CDOT takes an important nation-leading step forward with its greenhouse gas rule

The goal: Cut 1.5 million metric tons of pollution

The heart of CDOT’s new rule is a goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 1.5 million metric tons (MMT) by 2030, focusing on strategies that will reduce the need to drive to complete every trip. 

A cut of 1.5 MMT is significant and ambitious. It would get Colorado about half of the needed reductions outside of electrification (see image above). 

It’s a floor not a ceiling, which is really important because, done right, this rule should result in even bigger reductions. It needs to. 

The other key piece to this rule is that it applies to Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs). 

Our transportation system has many levels of decision makers. While CDOT has responsibility for a huge part of our roads, bridges, and transit systems, local governments and regional bodies, like MPOs, oversee and operate the rest. 

Two MPOs – the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) and the North Front Range MPO, which covers parts of Larimer and Weld County – will also need to implement this rule immediately with the rest of the MPOs joining at later dates. 

This is important because many of the decisions surrounding our transportation system are made on a local level and, if we’re going to reduce climate pollution, we need our local and state governments to be pulling in the same direction. 

For example, we can’t have one governing body working to make their main streets more pedestrian friendly and reducing the amount of driving while another is erasing that pollution reduction with wider roads that pull more people into cars. 

Pedestrian-oriented main street in Arvada – credit staff

Pollution reduction tools and prioritizing cleaner transportation options

To cut pollution in the transportation sector we need to give people the ability to drive less and live more. 

The main way you measure that is by Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT). As people gain real travel options, more trips can be completed without having to drive. 

Less driving = less VMT = less pollution.  

Everyone needs travel options so we don’t have to complete every trip by car, whether it’s to work, school, a grocery store, a doctor or a park.  

Right now, most people don’t have real travel options. 

We need buses and trains that come every 5-10 minutes, are fast and reliable, and take you where you want to go. 

RTD bus in Denver – credit staff

We need safe, protected bike lanes, sidewalks and infrastructure that ensures crossing the street is comfortable, not life-threatening. 

It would also help if communities were built in ways that support people walking and biking instead of forcing people to drive because there is nothing close by to walk or bike to. 

Kids walking to school under I-70 viaduct – credit staff

Implemented well, CDOT’s rule will shift our investments in ways that expand travel options by developing a set of pollution reduction strategies for CDOT, local governments and MPOs to use.

CDOT’s rule envisions a number of strong pollution reduction strategies including:

• Adding transit in ways that can replace a trip in a car
• Improving pedestrian and bike access in ways that allow people to reduce car trips or access transit
• Encouraging land use that better aligns with walking, biking and transit
• Improving the safety around crosswalks
• Adding multi-use trails
• Supporting transit by providing first and last mile connections to stations and stops
• Electrification of loading docks and the large commercial trucks that access them

Most of the strategies focus on expanding options that allow people to live their lives without driving to do everything. 

Now that the rule is adopted, CDOT will develop the details and guidance around these strategies through a planning process this winter. 

The guidance for how to meet this rule is critical because we won’t know the exact greenhouse gas reductions from what we build or operate until after it’s built and launched. 

So to ensure we build the right stuff that actually reduces pollution, we need to make some assumptions. 

Those assumptions (how much pollution will be reduced by a new bus line vs. a new crosswalk vs. a roundabout) will be developed over the next few months and we will need to watchdog the process. 

Some measures, like roundabouts, may serve a safety function but may not be an effective climate strategy especially if they wind up increasing the amount of driving.   

At the same time, CDOT is also realigning what projects they will fund in the next few years as part of their 10-year plan.

You may have heard – there is a lot of new money coming to our transportation system after the federal infrastructure bill and the state passed SB21-260. 

To meet our climate goals, we’ll need to prioritize the right transportation projects and strategies. 

I believe this step is even more important than the development and adoption of the rule. And it’s already started. 

It is critical people engage with their local governments, which are the ones who have the biggest impact on what will be prioritized, built and operated in a given city or region. 

Cutting greenhouse gas emissions with better travel options brings huge benefits

This rule is about cutting greenhouse gas emissions – a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. 

In a supporting document for this rule, CDOT presented a scenario for how the rule could be met. According to CDOT, greenhouse gas emissions could be cut by 1.5 MMT by 2030 by: 

• Expanding transit service 70% by 2030 and cutting fares by 50%.
• Adding 1,900 miles of new sidewalks and 5,000 miles of new bike lanes (ideally focused in ways that link to transit or create networks of walking and biking).
• Focusing new housing and jobs in existing communities so people can live closer to where they work and play.

The strategies above will bring benefits way beyond greenhouse gas emission reductions. 

When we cut climate pollution by reducing the need to drive, we’re also reducing other air pollutants, especially the stuff that fuels the ozone that we were choking on this summer.  

Ozone haze in Jefferson County during the summer of 2021 – credit staff

It’s great that one solution, providing more travel options, can tackle both climate change and ozone pollution at the same time. But wait…there’s more. 

Expanding sidewalks and bike lanes recruits people to walk and bike because it is safer. That safety investment will help save lives at a time when cities like Denver are seeing a record number of fatalities on our roads. 

In addition, the more options, the less need to drive or even own a car to begin with. According to CDOT’s analysis, “households within 1/2 mile of transit stations own on average 0.9 cars, while households in the rest of the metropolitan regions own, on average, 1.6 vehicles.”

As our decision makers grapple with the high costs of living in Colorado, helping people avoid owning a car could save them thousands of dollars.