WHEN I first moved to London, I used the Underground system but quickly found I preferred to be above ground to see the city. 

I also had to escape the oppressive heat of the underground system— even during winter — which left me to default to London’s amazing bus system. 

Living on a narrowboat in and around the city, London’s iconic red buses along with my bicycle were my means for dropping off and picking up my youngest child at school in addition to running errands, meetings and visiting friends. 

I thought I was doing the environment a favour, but then I sat down to examine what the environmental impacts of my commuting decisions actually were.  

First, there is the myth that owning and operating an automobile is necessarily worse for the environment than public transport. As a rule, this has always been a safe generalisation, but today this is not necessarily the case. The type of vehicle, how full or empty public transport is, stop-and-start traffic conditions and weather are all major factors in evaluating the ecological impact of public transport, buses especially.

Then factor in how vehicles are produced, roads and railway are laid down, and how these areas maintained. Only then can we begin to discuss the larger spectrum of the ecological impact of transport. Factor in the source of fuel when discussing electric vehicles (EVs) which can have their electricity generated from a wide range of products — from coal-generated electric plants to renewable energy (eg solar). 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “Summary for Policymakers” (2013) report details how sustainability as a model for transport is far more complex than merely car model versus bus or train. 

The consensus for transport is that this is not as black and white as we have previously thought where high-speed rail and the emerging car technology might just be the answer to our ecological problems.

My preferred transport in London, the bus, is now proven to be ecologically sound only if not sparsely filled. A Norwegian study from 2015, “Environmental Assessment of Bus Transport in the Trondheim Region,” shows that although the hybrid bus generated the lowest greenhouse gas emissions, the fact is that the fewer passengers on the bus, the less fuel efficient these buses are.

While this sounds logical, what might not sound logical is what to do when areas are not so widely travelled or densely populated.  Even in London where you can jump on a 38 bus without much more than a five-minute wait, we have to wonder what the advantages are of London’s 2,922 hybrid buses, 71 electric buses, and eight fuel cell buses if, at the end of the day, only five passengers are using them at certain hours of circulation.

One primary problem of London’s bus service is the lack of integration with cycling which makes it impossible for a cyclist to stick her bicycle on the front of the bus and jump on for a longer journey as cyclists in Los Angeles regularly do. 

Still, London’s Cycle Superhighway is having a great impact on ecological transport in the city, not to mention providing an excellent fitness workout. 

London’s Cycle Superhighways are a set of bike freeways, aimed principally at commuters and more experienced cyclists, providing faster and more direct radial routes between outer and central London.

Initially announced in 2008 by then mayor Ken Livingstone, London’s Cycle Superhighways initially consisted of 12 radial routes with route numbers in  a clock face formation.  The Cycle Superhighway, co-ordinated by Transport for London (TfL) and implemented on the ground by London boroughs, has had two routes cut followed by the addition of two more routes: “North-South” and “East-West” routes through central London, also known as the “Crossrail for Bikes.”

And while I have been unable to find a solar-powered bicycle factory, I have found a solar-panelled bicycle whose capacity to generate energy could make up for the carbon footprint involved in its production.

Now what’s this that I wrote earlier about automobiles potentially being as green as under-capacity buses? I am not advocating for the purchase of a car in city such as London. 

There really is no need today as car-sharing schemes are plentiful in the capital to include car-sharing services like Zipcar, Ubeequo, DriveNow, and ecar in addition to car-sharing schemes that travel companies like Kayak have recently introduced. 

Plus there is BlueCity which is London’s only 100 per cent electric car-sharing scheme, raising the bar on hybrid cars which are quickly becoming the ecological car of yesterday. 

Once again these cars are not the ultimate answer even if we arrive at 100 per cent electric cars in London since the way these cars are produced still adds to their carbon footprint. 

Toyota is leading the way with its construction of a bio-fuelled electric plant in California made from cow manure which will produce energy for its hydrogen and electric vehicles, scheduled to open in 2020. 

Volkswagen operates with a wind farm that supplies over 20GWh each year, meeting and now using hydropower for 10 per cent of its 12 domestic plants and the Toyota plant in Derbyshire has over 17,000 panels on 90,000 square metres of land, saving the company— and the planet — 2,000 tons of CO2 emissions a year.

While the London Underground is not perfect for carbon emissions due to the source of its electricity, it “provides one of the most carbon efficient forms of transport. London’s Underground system is intensively used, enabling three to four million fast, efficient journeys around the capital every day.”

Also, the Tube system is working on ecological upgrades to include harnessing energy from its braking system which recycles energy back into its power source, the extraction of heat from the Underground to heat local homes, and a hybrid power solution.  

Ecological transport in London is here to stay and it is time that everyone ditch privately owned vehicles, join a car-share scheme, get a bicycle and water bottle, and set out to find Boris Johnson in order to question him about the disaster he has created with Brexit.