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Tag: vehicle miles traveled

Minnesota takes important steps to drive down emissions

To address urgent climate needs, every state will need to make it possible for their residents to drive less every day. But too many shy away from taking concrete steps to do so, putting all of their efforts into improving fuel efficiency and electric vehicle adoption. The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) just took a key step in the fight against climate change: setting an ambitious target for reducing driving (measured as vehicle miles traveled, or VMT). 

Riders on a bus in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, June 2020. Photo by Metro Transit.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) recently made a highly anticipated decision to adopt a number of recommendations from the state’s Sustainable Transportation Advisory Council (STAC) made in December 2020, including setting a preliminary statewide goal for a 20 percent VMT reduction statewide and per capita by 2050. For the average Minnesota driver, that will mean traveling about 45 miles less per week in 2050 than today. 

MnDOT’s VMT reduction target is preliminary, and will be finalized after engaging the public and stakeholders through the Statewide Multimodal Transportation Plan process that will occur throughout 2021. MnDOT may also set interim targets, as well as different targets for the Twin Cities region (which already has locally-established targets) compared to the rest of the state.

Minnesota has already had some success reducing emissions from the transportation sector in recent years, particularly compared to some of its peers, but setting VMT reduction goals has been a gap in the state’s efforts. We highlighted the need for VMT reduction targets with our partners at Move Minnesota in our Minnesota case study for our Driving Down Emissions report, as have local advocates and stakeholders, so it is great to see the state step out as a national leader working toward reducing the need to drive. 

This step is a big deal—most states are still heavily focused on improving fuel efficiency standards and electric vehicle adoption with little or no emphasis on how growing VMT is undercutting those efforts. This is shortsighted and leaves valuable strategies that would also create more livable and equitable communities on the table. 

Importantly, MnDOT also plans to develop an approach for estimating the VMT that will result from its program and proposed projects by assessing both induced demand from adding lanes and reduced demand from increasing walking access. MnDOT will also evaluate the accuracy of existing travel demand forecasting methods—an important step, since many traditional forecasting models have a poor track record of accuracy and can prompt premature or unnecessary highway expansions that induce more driving and more emissions. 

Minnesota isn’t the only state taking action this month to reduce emissions by reducing the need to drive. The California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA) recently released a public discussion draft of its plan to reduce VMT. The Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure (CAPTI), created in response to Governor Gavin Newsom’s executive order, will be finalized later this year. It includes 28 action items with a number of potential strategies aimed at reducing driving, including pricing, using state transportation funds to incentivize land use decisions that reduce the need to drive, and establishing VMT mitigation banks that allow transportation project sponsors to purchase VMT allowances if their project will induce more driving, creating a fund for VMT-reduction projects. 

California’s plan also includes strategies aimed at addressing the transportation system’s entrenched inequities, such as pollutants that disproportionately affect low-income and minority communities. And California has also already developed an approach for estimating the induced driving that will result from its highway projects, which other states can and should adopt. 

We are very excited to see MnDOT take bold steps to address climate change emissions in transportation by addressing the role the transportation system plays in forcing people to drive more and further. They are showing themselves to be leaders and we hope to see many more states follow.

We’ll never address climate change without making it possible for people to drive less

With transportation accounting for the largest share of carbon emissions in the U.S., we’ll never achieve ambitious climate targets or create more livable and equitable communities if we don’t find ways to allow people to get around outside of a car—or provide more housing in places where that’s already an option. Our new report shows how we can reach those targets while building a more just and equitable society. 

Join us on October 28th for a short online discussion about what’s in Driving Down Emissions. We’ll be walking through the report briefly and sharing some stories about how one state has had some success—and the limitations of electric vehicles. Register here.

It seems like climate-focused policymakers have a single-minded obsession with the silver bullet solution of everyone in America buying a brand new electric car, while ignoring an underlying system that requires everyone to drive further every year, kills people walking in record numbers, and creates communities that cuts people off from jobs and opportunities. Yet the simple truth is that we’ll never achieve our ambitious climate targets or create more livable and equitable communities if we don’t find ways to allow people to get around outside of a car. 

