How Billions in Infrastructure Funding Could Worsen Global Warming – The New York Times

Source: How Billions in Infrastructure Funding Could Worsen Global Warming – The New York Times

…The new $1 trillion infrastructure law invests billions in climate-friendly programs like electric car chargers and public transit. But it also gives states $273 billion for highways over five years, with few strings attached. One analysis from the Georgetown Climate Center found that this money could significantly increase emissions if states keep adding highway lanes.

Already, there are signs that even states with ambitious climate goals like Washington, Illinois and Nevada hope to use federal funds to expand roadways, such as adding lanes to a congested section of the Eisenhower Freeway near Chicago. In 2019, states spent one-third of their highway dollars on new road capacity, roughly $19.3 billion, with the rest spent on repairs.

“This is a major blind spot for politicians who say they care about climate change,” said Kevin DeGood, director of infrastructure policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. “Everyone gets that oil pipelines are carbon infrastructure. But new highways are carbon infrastructure, too. Both lock in place 40 to 50 years of emissions.”

The core problem, environmentalists say, is a phenomenon known as “induced traffic demand.” When states build new roads or add lanes to congested highways, instead of reducing traffic, more cars show up to fill the available space.

Induced demand explains why, when Texas widened the Katy Freeway in Houston to more than 20 lanes in 2011, at a cost of $2.8 billion, congestion returned to previous levels within a few years.

“It’s not always intuitive to people, but the economic logic is pretty simple: If you make driving easier, people will do more of it,” said Susan Handy, a transportation expert at the University of California, Davis, who helped develop a calculator showing how highway expansions can increase emissions in different cities.

A Growing Fight

While few states have copied Colorado’s approach, the pushback against highway expansions is slowly growing.

In Oregon, youth activists are protesting a $1.2 billion plan to widen I-5 through Portland, warning that the expansion will undercut the state’s climate goals. In Wisconsin, officials agreed to review a proposal to add two lanes to I-94 bordering a mostly Black neighborhood in Milwaukee after criticism from civil rights and environmental groups.

In Virginia, transportation planners had long agonized over traffic jams on I-95 between Fredericksburg and Washington. But after extensive study, they found that adding two extra lanes would cost $12.5 billion and do little to solve congestion. So, last year, Ralph Northam, a Democrat who was governor at the time, announced a $3.7 billion deal to expand commuter rail service instead.

California has begun revamping its highway policies in an effort to curb car travel. Despite leading the nation in electric vehicle sales, the state is struggling to cut emissions because Californians keep driving more miles.

The state will now measure induced traffic during environmental reviews of new highways and plans to prioritize funding toward fixing existing roads rather than building new ones. Last year, officials halted a plan to widen the 710 freeway, which carries truck traffic from the port of Long Beach, over concerns that it would displace residents in low-income neighborhoods and worsen air pollution.

“The rhetoric we sometimes hear is that we’re trying to take away people’s cars or restrict their mobility,” said Darwin Moosavi, deputy secretary for environmental policy at the California Transportation Agency. “But what we’re really talking about is giving people better and more convenient options so that they don’t necessarily have to drive everywhere.”