I-495 north of DC by Virginia Department of Transportation licensed under Creative Commons.

This month the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board (TPB), the region’s lead transportation planning agency, presented two important initial findings from its Climate Change Mitigation Study on what it must do to tackle climate change:

  • Under its current transportation plan and forecast levels of driving, the Washington region would have to achieve unrealistically high numbers of electric vehicles (EVs) on the road by 2030 - between 50% and 75% of all vehicles.
  • SUVs and pick-up trucks now equal the number of cars and motorcycles in the region for the first time. Also, residents are hanging onto their vehicles for almost 10 years, meaning the SUV and personal truck fad will extend into the future and make it harder to shift to less polluting vehicles.

The implication of these two findings is that avoiding climate catastrophe is impossible unless we shift to less car-dependent communities and transportation systems - as well as quickly adopt EVs. Sufficiently cutting greenhouse gas emissions under the region’s status quo transportation plan, Visualize 2045 would require that every car purchased from today onward would have to be electric.

Car-dependence and climate change

Transportation is the top source of greenhouse gas emissions in the region and US, and most of this climate pollution comes from cars and trucks. The region’s adopted climate action plan sets a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 50% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels, the near-term goal considered necessary by climate scientists to prevent catastrophic warming.

Energy experts at Rocky Mountain Institute have shown that to meet its climate targets, the US as a whole must reduce per capita vehicle miles traveled (VMT) of passenger cars by 20% by 2030 compared to pre-pandemic levels, even with ambitious, but achievable, adoption of electric vehicles. In contrast, the 2018 Visualize 2045 would reduce per capita VMT by only 3% by 2045.

TPB’s climate study

TPB’s Climate Change Mitigation Study was launched at the beginning of this year to help guide the region’s transportation efforts like the current update to Visualize 2045. So far it confirms that this region would fall short in emissions reductions if it doesn’t significantly reduce VMT as well as rapidly adopt EVs.

The consultants calculated what it would take to sufficiently cut climate pollution simply by accelerating the transition to electric vehicles under the 2018 Visualize 2045 plan. The study looked at two scenarios regarding the electric grid, a “reference case” grid that gets slowly cleaner under current policies and a “clean grid” that is totally carbon-free by 2035:

 Image by TPB and ICF. VMT = vehicle miles traveled, EV = electric vehicle, GHG = greenhouse gas.

Even under the “clean grid” scenario, half of car and truck travel in the region would have to be by electric cars and trucks by 2030. This level is significantly higher than the already ambitious electrification goal in the region’s climate plan that 34% of cars on the road will be electric by 2030, with lower percentages for trucks.

Region’s car fleet takes 10 years to turn over

TPB staff also reviewed last year’s vehicle registration data and found that: “While the growth in electric and hybrid vehicles is encouraging, an older vehicle fleet and a shift toward light duty trucks and away from light duty cars could lead to negative impacts on emissions (in 2020, for the first time in our region, number of [light duty] cars ≈ number of [light duty] trucks).” Light duty trucks comprise SUVs and pickup trucks.

Registered vehicles in the Greater Washington region, Image by TPB.

Addressing car travel and emissions in local plans

Several local jurisdictions have recognized the need to boost non-car trips in order to cut vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions, setting goals in their transportation and climate plans. The District of Columbia, Montgomery County, Alexandria, and Fairfax County have all recently set targets in their transportation or climate plans. The region’s core jurisdictions have also cut car trips over the past decade.

However, at the regional level, earlier this year TPB member agencies voted not to make significant changes to projects in Visualize 2045 to address climate concerns, postponing that until the next time they update the plan by 2024. The hotly contested expansion of I-495 and I-270 in Maryland also became part of the TPB climate debates, in which mostly outer suburban and state transportation officials objected to any hard commitments in the current plan.

The region’s officials still have the opportunity to amend the current Visualize 2045 update in early 2022 to remove projects that contribute to more driving and emissions. At that point they will have the full results of their Climate Change Mitigation Study.

Meanwhile, the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority is updating its TransAction plan, which in the past has included a laundry list of proposed highway expansions as well as transit and active transportation projects. This plan too must be much different to address climate change.

Bill Pugh, AICP CTP, is an urban planner, advocate for a livable planet, and senior policy fellow for the Coalition for Smarter Growth. He lives in Alexandria.