less and are more efficient for short trips than buses, and far cheaper to operate than Skytrain: just 85 cents and 8.3 grams of carbon per passenger mile versus Skytrain’s $1.75 and 17.8 grams of carbon per passenger mile.

The Design Centre for Sustainability, part of UBC’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, applies sustainability concepts to the development of land, cities and communities. Patrick Condon is a senior researcher at the Design Centre and the UBC James Taylor Chair in Landscape and Liveable Environments. He has developed practical alternative development standards for sustainable communities, including options to Skytrain, publishing “The Case for the Tram: Learning from Portland” last May.

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Download “A Cost Comparison of Transportation Modes” at the Sustainability by Design website.