Walkable neighborhoods must be part of climate plan

Reduces CO2 emissions

Steve Hawley, Dec 16, 09.

Pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods should be part of any plan that comes out of the Copenhagen climate change conference, according to the National Resources Defense Council’s Switchboard blog.

The article notes that Copenhagen is incredibly walkable, and that if other cities in the US and around the world learned a few lessons from Copenhagen, their carbon footprints would shrink noticeably. As an example, it cites Portland, which has reduced its carbon emissions from 1990 despite growing 18 percent in population. Portland has focused on infill development, walkable neighborhoods, and transit-oriented development, famously opening the country’s first modern streetcar system in 2001.

The article notes that households close to Portland’s downtown have significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions that houses further away. These results hold true across the country, according to the Center for Neighborhood Technology, which has created maps of per capita greenhouse gas emissions for 55 regions, including the Houston-Galveston area. According to the map, households outside Beltway 8 are responsible for far more greenhouse gas emissions than those inside the Beltway.

The NRDC article notes:

Similarly, the Center for Clean Air Policy has concluded that smart land use and transportation choices can reduce the amount Americans need to drive - as measured in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) - by 10 percent per capita from 2005 levels. A 10 percent reduction in per capita VMT, says the Center, would reduce annual transportation emissions by 145 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (MMTCO2) in the year 2030, equivalent to the annual emissions of about 30 million cars or 35 large coal plants.