An Ode To Public Transit And Its Effects On Public Health

Taking public transport can improve mental health, reduce pollution, make us active, and save us money. So why aren’t we using it more often?

By Jackson Bartelt

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The car sways rhythmically along the tracks and my head follows suit, gently rocking back and forth on my shoulders. “The next station is Midtown,” the familiar voice announces as I head southbound towards the airport. I’m headed home to Chicago for fall break.

I try to politely not make eye contact with the passenger across from me as I check out their badge—a security gig. Probably the overnight shift due to the gas station coffee in hand. I slip up and meet his gaze. Quick, I think, give an awkward smile and nod. In return I’m met by a wide grin paired with an inviting “How’s it goin’?” As I try to respond, a biker walks between us. They’re wheeling a fixie with pink ornamented handlebars and pedals, tattooed with various anti-establishment and heavy-metal band stickers along the frame. Badass.

I’m not from Atlanta. In fact, I’ll soon be leaving after graduation, likely forever. But on the train, surrounded by people from all walks of life, going about their own business, I feel at home. Why don’t more people take public transit? I ask myself. The best feeling of all is that I spent 2 bucks on this trip. One of my friends left for break the day prior with a $70 Uber. They’re missing out.

Atlanta’s MARTA public transit system introduces me to people and places I never would have otherwise seen and allows me to feel deeply connected to the city I inhabit. In fact, a growing field of study suggests public transit might not just be vastly cheaper for individuals but may be a critical component to promoting health for those living in urban areas.

Public transit benefits human health and the environment

Investment in public transit infrastructure with accompanying pedestrian infrastructure can improve public health through increased social connection, increased activity levels, improved local air quality, and a host of other benefits. However, significant barriers remain, even as research continues to strengthen the link between public transportation and public health.

Dr. Chris Wyczalkowski, a researcher at Georgia State University and the Director of Customer Insights at MARTA, studies the ways that public transit influences riders’ day to day lives and the ways that cities can increase ridership. Wyczalkowski’s work has highlighted various factors that limit adoption and expansion of public transit.

“We have a very car-oriented culture, particularly in the south, and it’s very antagonistic to public transit,” he says. “How do we change that? Make it more attractive for riders to come, then you have an upward spiral of more riders, better service, more riders, etc.”

Wyczalkowski, in his research, has also identified that driving automobiles can make people sedentary and become a source of social isolation. Public transit can provide people with a chance to build social connection. “It seems trivial, but when exchanges are multiplied thousands of times, there is a positive effect,” says Wyczalkowski. “That multiplication effect can change society.”

It is true that people exhibit more sedentary behavior and social isolation when they rely on cars for all of their daily trips. “Even in a dense, urban environment, you don’t even know your neighbors,” Wyczalkowski says. “By the time we pass our neighbors house, we’re going 20-30 miles per hour! So you’re more and more isolated in your little box.”

Furthermore, evidence shows that car-dominated infrastructure across the U.S. contributes directly to poorer physical health outcomes. The transportation sector is the single largest contributor to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, at around 28 percent of all emissions. Of this sector, 57 percent come from light duty trucks and cars—the ways that everyday people get around. Pollution is well known to exhibit broad and slow-creeping damage to natural ecosystems and global food supply. But beyond these larger-scale effects, human health is directly and immediately affected by local vehicle emissions.

Particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, and breathing in air from nearby roadways can lead to various outcomes including heart and lung disease, cancer, and premature death. One estimate has shown that, in the year 2015 alone, vehicle emissions led to over $1 trillion in health damages globally. Public transportation can combat these damages because it emits significantly less pollution than driving.

Data from the UK shows that gas-powered cars emit 170 grams of carbon dioxide per rider per kilometer compared to about 100 grams for buses, 35 grams for trains, and 29 grams for trams. Therefore, governments at the local or federal level can provide more efficient alternatives to automobiles and strongly detract from a major source of pollution.

Public transit and public health are interconnected

Those who cannot afford to own a car in car-dependent cities may experience food insecurity if they live in a food desert with limited access to fresh, healthy foods. Similarly, they also may have reduced access to vital healthcare services if there is not a comprehensive health system nearby that takes their form of health insurance.

On top of all this, for those experiencing poverty, cars are extremely costly and put a significant strain on the household budget for other components of a healthy lifestyle like a gym membership or preventative healthcare.

Wyczalkowski recently published a paper along with his colleagues at Georgia State surveying patients at the Food as Medicine program at the Grady Hospital in Downtown Atlanta and analyzing the transportation barriers they faced. Their study found an especially exacerbating effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on transportation access and the ability to get to vital healthcare services and healthy, affordable food.

“People spoke a lot about the necessity for MARTA and public transit and without that access, they can’t get the health appointments they need,” says Wyczalkowski. “And when it wasn’t available, when it didn’t come, when the service was inefficient, how painful it is for them.”

Research like this contributes to a growing understanding within the scientific community that public transit is a viable and effective approach to improve public health—and institutions responsible for public health are catching on.

