Stop sprawl to curb emissions, environmental group says

California can boost its fight against global warming while cutting time, fuel and money wasted in traffic congestion if its local governments revamp sprawl-promoting planning policies, a newly formed coalition of environmental and "smart" planning groups declared Thursday.

For a quarter century, local governments have promoted and subsidized vast islands of tract houses in one place, office parks and shopping malls in another and miles of expensive roadways and other infrastructure linking them, notes the first report by ClimatePlan, a group of nine primarily environmental groups that includes the Oakland-based Transportation and Land Use Coalition, the National Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club.

"This trend of poorly planned growth — sprawl — forces Californians to spend more time behind the steering wheel each year," the report says.

While this problem of sprawl-created congestion and environmental degradation has seemed intractable for decades, the groups hope that the "political climate change" behind reducing greenhouse gases could spur real changes in the way Californians build and redevelop their communities.

"There should be so much new money available if they want to do it right," said Stuart Cohen, executive director of TALC. Even a small portion of the $20 billion or so in transportation funds doled out by the Legislature and the California Transportation Commission each year could reward such local jurisdictions,
he said.

more from the Oakland Tribune