When Mass Trans Fails to Reduce Energy

First off, let me apologize for the delay in posting - I have been traveling a bit and bogged down with some extra work.

Actually, in my travels, I decided to use mass transportation to keep my carbon footprint down. I decided a low budget bus line that leaves New York City from Chinatown every hour - it is convenient and inexpensive. However, after four trips on this bus line in the last week, I have determined it is not at all "green." Part of that is due to a nearby rival, which has buses that leave at an identical schedule to the same city, and in certain hours they are grossly underutilized. Because they have a set schedule and usually at least one passenger shows up, they have to make the trip (even if they do lose money) to stay in business.

For example on my 4PM trip back to NYC, I found that I was only one of four people on the bus (excluding the driver)! If you assume that the bus holds fifty people, that means that it was 92% under capacity - as was the competing bus line beside it. Because bus emissions in peak traffic periods are much worse than a personal vehicle, I actually increased my carbon footprint and by giving money to the bus lines, encouraged their behavior.

According to a report by the Tyndall Centre, simply switching to using our current bus lines (mostly non-green versions) does not make a significant impact on our environment:

"Under current conditions the average emissions per bus passenger are not markedly better than those for car. This partly explains the small impact on emissions 2.9% for a 10.6% reduction in car use. Under scenario one most of the switching from car is to other modes including cycle and the resulting changes in emissions are greater, car use has now fallen by 19.2% and emissions by 16.4%. None of the households reach their targets under current or improved scenarios. Once efficiency and technological gains reduce emissions by 30% targets become more achievable."

So what can be done?
-Discourage use of underutilized bus lines, through regulation? That doesn't sound very capitalistic, but green tariffs are coming.
-Self-select to use mass transportation that is better utilized? -Read the report.
-Buy a bike? -Yes, biking is still a lot of fun!
-Walk. Yes, even if it is cold out - it takes a lot of energy to heat that car, just to drive you down the street to a mailbox.
-Fill up that car with people -you can then even split the gas costs.