Emory’s public transit system and its challenges

Walter Kolis is the Assistant Director of the Transportation Services team at Emory University, heading the shuttle network for students, faculty, and healthcare professionals that are responsible for over 2.5 million riders and 100,000 hours of service each year.

Kolis and his team work to empower students and staff at Emory to use more sustainable forms of transit. They encourage and support the use of biking, walking, carpool, vanpool, public transit, and Emory shuttles. Essentially, they work to limit the number of trips taken by single-occupancy vehicles. He explains some ways that the alternative forms of transit that his team supports can manifest into real health benefits.

“If you’re carpooling with someone, you might not only increase your financial well-being by not having to pay for gas to wear and tear,” Kolis says, “but you might sit with a colleague or a friend or a classmate or a coworker. So it can enhance your social well-being and your emotional well-being as well.”

While taking public transit, riders are also often able to focus on other daily tasks without the risks of trying to multitask while navigating morning rush-hour traffic. People can get ahead on homework, follow up on emails, read a book, or play a game. All of these things can have a beneficial effect on stress levels. Thus, sustainable forms of transit can transform an otherwise tiresome or even angering morning commute into a truly calming ride that connects people to their neighbors or coworkers in meaningful ways.

However, Kolis also echoes the sentiment that, in many cases, these forms of transit can be inconvenient for some commuters. Their surveys have identified various factors that limit working professionals and students’ willingness or ability to consistently use more sustainable forms of transit.

“One of the things that we’ve heard is that there’s a lack of access,” Kolis says. “Where they currently live does not have access to public transit. So that might not be from a lack of desire, but from a lack of frequent and reliable service.”

Especially for professionals, though, rainy weather is another commonly cited detractor from using public transit. Cars often offer the convenience of staying covered from the garage to the parking deck at work. Extensive public transit can keep people covered from the rain, but small gaps in someone’s route when they have to walk means getting drenched.

Advocates for expanding public transit funding argue that these challenges are not inherent to public transportation infrastructure, but are the result of policy shortcomings which leave the built environment overwhelmingly car-dependent. The only way to overcome the current limitations of public transportation, they argue, is to double down and thoroughly invest in a viable network of public infrastructure for commuters and pedestrians.

Atlanta’s struggle to expand public transport

Alex Ip, a dedicated car-free biker and founder of Atlanta-based independent environmental news outlet The Xylom, says that people in cities overwhelmingly support expanded public-transportation and restrictions on automobiles. “Even within Atlanta decision makers, there’s a broad consensus,” Ip remarks, “except for the mayor and his buddies. So this is no longer a technical issue, no longer a popular will issue, it’s a democracy issue.”

Ip highlights the popular initiative of building Beltline rail in Atlanta, a simple light rail track that would connect innumerable communities surrounding downtown Atlanta that are currently disconnected from each other. Construction plans have not yet gone into effect even though the project has received a supermajority of support from constituents and passed a referendum for funding.

Even among existing routes that Atlantans depend on to get around, significant barriers exist. Ip has done investigative reporting showing that, over a one-year period in Atlanta, 80 percent of weekends had a delay or closure of the north/south route, leading to around 5,500 trains with reduced service. Atlantans are left dependent on cars to get around when popular movements to create an interconnected and dependable network of public transportation are undermined by politicians.

“People are less active when they’re in a car, and highways segregate neighborhoods, which reduces access for people from accessing green space, from accessing other neighborhoods, or even fresh food,” says Ip. “Not to mention, drivers kill a lot of people.”

Atlanta’s struggle to successfully implement expanded public transportation, thus, appears not to be a polemical debate over whether or not transit is necessary or beneficial, but a battle for a public health initiative that is known to be successful and a scientific exploration of how to best accomplish it.

Researchers are collective behavior on how to adapt and roll-out public transit expansions in the most cost-effective and impactful way possible.

“I would try to understand better how to do it: How do we get these things done? How do you change people’s minds?” says Dr. Wyczalkowski.

One theme that underlies the slow progress of this movement is simple inertia. Whether on the local or country-wide level, institutions and individuals are stuck doing what they’ve always done. “By nature, these things take a lot of time to get rolling,” says Kolis. “Broadly speaking, it’s really complex. There’s a lot of stakeholders. Adding service can be challenging.”

As my train car coasts high above the street on elevated tracks passing endless car traffic, I recollect being met with the same type of resistance while trying to get friends to come along with me on public transit. Often, I’m told driving is just more convenient. “What about when it rains? When it snows?”

These comments, which often reflect classist sentiments, can be largely understood as an unwillingness to change—changing their habits, their perspective of others less fortunate than them, or their routine of $7 dollar drive thru coffee in their gas-guzzling SUV.

In the same way, as the train pulls into the airport station, I become convinced. As I’m met by endless 2-3 hour delays from my favorite budget airline, I wait patiently, confident that, in no time, I’ll be able to plop into my childhood bed.

I’m inspired by the community of scientists and advocates rallying behind a vision for a better tomorrow even though my friends, family, and government are reluctant to adopt a new way, a better way, of getting people where they need to be—back to their families like me. With each trip I take, each new part of town I explore, each new perspective I encounter, I see and feel firsthand that it’s a vision worth fighting for.