Driving, sprawl are top factors in global warming in Virginia

Charlottesville, VA – Sprawling development patterns and asphalt-centered transportation policies are steering Virginia toward dire consequences, yet it’s not too late to change course, according to a seminal report from the Southern Environmental Law Center.

Transportation is the single largest use of energy in Virginia, and the largest and fastest growing source of carbon dioxide, a major contributor to global warming. Land-use and transportation policies and decisions fuel these problems by spurring rapid land development and escalating driving, according to New Directions: Land Use, Transportation, and Climate Change in Virginia, written by the director of SELC’s Land & Community Program, Trip Pollard. This report pulls together a wealth of information on demographic, economic, development, transportation, energy use, and climate trends, and examines how they are interrelated and how they combine to add to global warming and other serious challenges.

If present trends continue, Pollard writes, Virginia will add more people between 2000 and 2030 than the entire population of Northern Virginia, more land will be developed in the next 40 years than in the previous 400, and driving and congestion will keep rising. These trends will have enormous impacts, including impacts on taxpayers, our health, and our environment. Of greatest concern, global warming will fundamentally change our economy, lives, and lifestyles if greenhouse gas emissions are not cut sharply. Virginia is vulnerable to impacts such as increased drought, flooding, harm to the Chesapeake Bay, loss of wetlands and beaches, and the extinction of entire species.

“We have to act now to begin changing how we make decisions to build houses, highways, and other development,” Pollard said. Pollard, an expert on transportation and land use policies, has written previous reports on the environmental, economic, health, and social costs of sprawl and driving in Virginia; this report provides fresh information on these costs and links these issues to climate change.

“This new study is a must read for those who care about Virginia’s communities and its magnificent natural resources,” said John Moeser, professor emeritus of urban studies and planning at Virginia Commonwealth University. “The study assesses land development and transportation patterns in the Commonwealth and its observations are startling, even for those familiar with the problems associated with unbridled growth and Virginia’s over reliance on highways and automobiles.”

As the report notes, for decades state and local policies have promoted sprawl and favored building more and bigger highways. This leads to increased land conversion (Virginia lost almost 350,000 acres—about 180 acres a day—to development between 1992 and 1997), more driving (80 billion miles in 2005, up 33% from 1990), and greater fuel consumption (over 5 billion gallons in 2005). Transportation is the single largest use of energy in Virginia, accounting for 43% of all energy consumed. It also accounts for over two-fifths of Virginia’s CO2 emissions and is the fastest growing source of CO2—rising 31% between 1990-2004. Sprawl not only exacerbates global warming by increasing driving, it destroys the very resources that would help ameliorate the impacts of a warming planet - forests, which retain carbon, and wetlands, which absorb flood waters.

“Through our activities, humans have inadvertently taken control of our planet's climate system,” said Lowell Smith, Chair of the Climate Change Work Group of the State Advisory Board to the State Air Pollution Control Board. “This report shows the imperative for re-examining our total energy economy—including the close linkage between land use, transportation, and energy use—as well as the need for a comprehensive climate change policy. If we choose to ignore this imperative today, we do so to the extreme detriment of our kids and grandkids.”

While growth provides numerous benefits to Virginia, the heavy costs are beginning to catch up with us. These costs are increasingly borne by citizens, who face rising and volatile fuel prices, tax funds to subsidize services to sprawling development, lost time for work and family due to rising traffic delays, and increased health risks and expenses from environmental damage and pollution.

“Virginians increasingly recognize the threats we face, and are ready to go in new directions to create a better, cleaner, healthier future,” said Pollard. His report cites polls showing 94% of Virginians agree we need to preserve streams, lakes and natural lands for future generations, and 86% agree that having clean air and water and open space are critical to a strong economy. The report points out that Governor Kaine, the General Assembly, and many communities and local officials have taken important steps to begin the process of change. These changes, however, are relatively modest in light of the magnitude of the challenges, and are likely to be overwhelmed by proposed new development and highway projects.

“We face enormous challenges, but we also have tremendous opportunities to meet these challenges if we act quickly,” Pollard says. “It is not too late to chart new directions. The good news is that because the problems are interrelated, solutions often address multiple goals.” In the last section of New Directions, he lays out a host of next steps that the state and local governments can take to combat sprawl and global warming, including the following:

• Revitalize communities and promote more compact neighborhoods and town centers that include affordable housing and transportation alternatives to solo driving;
  
• Provide incentives for greener building to make new and existing structures healthier, cleaner and more energy efficient;
  
• Protect and enhance rural and natural areas, and promote agricultural vitality;
  
• Increase funding for transportation choices, including transit, rail, pedestrian and bicycling paths, and improved local street networks;
  
• Provide incentives for more efficient, cleaner vehicles and cleaner fuels;
  
• Make reducing greenhouse gas pollution a priority in all energy and transportation plans and projects.