We need a different set of solutions to pair with one day being able to convert our current gas-powered vehicle fleet to electricity.  Driving Down Emissions, a new report from Transportation for America and Smart Growth America, explores how our land-use and transportation decisions are inextricably connected, and unpacks five strategies that can make a significant dent in the growth of emissions while building a more just and equitable society:

  • Getting onerous government regulations out of the way of providing more homes where people naturally drive less;
  • Making safety the top priority for street design to encourage walking, biking, and shorter driving trips;
  • Instituting GHG reduction and less driving as goals of the transportation system;
  • Investing heavily in other options for getting around, and;
  • Prioritizing access to destinations. 

Reducing transportation emissions and reducing the distance we drive is both needed and possible. The vast majority of Americans are clamoring to spend fewer hours behind the wheel, not more. Only a cynic would declare that Americans want to drive more and more each year to accomplish all they need to do each day. Polling and consumer preference research has consistently shown that millions would prefer to live in walkable, connected places where trips are short and there’s a menu of options for getting around.

Yet that demand is going unmet, and some of the biggest obstacles to meeting it are onerous government regulations and policies (at all levels) that make it nearly impossible to build more housing in places that fit this bill, or to retrofit streets to make more areas safe to walk or bike in. These factors combine to make existing housing in walkable places unaffordable and unattainable.

Let that sink in: millions of Americans would love to live in places that guarantee shorter trips, fewer trips, more ways to get around, and less emissions—whether climate change is their motivating factor or not. But millions can’t find a place they can afford because of zoning requirements that make it either incredibly difficult or downright illegal to meet this demand, and because transportation designs and objectives that make it dangerous to try to get around elsewhere without a car. 

If lower-income Americans can’t afford a car then they have no choice but to limit the possibilities for their lives to what can be reached on dangerous streets by foot or bike, or via infrequent buses or trains on underfunded transit systems that fail to connect them to opportunity, even if the emissions are low. Finding ways to put more housing in places where people can drive less—and making those homes attainable and affordable—will be a key aspect of transitioning to a low-carbon economy without placing a new burden on lower-income Americans. 

This report shows that reducing emissions from transportation is entirely doable—which is a good thing, because there are other areas where making significant reductions will be far more difficult. While we don’t want to repeat the economic conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic, the massive drops in traffic and emissions during the shutdown showed us the potential benefits of lowering driving rates, even if just a modest amount. And while we have no idea how to completely electrify our fleet of vehicles or how long that transition will even take, we can absolutely lower emissions in a short timeframe by meeting the demand for more housing in smart locations—helping millions of Americans who want to live in places where they can emit less and drive less find ways to do so. 

The urgency of our climate crisis requires it.

Download Driving Down Emissions

Webinar recap: How the Senate’s transportation proposal would make climate change worse

Transportation is the largest source of U.S. carbon emissions, and most of it comes from driving. But a long-term transportation bill passed by a Senate committee last summer would only make this problem worse. Last week, along with Third Way, we discussed the role federal transportation policy plays in making climate change worse—and what a better transportation bill looks like. 

Last summer, the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee passed a long-term transportation bill that was, quite frankly, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The bill included a groundbreaking $10 billion for carbon reduction programs (“groundbreaking” simply because no prior transportation law had ever included any climate-related funding), while pouring 27 times that amount into programs that are perfectly designed to increase carbon emissions.. 

That’s why we teamed up with Third Way to host a webinar debunking the bill’s climate-friendly ethos. Our Policy Director Scott Goldstein and Third Way’s Transportation Policy Advisor Alexander Laska discussed how the Senate bill will just wind up increasing emissions, and what a better long-term transportation bill looks like (psssssh: it looks an awful lot like the bill passed by the House of Representatives this summer). 

Here are three of the most frequently-asked questions from the webinar. 

Why isn’t electrifying vehicles enough to reduce transportation emissions? 

The reason: Americans are driving more than ever, and electrification can’t keep up with the pace of growth. As federal transportation policy and funding encourages more and wider highways, destinations—like housing, businesses, schools and more—get placed physically farther apart from each other to accommodate highways. This results in people living further away from the things they need and the places they go, causing them to drive further and further just to reach everyday destinations, as our former colleague Emily Mangan wrote in this slam dunk of a blog post. 

