Transportation and Land Use Reform in Virginia

New Directions:

A report on land use, transportation and climate change in Virginia

Virginians are increasingly aware of the many environmental, social and fiscal costs of sprawl development and poor transportation planning. Loss of productive farmland and wetlands, pollution of streams, lost time for work and family due to traffic, increasing obesity and other health impacts, growing costs for services in far-flung developments, and so on are among the problems.

A far larger concern is looming: climate change, which will fundamentally change our economy and our lives. Transportation is the largest, and the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Virginia.

A new report by the Southern Environmental Law Center examines the ties between these and other trends, and provides of actions that can be taken to reverse course.

Read the report (pdf; 36 pages; December 2007)
Fast facts

Among other trends, SELC's report finds:

If Virginia continues to grow at the current rate, more land will be developed in the next 40 years than was developed in the previous 400 years.
The rate of land development is more than double the rate of population growth, and it’s increasing.
Virginians drove 80.3 billion miles in 2005, the equivalent of driving farther than to the sun and back every day.
Fuel consumption has been rising almost twice as fast as population, with over 5 billion gallons of motor fuels consumed in 2005.

Among the reports recommendations:

Revitalize communities and promote more compact neighborhoods and town centers that include affordable housing and transportation alternatives to solo driving;
Increase funding for transportation choices, including transit, rail, pedestrian and bicycling paths, and improved local street networks; and
Make reducing greenhouse gas pollution a priority in all energy and transportation plans and projects.