Photo by Climate Action Network.

400,000 people — or 0.1% of the US population — flooded the streets of New York City for the recent People’s Climate March. But if we’re to make a difference, the outpouring of support for action on climate change needs to translate to action locally.

With the evidence, and the movement for serious action on climate change, growing every day, it’s the moment for those of us in the DC region working for more sustainable, inclusive cities to push for change. In order to act globally, we have to work locally.

The march was led by those hit first and worst by climate change, from Superstorm Sandy survivors to Pacific Islanders. That’s because climate change is no longer a problem of the future, but one that is unraveling before us with each extreme weather event. The derecho delivered that wakeup call to the DC region, while new reports continue to highlight the vulnerabilities of our region to storm surges, flooding, and sea level rise.

In recent years, climate change has moved far beyond the domain of liberals into the center of concern for such mainstream institutions as the US military, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the Washington Post editorial board. That’s because many are waking to the fact that climate change is quite possibly the biggest threat to human existence that we have ever faced.

Photo by Climate Action Network… on Flickr.

And yet, in the face of overwhelming evidence, we continue to fail to muster the political will to do much of anything about it. That’s where this community has a huge role to play.

We know the role that smart, compact development and sustainable transportation options can play in cutting carbon emissions; report after report has documented how our transportation and land use decisions taken together could make an enormous difference.

Today, the average household in a dense, transit-oriented household emits approximately half as much carbon as a household in low density suburban development. With transportation and buildings together making up approximately 70% of regional emissions, steering more development toward compact, transit-oriented neighborhoods is critical.

Energy Consumption by Housing Type and Location. Image from Jonathan Rose Companies LLC and the EPA.

At the same time, the general public intuitively understands that those living in a walkable, urban community typically drive less, live in and have to heat or cool less space, own less stuff, and generally use less energy in their overall lifestyle.

Photo by Dan Alcalde on Flickr.

But of course, it’s always easier to agree on solutions in theory than to agree with how to implement them in practice. Urbanists see this multiplied tens and hundreds of times over again, whether it’s traffic engineers insisting we need to build ever more road capacity while shrinking biking and walking amenities, like with MCDOT’s plans for White Flint. Or neighbors preventing more people from living near transit where they could drive and emit less, like at Takoma station.

These battles we fight throughout the region sometimes seem small, but added up and multiplied over time, their outcomes will mean a huge difference in our region’s contribution to climate change.

We also of course need to try to pull the larger political levers available to us. The Transportation Planning Board (TPB) forecasts that it will not meet the climate change goals that the region has agreed to in its transportation plans. They say transportation emissions will continue to rise till 2040, but per capita emissions will fall. Unfortunately, the climate is not concerned with how we slice and dice the numbers so long as more carbon is pouring into the atmosphere.

A recent report by ITDP is one of the few that has mustered the courage to suggest and actually model what so obviously needs to happen: stop investing in new road capacity, and make major investments in transit, walking, and cycling infrastructure. Not surprisingly, transportation emissions would dramatically fall 40% more than following a car-centric pattern, while also happening to save the world economy $100 trillion. With 1200 new lane miles for cars in the pipeline in this region, now is the time to get serious about shifting investments away from new carbon-intensive infrastructure, and towards sustainable transportation options.

“HS” refers to ITDP’s “High Shift” scenario that would entail major shifts of public investment away from car-oriented infrastructure and to walking, cycling, and transit infrastructure. Image from ITDP.

It’s likely that most people aren’t thinking about climate change and humanity’s future when debating that new sidewalk that might tear up their lawn, or that new bus lane that might slightly lengthen their commute, and it’s hard to blame them. That’s why in decisions large and small, it’s our job to invite our fellow residents, planners, bureaucrats, and elected officials to join us in looking at the big picture.

Too often, conversations over land use and transportation issues devolve into petty and self-interested fights. It’s difficult to flip a switch and change in an instant all of the car-oriented infrastructure we’ve built over the last 50 years.

But if we all call on our neighbors, traffic engineers, and elected officials to pick their heads up out of the weeds and join us in taking on the biggest issue of our time, one sidewalk, bike lane, and affordable transit-oriented development at a time, we just might do our part in the biggest fight of our lives.

Kelly Blynn was a co-founder of 350.org and is currently the Next Generation of Transit Campaign Manager for the Coalition for Smarter Growth. However, the views expressed here are her own.

Kelly Blynn is a former DC resident and an advocate for sustainable transportation and equitable development. She is now a graduate student in the Masters in City Planning program at MIT and a co-founding member of the pedestrian advocacy group All Walks DC.