This ever-increasing driving (known as “vehicle miles traveled”, or VMT) is why emissions have increased despite relatively large increases in fuel efficiency standards and the slow-but-steady adoption of electric vehicles thus far. Despite an admirable 35 percent increase in the overall fuel efficiency of our vehicle fleet from 1990-2016, emissions still rose by 21 percent. That’s because the total amount of miles traveled increased by 50 percent in that same period. 

If we only electrify the fleet but don’t find ways for more people to drive less each day, this trend will continue to go in the wrong direction. And make no mistake, this Senate bill gives states billions in new money for new roads that will just produce more driving.

What role does Congress play in local land use decisions? 

The common belief is that land-use decisions are made strictly at the local level, and that the federal government has no role or effect on them. That’s false. Federal policy plays an enormous role in local land use decisions, largely due to the incentives that federal programs create. 

In the federal transportation program, 80 percent of funding is set mostly for highways, where the overarching priority is to increase vehicle speed, not to improve safety, not to make it easier to bike or walk, and not to make transit more efficient. As a result, towns and cities make decisions in response to these federal priorities and investments: they’ll widen a highway instead of repairing the existing street network or building a protected bike lane, and decide to zone more land for low-density housing or retail. 

Changing federal incentives can have a ripple effect on local land-use decisions. Allowing cities and towns to use transportation dollars to invest in transit operations and maintenance might encourage local governments to make zoning decisions that support those investments: that means denser, walkable neighborhoods and downtowns. 

Congress can also unlock more federal funding for equitable transit-oriented development. As we wrote with Third Way in their Transportation and Climate: Federal Policy Agenda, Congress should require that the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD) and U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) coordinate to leverage billions of dollars in existing loan authority that could support mixed-income, mixed-use development and provide new revenue streams for transit, affordable housing, and local governments. 

How can college-aged students and climate activists help amplify the importance of this issue?

There’s a lot that anyone can do to make sure that long-term transportation policy actually reduces carbon emissions. 

It’s vitally important that members of Congress understand the connection between transportation and climate change. Anyone can understand that cars pollute the air, but making the next step—that we need to reduce driving, not just electrify it—is something that needs to be explained to many people, particularly our elected officials. The failure to understand this point has been bipartisan.It’s not enough to somehow make every vehicle electric: we also need a transportation system that allows more people to bike, walk, and take transit, as well as take shorter trips in a vehicle. Making marginal changes to yesterday’s transportation policy won’t get us there. 

We have a couple of ways you can start educating your members of Congress about the real connection between climate and transportation: 

  1. Send a letter to your members of Congress explaining why the Senate EPW Committee’s long-term transportation bill is actually really bad for the climate. We have a draft letter you can use, which you can find here. 
  2. Tweet at your members of Congress (particularly your Senators) to urge them to pass a climate-friendly transportation bill. You can use our social media toolkit. 
  3. Submit a short letter to the editor to your local newspaper explaining what it takes to truly reduce transportation emissions: investment in a transportation system that makes shorter trips, biking, walking, and riding transit possible. 

House environment coalition demands real transportation policy reform to tackle climate change

Last week, leaders of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC) urged Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio and Ranking Member Sam Graves to use surface transportation reauthorization as an opportunity to take serious action on climate change.

“A status quo highway bill will no longer serve the needs of our country or our planet; instead, it would risk putting us at a competitive disadvantage while leaving us all more vulnerable to the dangers of climate change.” 

We couldn’t agree more. The fact that those words came from sitting members of Congress is even more stirring. In a letter, the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition urged the U.S. House to use surface transportation reauthorization—the process that sets federal transportation policy for the next five years—as an opportunity to change our outdated transportation policy and make real strides reducing emissions in the transportation sector. We applaud their vision. The letter was led by SEEC Co-Chairs Reps. Gerry Connolly (VA-11), Paul Tonko (NY-20), and Doris Matsui (CA-6), and SEEC Vice-Chairs Reps. Chellie Pingree (ME-1), Alan Lowenthal (CA-47), Mike Quigley (IL-5), Matt Cartwright (PA-8) and A. Donald McEachin (VA-4). 

