Clean Air for the Triangle Area: An Action Agenda
SELC helps the Triangle meet air quality goals
The Triangle must develop regional solutions to vehicle pollution or risk losing ground on future air quality gains, according to Clean Air for the Triangle Area: An Action Agenda, by the Southern Environmental Law Center. The report warns that if state and local leaders fail to develop transportation and land use plans, the Triangle will be in danger of not meeting air quality requirements in coming years, risking federal sanctions, including the loss of federal highway funds.
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The Raleigh skyline
In April, 2004 the Triangle area failed to meet new federal health standards for ozone pollution, better known as smog, leading to a “nonattainment” designation by the Environmental Protection Agency. Eight counties make up this nonattainment area including Durham, Franklin, Granville, Johnston, Orange, Person, Wake and part of Chatham.
The Triangle is ranked as the 3rd most sprawling major metro area in the nation and is consuming land at twice the rate of population growth. By 2007 three quarters of the Triangle’s ozone-forming NOx emissions will be from mobile sources such as cars and trucks. Roughly a quarter of commuters in the Triangle work in a different county from where they live and the vast majority commute alone in their cars. In fact, drivers in Raleigh and Durham spent 26 hours stuck in traffic in 2002. This combination of sprawl and increased driving results in poor air quality.
The Triangle has fallen in and out of compliance with federal ozone standards since 1990. Preliminary state modeling suggests that the Triangle may be on track to barely meet the federal ozone standard by the 2009 deadline, but the region’s ability to maintain this progress over the next 20 years is even more questionable.
