What's New

Gov. Ritter has established a blue ribbon panel to explore funding and implementation options for Colorado’s transportation system. The panel, made up of a wide variety of elected officials and stakeholders, kicked off its work on April 5 and will continue meeting throughout the year before reporting back to Gov. Ritter at the end of 2007. The panel will make recommendations to the governor and the Legislature about how to find new funding to improve transportation.

 

Brief Summary

Colorado’s inefficient growth, development, and transportation framework is exacerbating the problem of global warming in two primary ways:

• First, we are driving up carbon emissions in the transportation sector by creating a land use framework and transportation system that has resulted in ever-increasing vehicle-miles traveled (and thus the carbon emitted from cars + trucks).
• Second, we are driving up carbon emissions from the built environment (residential and commercial sector) because the inherent quality of the structures that we are building is poor. Colorado is building homes and communities that use conventional energy sources wastefully and inefficiently.

The transportation sector accounts for 23 percent of Colorado’s total greenhouse gas emissions, (this stat varies based on the source, this is from the CCS draft report) and the emissions from this sector have risen dramatically in recent years. Like electricity emissions, GHG emissions from transportation fuel use have risen steadily since 1990 at an average rate of slightly under 3 percent annually. YES, we certainly have to change what we drive, but we also have to reduce the amount of VMT’s by conventional gasoline burning vehicles if we are going to have a fighting chance.

• VMT’s in Colorado have increased 69 percent since 1990, 3rd highest in the country during this time period
• As the result of Colorado’s population and economic growth and an increase in total vehicle miles traveled (VMT) during the 1990s, on road gasoline use grew 32 percent between 1990 and 2002.

Two big determinants of VMT’s are land use patterns and availability of transit options. (and the two are closely interrelated; better land use results in multi-modal options, and creating transit corridors will drive TOD)

• The increase in vehicle miles traveled (or VMT), is an indication of the growth in traffic and congestion in the metro area as a result of declining density. Trends show that VMT are increasing at twice the rate of population growth, indicating that not only do we have more people driving in the region, but they are driving more and longer distances as a result of our sprawling development patterns and under-reliance on mass transit.
• The biggest factor in determining whether or not a particular household owns a car (or 2, or 3), as well as how many vehicle-miles they travel, is residential density.  The prevalence of sprawling development is the most important influence on per capita VMT,   and actually doubling density results in a 25 to 30 percent reduction in VMT’s.  
• A traditional small-town “community” will generate 32 percent less automobile trips per household than a sprawling development. 
• Land use factors lead to over 60 percent of the growth in driving and associated forms of energy consumption.
• Individuals living in higher-density neighborhoods that include pedestrian and bicycle-friendly features, mixed use design, and convenient access to transit reduce their driving by 15 to 50 percent. 

The built environment (and therefore the quality of a development itself) also plays a role in the problem. Colorado’s built environment contributes 20 percent of GHG emissions due to use of conventional energy sources. While changing our energy mix to carbon-neutral sources such as wind and solar is essential, reducing the amount of energy we use is critical as well. Through smarter building design, real reductions from this sector are possible.

• We are wasteful and inefficient in the buildings where we live & where we work. Sprawl tends to skew the housing mix towards unnecessarily large, resource wasting homes.
• Also, due to their location, these homes use even more energy. Sprawling development increases energy consumption because transmission losses occur. The farther a home from the main generator, the more power is lost in distribution. Nine percent of energy is lost in transmission.
• About 25 to 30 percent of total U.S. energy consumption is used for building operations such as heating and cooling.  Smart growth communities tend to concentrate residents in more energy efficient housing by achieving more compactness, minimizing floor area, and in some cases using shared walls.  Smarter growth combined with green building practices can lead to important reductions in energy consumption.