Transportation is the single largest source of greenhouse gases (GHG), contributing 29 percent of the United States’ total greenhouse gas emissions and the majority of these emissions come from driving. As the Coalition wrote in their letter, “Our current highway policy undermines our climate goals by favoring new highways, roads, and lanes that induce more driving, over transit, biking, and walking.” Without structural reform and reducing the distance people drive, we’ll never reduce our emissions enough and create a transportation system that works for everyone. 

The letter called for the creation of performance measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, vehicle miles traveled, and “cumulative criteria pollution” (which includes carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, particulate matter, and sulfur dioxide) in the transportation sector, similar to the GREEN Streets Act introduced in both the House and Senate. Further, the Coalition called for the use of accessibility, or destination access, to measure whether or not people can get to their destinations, replacing the outdated, ineffective, & car-centric proxies we currently use. As we’ve written about, we think the use of accessibility as a metric of success would be transformative. 

Using access to evaluate projects may show that building and repairing sidewalks in a community would dramatically improve access to jobs and services for more residents than redesigning one intersection for cars. It may show that a new bus line would make it easier for residents in a low-income community to access healthcare. Choosing to invest in these types of projects would make better connections within communities and would reduce the distance needed to drive, and in turn reduce emissions.

The Coalition also called for the “creation of a national complete streets program to provide technical assistance and incentives for the adoption of policies that facilitate better pedestrian, bicycle, and public transit travel.” The Complete Streets Act of 2019, supported by our sister organization, the National Complete Streets Coalition, would do just that and is currently pending before the House and Senate. This bill would incentivize states and metro areas to finally design and build safer streets for everyone, and give them federal funding to do it.

We need a new vision for our transportation system, and the leadership and vision from the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition indicates that fixing our transportation policy is possible. We know that electrification and fuel efficiency alone will not suffice to meet our decarbonization goals by 2050. To meet our emissions reductions goals, we need to create a more equitable multimodal transportation system. We look forward to working with the Coalition to turn these principles into policy.

Behold! The entirety of our #BeyondEVs Tweet Chat

It’s #CoveringClimateNow week, and over 220 media outlets have pledged to devote coverage to climate change. Unfortunately, there’s usually something missing in these important conversations: driving.

Driving makes up most of transportation emissions (and the transportation sector emits more greenhouse gases than any other). And every year, vehicle miles traveled increases. If we don’t do anything to drive a little bit less, we’ll negate all of the benefits from electric vehicles and improved fuel efficiency.

It’s time to move #BeyondEVs. We hosted a Tweet Chat yesterday to discuss why we need to reduce vehicle miles traveled, how government policy at all levels can help do this, and the additional benefits of driving less.

Thanks to our tremendous co-hosts for making the Tweet Chat a success: Smart Growth America, America Walks, League of American Bicyclists, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, Salud!America, Shared Use Mobility Center, TransitCenter, and U.S. PIRG.

If you’re a journalist or researcher, check out our climate change resources. And everybody stay tuned for a Tweet Chat on October 23rd on why the federal transportation program needs to prioritize maintenance over expanding highways.

Question 1: Electric vehicles are necessary but not sufficient to reduce transportation emissions. What else should we do to move #BeyondEVs and create a cleaner, zero-carbon transportation future?

Question 2: What can make it easier for people to take low-carbon trips by using transit, walking, or biking?

Question 3: What changes do we need (at the federal, state, and/or local level) to place destinations closer to where people live?

Question 4: The feds dedicate the vast majority of transportation money to building highways. How can we better distribute funding to reduce climate pollution?

Question 5: What else is missing from the debate about transportation and climate change?

Question 6: Reducing the amount/length we drive is essential for lowering transportation emissions. What are additional benefits of reducing the distance we drive?

Question 7: The implicit goal of the federal transportation program is to increase and encourage driving, which raises emissions. What would be a better, explicit, stated goal?

Question 1: Electric vehicles are necessary but not sufficient to reduce transportation emissions. What else should we do to move #BeyondEVs and create a cleaner, zero-carbon transportation future?

