What Is The National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization About?

Building places where it’s safer and easier for everyone to bike, walk, and use a wheelchair or public transit to everyday destinations — in other words, traveling without the use of a single occupancy vehicle —  will make a significant impact on reducing the transportation sector’s soaring contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. Plus there are all the benefits to building a climate-friendly transportation system that prioritizes people getting around without cars: lowering the economic burden of using a car for every trip, increasing physical activity, and encouraging communities to thrive.  

The League is glad to see four federal agencies, the U.S. departments of Energy, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, establish a plan that employs this approach of building communities for convenient active mobility in the National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization, their commitment to decarbonizing the transportation system.

Our friends at the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have a great recap of the blueprint. Check out this snippet below, then head over to NRDC’s website to read the full article!

Importantly, the report identifies land use reform as a critical tool to making non-vehicle transportation choices—the most “decarbed” transportation option—more convenient. Regarding land use planning as part of convenience, the blueprint is quite clear:

“Local and regional land-use decisions and the design of our communities and mobility systems are major drivers of travel behavior, and in turn, transportation emissions. Improving mobility systems to reduce emissions and provide improvements in safety, traffic, and quality of life requires careful local or regional land-use planning, improved freight logistics, and harnessing emerging trends like telework and the sharing economy.”

Check out the full article on NRDC’s website »