It’s Earth Week, Go Green and Save Some Green with Public Transit!

This week, we’re joining CTA, Metra and Pace to celebrate Earth Week, which begins with Earth Day on Sunday, April 22.

One of the best ways to celebrate Earth week and be environmentally friendly is by taking public transit. It’s the cleanest, greenest way to get around our region! If you don’t usually take public transit, Earth Week is the perfect time to ride and check out the benefits.

CTA, Metra and Pace are all dedicated to reducing their impact on the environment:

Pace is the first transit agency in the Chicago area and the third in the state to adopt CNG technology, a clean-burning fuel for its fleet.

CTA was the first major transit agency in the country to begin using all-electric buses, adding two electric buses to its fleet in 2014 and is currently in the process of purchasing another 20 to 30 electric buses because of their strong performance and benefits to the environment and to customers.

If the Metra trains stopped running, it’s been estimated we’d need to add 27 more lanes to our already crowded highways.

The benefits of public transportation go far beyond what’s happening in our region and benefit you even if you don’t ride:

Public transportation saves more than 4 billion gallons of gasoline, reducing U.S. customer costs by $10 billion annually.
37 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions are avoided by taking public transit.
One person with a 20-mile round trip commute can reduce daily carbon emissions by 4,800 pounds per year by taking public transit.

As long as we’re talking about going green – another benefit of taking public transit is the “green” you save: the annual savings for a person in our region who switches from commuting by car to commuting by public transit is $11,415. Furthermore, the RTA’s Transit Benefit Fare Program can save riders up to 40 percent on commuting costs by deducting pre-tax funds from their paycheck to pay for their transit fares.

This Earth Week, show the Earth – and your wallet – that you care by joining millions of CTA, Metra and Pace riders who use our region’s transit system to get to their destinations.