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Question 2: What can make it easier for people to take low-carbon trips by using transit, walking, or biking?

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Question 3: What changes do we need (at the federal, state, and/or local level) to place destinations closer to where people live?

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Question 4: The feds dedicate the vast majority of transportation money to building highways. How can we better distribute funding to reduce climate pollution?

https://twitter.com/NUMOalliance/status/1174389963967758338

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Question 5: What else is missing from the debate about transportation and climate change?

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Question 6: Reducing the amount/length we drive is essential for lowering transportation emissions. What are additional benefits of reducing the distance we drive?

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Question 7: The implicit goal of the federal transportation program is to increase and encourage driving, which raises emissions. What would be a better, explicit, stated goal?

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10 questions every presidential candidate should answer about transportation and climate change

The debate has passed, but the relevance of these questions have not. We’ll continue to urge candidates to answer these questions.

On September 4, 10 Democratic presidential candidates will participate in a town hall focused solely on climate change. We have a list of questions related to transportation that we want every candidate to answer. 

Climate change is undoubtedly a defining issue of our times, and the transportation sector is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. But there’s little understanding about where transportation emissions come from or how to reduce them. Many think we just need to replace all gas powered vehicles with electric vehicles (EVs). But we cannot address this crisis without an understanding of the crucial role that the design of our communities and roadways play in producing our transportation emissions. 

While many other sectors have reduced emissions, transportation is headed in the wrong direction. Driving represents 83 percent of all transportation emissions and these emissions are rising—despite cleaner fuels, more efficient and electric vehicles—because people forced by our development patterns and transportation system to drive more and make longer trips. 

It’s time to have a more robust conversation about the connections between transportation and climate change. The future depends on it. Here are the questions every candidate should be asked: 

1) How does your plan to respond to climate change allow people to make fewer and shorter car trips? 

Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, and those emissions are rising. Studies show that we cannot reduce emissions by relying on expected growth in clean vehicles and fuel, that we must also reduce expected growth in driving. 

2) What are the ways in which we can change development patterns to place jobs and other essential services closer to the people who need them? 

Our reliance on cars and driving to our destinations often goes back to development decisions that place people’s needs—banks, groceries, schools, jobs—far away from where they live. 

3) As President, what will you do to ensure the United States measures greenhouse gas emissions in transportation?

You can’t manage what you don’t measure. Soon after taking office, the Trump Administration scrapped a U.S. Department of Transportation plan to measure greenhouse gas emissions in transportation. If we aren’t taking the basic step of measuring these emissions, how can we take steps to reduce them? 

4) How should Congress rethink how federal highway dollars are spent?

Federal surface transportation policy prioritizes highways over all other forms of transportation. Federal highway formula dollars are guaranteed and allow states to spend over $40 billion per year on highways and highway expansion. Highways often result in a more spread out development pattern, which generates both more traffic and more emissions. There is no limit on federal funds used for highway expansion and no requirement that states use that money to maintain the system we already have. As a result, our emissions keep going up and our potholes get larger. 

5) How does your plan orient more investment toward transit? 

The federal government makes it easy for states to build and expand highways, providing up to 80 percent of funding for highway projects. In contrast, the federal government will only pay no more than half of the cost of public transit projects, which places a greater burden on communities to build transit compared to highways. The federal government spends five times the amount on highways than on transit. 

6) How would you shift the program to promote and reward efficiency and reduced emissions?

Under the current formula structure of the federal program, states are rewarded for inefficiency. The more gas is burned—the more people drive and the more they emit—the more funding the state gets. Is this the message you support? 

7) What should change in the federal transportation program to support walkable communities which are better for the economy and the environment? 

Core, walkable areas are responsible for the highest density of economic activity in most regions. Yet the federal program is much more focused on supporting high speed vehicle traffic, even in these walkable areas, which makes walking deadly. 

8) How does your infrastructure plan address this pedestrian safety epidemic and make it possible for people to take more trips by walking and biking?

