After two years of restricted travel, many of us are planning summer vacations that involve visiting friends and family on the other side of our vast country.
Given what we know about the
climate impact of air travel, some of you might be wondering if it's more responsible to spend the extra time and take the train.
That’s what Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who has given up flying, often does. Even the airline KLM encourages people to “
fly responsibly,” which means taking the train for shorter distances.
Meanwhile, Canada’s VIA Rail bills itself as “the most environmentally friendly mode of intercity transportation.”
As it turns out, in Canada, the question of whether the train is really the greenest option depends on your starting point and your destination.
If you’re travelling somewhere between
Windsor, Ont. and
Quebec City in the corridor that includes
Toronto,
Ottawa and
Montreal, then yes, the train is probably it, according to Ryan Katz-Rosene, a University of Ottawa professor who studies sustainable transportation.
But if you’re heading from
Montreal to Halifax or
Toronto to Vancouver, the emissions per train trip might shock you.
“The numbers are crazy. They're super high,” said Katz-Rosene.
He and his wife had
taken the train across the country from Ottawa a couple of times, assuming it was the greener way to go.
But a few years ago, two VIA Rail passengers asked the Crown corporation for some information about their emissions. Seeing how high the numbers were, the passengers contacted Katz-Rosene, having seen his blog posts about travel emissions. Katz-Rosene used the numbers to do some comparisons and found the environmental winner for the Toronto-Vancouver route is actually … air travel.
Taking VIA’s “Canadian” service from Toronto to Vancouver would generate 724 to 4,287 kilograms of CO2 per person. In comparison, an economy flight between those two cities would generate 464 to 767 kilograms of CO2 per person.
VIA’s “Ocean” service between Montreal and Halifax generates 218 to 1,292 kilograms of CO2 per person, compared to 152 to 482 kilograms of CO2 per person for an economy flight.
Katz-Rosene published the findings in the journal
The Canadian Geographer and wrote about them on
the University of Ottawa website in 2020. He tried to confirm the numbers with VIA, but they did not confirm or deny the figures, despite multiple conversations with him.
CBC News asked VIA Rail about the emissions from those routes. It did not respond to that question, but sent a statement saying it has “over the past years made considerable progress regarding GHG reduction.” It added that it is “exploring the replacement of its long-distance and regional fleets operating outside the Corridor.”
Ottawa-based Transys Research led
a 2015 modelling study comparing emissions from rail to other modes of transport for the U.S. National Co-operative Rail Research Program. That study suggested that rail, car and air travel had a similar energy intensity per passenger between Toronto and Vancouver when the average number of passengers in each scenario was taken into account (although both rail and driving take roughly four days, instead of five hours by plane).
Transys Research president Gordon English doesn’t think the numbers in Katz-Rosene’s paper are quite right — he especially thinks there's an error in the Montreal-Halifax numbers.
“Nonetheless,” English told CBC News in an email, “the conclusion that rail's GHG intensity is higher than air for Toronto-Vancouver is an accurate statement for both rail-coach versus air-economy and rail-berth versus air-first class.”
However, he said long-distance trains in Canada are a “tourist experience” rather than a mode of transportation, and aren’t meant to compete with planes. He thinks if they’re an alternative to anything, it’s driving across the country in an RV. “And in those cases, rail would be more efficient.”
Global statistics show that
on average, rail generates fewer emissions per passenger kilometre than driving or flying — so why are things different in Canada?
Katz-Rosene blames “diesel-guzzling locomotives hauling fairly empty trains” — including sleeping and dining cars — on those lines.
English’s study found that just adding a snack car can increase a train’s greenhouse gas emissions intensity by 19 per cent, and that increasing seating density was one of the easiest ways to cut emissions and energy use. A double-decker car, for example, could boost energy efficiency 40 per cent compared to a single-level car.
Another reason why passenger rail is greener in other parts of the world, like
Europe or
Japan, is that it’s often electric.
Katz-Rosene suggests that boosting the number of passengers per car, adding an electric locomotive or using greener fuels (such as biodiesel or hydrogen) are ways VIA Rail could cut emissions for long-distance train travel.
In the meantime, what should you do about summer travel?
“Really, the most consequential [decision] is going to be whether you take the trip or not,” Katz-Rosene said.
If you decide to travel between Windsor and Quebec City, take the train (or drive with a car full of people). For longer distances, Katz-Rosene suggests flying economy or driving an energy-efficient car full of people, as his family is planning to do.
He also recommends getting in touch with politicians about the lack of green travel options.
“Let them know that we need to seriously tackle emissions in the transport sector, and we need to do so fast.”
–
Emily Chung
