Public transit and air pollution: Evidence from Canadian transit strikes
Nicholas Rivers, Soodeh Saberian, Brandon Schaufele
Abstract
Abstract Little is known about the causal impacts of public transit on local air pollution. Exploiting variation in transit availability resulting from transit strikes in 18 Canadian cities between 1974 and 2011, this study identifies the short‐run effect of public transit on air pollution. Our findings indicate that transit leads to a 3.5 part per billion increase in nitrogen oxides while having no statistically significant effect on carbon monoxide or PM 2.5 . Estimates are robust to a series of specification tests and magnitudes are consistent with a calibrated simulation model. Overall, the results suggest that expanding the current configuration of public transit in North American cities is unlikely to yield improvements in local air quality.