If present trends continue, warns Trip Pollard with the Southern Environmental Law Center in a new study, Virginia’s population will reach nearly 10 million by 2030 — adding the equivalent of the entire population of Northern Virginia. More land will be developed in the next 40 years than in the previous 400, traffic congestion will get worse and degradation of the environment will accelerate.
The chief culprit is a complex set of land use and transportation policies that drive the scattered, disconnected, low-density pattern of development known loosely as “suburban sprawl.” In his study, “New Directions: Land Use, Transportation and Climate Change in Virginia,” Pollard goes beyond the familiar critique of sprawl and makes the link to carbon dioxide emissions and global warming.
(The SELC inexplicably links to a study on Alabama’s water agenda, so the full study is not currently available online at the moment.)
Sprawl, states the SELC press release, “leads to increased land conversion (Virginia lost almost 350,000 acres—about 180 acres a day—to development between 1992 and 1997), more driving (80 billion miles in 2005, up 33% from 1990), and greater fuel consumption (over 5 billion gallons in 2005).
Transportation is the single largest use of energy in Virginia, accounting for 43% of all energy consumed. It also accounts for over two-fifths of Virginia’s CO2 emissions and is the fastest growing source of CO2—rising 31% between 1990-2004. Sprawl not only exacerbates global warming by increasing driving, it destroys the very resources that would help ameliorate the impacts of a warming planet – forests, which retain carbon, and wetlands, which absorb flood waters.
But the study is no Jeremiad. Pollard says it’s not too late to change. His recommendations:
- Revitalize communities and promote more compact neighborhoods and town centers that include affordable housing and transportation alternatives to solo driving
- Provide incentives for greener building to make new and existing structures healthier, cleaner and more energy efficient
- Protect and enhance rural and natural areas, and promote agricultural vitality
- Increase funding for transportation choices, including transit, rail, pedestrian and bicycling paths, and improved local street networks
- Provide incentives for more efficient, cleaner vehicles and cleaner fuels
- Make reducing greenhouse gas pollution a priority in all energy and transportation plans and projects.
Overall, I think Pollard’s study makes an important statement. While I don’t regard Global Warming with the same alarm that others do, there is no denying that the accelerating rate of land conversion will have baleful, long-term consequences on Virginia’s environment. We cannot continue down the same path without inflicting incalculable damage upon our natural heritage.