Connecting Transportation, Land Use, and Climate Change Policy
Growing concerns over climate change and the role of transportation and land use planning in contributing to it has resulted in many legislative changes over the past several years at state levels. Many states have established greenhouse gas reduction goals with varying degrees of implementation at the state, regional, and local levels. Transportation and land use planning is considered to be part of achieving these state goals, and local and regional governments are beginning to address how community design influences vehicle-miles-traveled and system efficiency. While there are certainly imperfections in new climate change legislation at state levels of government, and implementation challenges at the regional and state levels, there is a nation-wide recognition that the era of development patterns that attribute to auto-dependent communities is drawing to a close.