Almost half of all car trips are under three miles. But our roadways are designed for vehicle speed over pedestrian safety, making it unsafe in many situations for people to walk instead of drive. In the past decade, the number of people struck and killed while walking increased by 35 percent, reaching overall level of fatalities not seen in nearly 30 years. 

9) How would you support communities that are shifting their transportation systems to integrate more transit? 

Small and mid-sized cities across the country are recognizing that providing transit options is essential to boosting their economic activity and reducing their emissions. 

10) As President, what would you do to strengthen and support Amtrak’s existing long distance and inter-city network?

Many presidential platforms, including the Green New Deal, proclaim the need to invest in and build a national high speed rail network as a way to connect communities and reduce emissions. 

What the 2012 elections mean for the federal transportation picture

OK, now it’s official: Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA) will replace Rep. John Mica (R-FL) as chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee. That much has been resolved after a 2012 election that still leaves a number of key questions hanging in the balance.

It is too soon to say, obviously, what sort of chairman Rep. Shuster will be. His early remarks – seeking to strike a middle ground while avoiding dogmatic statements – appear to put him more in the mold of his father, Bud Shuster, who served 28 years in Congress and chaired T&I for six years in the 1990s. In remarks honoring him in 2002, former T&I Chairman Jim Oberstar praised Bill Shuster’s dad thusly: “His perseverance, patience and willingness to find common ground made him one of the greatest committee chairmen we have seen in recent years in the House.”

However, “Things are different (now),” Bill Shuster told The Hill last week. “To move legislation, I think certainly takes some of the skill set that he had. … But also, you’ve got to make sure that you’re listening to the … committee and the (GOP) conference to move these things forward. I’ve learned a lot from him, but there’s some things that happen around here today that he didn’t have to deal with.”

In other comments, Shuster has said that he does not support rolling back the federal role in transportation or giving the entire job to the states. Rather, he said he wants to find the additional revenue and financing strategies that can help make up the gap between necessary investment levels and a federal gas tax whose earning power is in decline. In a nod to reality, he also endorsed exploring the potential of transitioning to a per-mile fee, or vehicle miles traveled tax (VMT), rather than a per-gallon gas tax.

“Longer term, VMT seems to me to be the only way to stop the decline because we’re all going to be driving cars five, ten years from now that are going 40, 50 miles [per gallon] or more, or maybe not using any gas at all,” he told The Hill. Whatever the revenue source, he and his colleagues will need to move quickly: His committee needs to be ready to adopt the next transportation in just 22 months.


Rep. Bill Shuster, second from left, tours a Corps of Engineers lock facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

But what about raising the gas tax in the meantime?

Suddenly, almost everywhere you look in transportation land, people are talking about the possibility of a gas tax increase, and Shuster himself raised the possibility this week. Some argue that a lame duck session provides the perfect opportunity. They and others also see the potential to include a gas tax increase as part of the debt deal that is expected in the so-called “fiscal cliff” negotiations.

There is some justification for that argument. A shortfall in expected gas tax revenues already has led Congress to make increasingly large transfers from the over-burdened general fund to the highway trust fund, and was a key reason that last summer’s transportation bill lasts only two years, rather than the typical six. A gas tax increase large enough to cover all the highway and transit funding now coming from general revenues would hardly cure all the budget issues, but it certainly could help, the argument goes.

But will the Obama Administration end its opposition to talk of a gas tax increase? The President had declared it a non-starter as long as the economy is sputtering. Has the U.S. economy stabilized enough – even as fears of a Europe-led global recession lurk in the wings – to allow a gas tax increase to be put on the table?

Whither Ray LaHood?

And speaking of the Administration, if Ray LaHood has the old Clash song “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” on his iPod he’s probably listening to it a lot these days.

A year ago he announced – or rather blurted out – that he planned to step down if Obama got re-elected. The possibility has fueled much speculation as to replacements, but he has been silent since the election.  That didn’t stop The Atlantic Cities from running a recent piece on why a mayor should get the nod for the job. The article quotes yours truly praising LaHood as one of the best to hold that job, and given his support for innovations like the TIGER program, his emphasis on the safety of everyone who uses road and transit systems, his strong support for local communities trying to improve their livability … Well, we’ll stand by those remarks.