Amazon grew by 5,000% between 2005 and 2021. In the same period, we have cut just 6% of our greenhouse gas emissions from transportation.

The clear and present impacts of climate change demand dramatic cuts in our greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the catastrophic biological collapse associated with more than 1.5 degrees of warming. The U.S. transportation sector needs to reduce its emissions by 39% by 2030 to meet its Paris Climate Agreement commitments. To meet the moment, we need low-carbon modes like transit, walking and biking to grow at an Amazon-like pace.

We don’t need a focus group or 18 months of studies to find a strategy to shift these trends. We can take a page from behavioral economics and follow what works. While Amazon employs many anti-competitive and unethical business practices to dominate the marketplace, we can still glean some critical lessons from how it wielded powerful incentives to become an essential service to hundreds of millions of people.

Most people’s transportation choices are malleable and not core to their identity. Most people aren’t angry, anti-bike drivers; they are curious about biking but don’t really see it as practical. They aren’t passionate about their car; their car may be a source of stress in their life between surprise repair costs and risk of theft. Some ride the bus every day but would prefer an option they had more control over.

Most people just want to be able to get places quickly, without a lot of hassle and uncertainty. And if a better option to achieve those ends was available, they might use it.

Transportation that’s cheap, easy and good

Amazon says they’re the “most customer-centric company on the planet,” which boils down to ruthlessly capitalizing on the consumer’s wants and driving more consumption. Its value proposition for the customer is simple:

• Cheap: Amazon has pursued growth by undercutting all its biggest competition on price (see the used book market circa 2001). Amazon Prime leverages a subscription model to provide “free” shipping.

• Easy: The company offers a one-stop shop for all your needs, without requiring you to leave home. The friction of a purchase is reduced to a single click.

• Good: Amazon seems to have all your favorite products with one- or two-day delivery. Service is also good for the most part: If you don’t like it, the company takes it back and refunds you.

These factors parallel the features that have fueled the rise of car dominance in the United States.

• Cheap: After you buy your vehicle, every trip you take feels free, almost like “free shipping” for Prime subscribers. Auto infrastructure is heavily subsidized and abundant free parking is available almost anywhere you want to go. When time is money, driving also proves the best time value for the majority of trips.

• Easy: Decades of engineering have gone toward saving you minutes on every trip. When you arrive at your destination, it’s likely required by zoning law to provide parking. Going door-to-door in a private car is relatively frictionless, which is especially important in an era of decreasing tolerance for multi-step processes.

• Good: Private cars are personalized to your lifestyle. They are climate-controlled, high status, and offer on-demand access to virtually every useful place. You have reasonable certainty that you will get where you’re going reasonably close to when you plan to arrive, especially given the rise of navigation software with robust, real-time traffic data.

A vision for making public transit ubiquitous

We can adapt these building blocks to build a rapid growth strategy for any transportation mode. So let’s play out the idea on transit.

Cheap: Free transit would be ideal, but with all the political barriers to securing reliable funding, shifting fare collection to a low-cost, subscription-based model would present a new value proposition to the user. On a monthly or yearly pass that grants holders unlimited trips, there is a set number of trips after which the pass is a better value than buying individual tickets. Beyond that threshold, additional trips feel cheaper or free, incentivizing more transit use.

Already, many bus systems offer monthly unlimited transit cards at deeply discounted rates through employers. These programs can be made universally available and can even consider a yearly pass model, which would help the consumer forget they even paid for it after they keep getting more value for “free.”

Easy: Many revolutionary improvements – like apps for navigation and payment system improvements – have made transit riding easier than ever. But transit still struggles to facilitate multi-purpose household trips, especially for families with children. Transit needs to be easier for people going somewhere besides work – wrangling children, grocery bags and a lengthy to-do list.

Transit transfer locations with more than 100 transfers per day should have other services available right at the transit station or stop. Key transit locations could leverage leasable assets, incentivize localized private leasing activity, and pursue co-development opportunities for small grocery, convenience retail, and services to create more convenient access to neighborhood features. Staff for a service or retailer at the stop or in the station also act as eyes on the space, providing safety benefits.

Good: At the core of a good service is one that is better than the alternative. Fellow bus riders know the frustration of opening up Google Maps to see your destination is 12 minutes away by driving but 55 minutes away by bus. As revolutionary as Bus Rapid Transit and targeted Speed and Reliability improvements have been (and we absolutely must heavily invest in these initiatives), they still shave off only about 20% of trip time end-to-end. Transit must be at least 200% faster than current service to beat the car.

In a less commute-centric transit system, creating new local express routes would make only select stops at key neighborhood centers and cut total trip time significantly. Our modern data collection can identify key origin-destination pairs and run frequent trips back and forth, using highways and other auto infrastructure that speed up travel in many cities.

Good service means being able to get from one major transit station to another across town in 20 or 30 minutes. That’s a service that convinces people not to drive.

We need to shift away from trying to get people to believe in low-carbon transportation to making it undeniably the best option to get around. Solutions that make low-carbon transportation cheap, easy and good help planners and advocates alike demonstrate that electric vehicles aren’t the only path to decarbonization — while also avoiding accusations of waging a “war on cars.”

While Amazon is unquestionably easy to hate as a company, the behavioral economic principles underpinning its success can be instructive. By shifting incentives to make low-carbon transportation cheap, easy and good, we can make the crucial shift to lower emissions while there is still time to head off the worst impacts of climate change.