As Maine considers building a new toll highway to improve commutes in and out of Portland, a state climate working group is drafting strategies to reduce driving in the state.

State officials say the two efforts are not inherently at odds, but experts and advocates caution that continued highway expansion could reverse climate progress by encouraging more people to drive.

The parallel discussions in Maine raise a question that few states have yet grappled with: can governments keep expanding car infrastructure without putting climate goals out of reach?

Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Maine and many other states. Electric vehicle adoption is growing, but not fast enough to solve the problem on its own, which is why an updated state climate plan is expected to include a new emphasis on public transit, walking, biking, and other alternatives to passenger vehicles.

Zak Accuardi, the director for mobility choices at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the best way for states to invest in their road systems in the era of climate change is to not build new roads, but maintain and upgrade existing ones to accommodate more climate-friendly uses. 

“The states who are taking transportation decarbonization really seriously are really focused on reducing driving, reducing traffic,” Accuardi said, pointing to Minnesota and Colorado as examples. “Strategies that help support more people in making the choice to walk, bike or take transit — those policies are a really important complement to … accelerating the adoption of zero-emissions vehicles.” 

Slow progress on EV goals

Electric vehicles have been Maine’s primary focus to date in planning to cut back on transportation emissions. Goals in the state’s original 2020 climate plan included getting 41,000 light-duty EVs on the road in Maine by next year and 219,000 by 2030. The state is far behind on these targets. The climate council’s latest status report said there were just over 12,300 EVs or plug-in hybrid vehicles in Maine as of 2023. 

A 2021 state clean transportation roadmap for these goals recommended, among other things, the adoption of California’s Advanced Clean Cars II and Advanced Clean Trucks rules, which would require an increasing proportion of EV sales in the coming years. 

Maine regulators decided not to adopt Clean Cars II earlier this year in a 4-2 vote. A subsequent lawsuit from youth climate activists argued the state is reneging on its responsibility to meet its statutory climate goals by choosing not to adopt such rules. 

The original climate plan also aimed to cut Maine’s vehicle miles traveled (VMT), which measures how much people are driving overall, by 20% by 2030. The plan said getting there would require more transit funding, denser development to improve transit access, and broadband growth to enable remote work, but included little detail on these issues. It did not include the words “active transportation” at all. 

That appears poised to change in the state’s next four-year climate plan, due out in December. Recommendations from the state climate council’s transportation working group have drawn praise from advocacy groups like the Bicycle Coalition of Maine. 

New detail on non-car strategies

The group’s ideas include creating new state programs to support electric bike adoption, including in disadvantaged communities; paving 15 to 20 miles of shoulders on rural roads per year to improve safe access for cyclists and pedestrians; and, depending on federal funds, building at least 10 miles of off-road trails in priority areas by 2030. 

The group also recommended the state “develop targets related to increased use of transit, active transportation, and shared commuting that are consistent with Maine’s statutory emissions reduction goals.” 

In unveiling the recommendations, working group co-chair and Maine Department of Transportation chief engineer Joyce Taylor noted community benefits from road safety upgrades to accommodate these goals. 

“I think this also gets at housing and land use,” she said. “If you can get people to want to live in that community, that village, I think we could all say that it’s more economically vibrant when people are able to walk and bike in their village and feel like they can get around and it’s safe.” 

The Gorham Connector project would offer a new, tolled bypass around local roads as an alternative to upgrading those existing routes, an option that’s also been studied. State officials say the new road would smooth the flow of local traffic, including public transit. 

Towns aim to marry transit, housing, climate

Towns like Kittery, in southern Maine, have tried to focus on a more inclusive array of transportation strategies in their local work to cut emissions from passenger vehicles. 

Kittery town manager Kendra Amaral is a member of the climate council’s transportation group. She couldn’t comment on the state’s approach to the Gorham Connector, which is outside her region. But she said her town’s climate action plan, adopted this past May, “threads together” public transit, housing growth and emissions reductions. 

Stakeholders who worked on the plan, she said, strongly recommended ensuring that housing is in walkable or transit-accessible places. 

Amaral said the town has invested in new bus routes, commuter shuttles and road improvements to promote traffic calming and create safer bike and pedestrian access, as well as in EV growth. And she said Kittery was a model for parts of a new state law that enables denser housing development. 

“We can’t expect people to reduce (emissions) resulting from transportation without giving them options,” she said. But, she added, “there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution” for every community. “I believe we have to avoid the ‘all or nothing’ trap and work towards (the priorities) that get the best results for each community,” she said. 

‘Devil is in the details’

The Maine Turnpike Authority acknowledges the proposed Gorham Connector project in the Portland area would increase driving. But paired with improvements to transit and land-use patterns, they say the proposed limited-access toll road would decrease emissions overall — though research and other cases cast doubt on this possibility. 

“It’s possible for a project like this to be designed in a way that does produce favorable environmental outcomes,” Accuardi said, but “the devil is really in the details.” 

For example, he said the new road’s tolls should be responsive to traffic patterns in order to effectively reduce demand. If they’re too low, he said, the road will become jammed with the kind of gridlock it aimed to avert. But set the tolls too high, and the road won’t get used enough. 

He said it’s true that this kind of new access road can lead to denser housing development in the surrounding area — but the road will need to be tolled carefully to account for that increased demand. 

And the proceeds from those tolls, he said, should ideally go toward new clean transportation alternatives — such as funding additional transit service or safe walking and biking infrastructure around the new toll road, helping to finance subsidized affordable housing in transit-served areas, or allocating revenues to surrounding towns that make “supportive land-use changes” to lean into transit and decrease driving. 

Maine has indicated that it expects to use tolls from the Gorham Connector primarily, or at least in part, to pay for the road itself and avoid passing costs to other taxpayers.

But Accuardi said alternative strategies should see more investment than road expansions in the coming years if states like Maine want to aggressively cut emissions. 

He said on average, across the country, states spend a quarter of their federal transportation funding on “expanding roads or adding new highway capacity.” 

“That’s more money than states tend to spend on public transit infrastructure, and that really needs to be flipped,” he said. “We need to see states really …  ramping down their investments in new highway capacity. Because, again, we know it doesn’t work.”

Can Maine meet its climate targets and keep expanding highways? is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

By gradually nudging aside its diesel buses, Charlottesville’s transit agency is punching above its weight.

The city of 45,000 at the edge of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains is matching the likes of larger counterparts in New York, Chicago and San Diego with a carbon-curbing proposal to convert to a zero-emission public transit fleet by 2040. By then, its routes will be served by electric buses.

Granted, some environmental advocacy organizations urged a speedier transition and are disappointed the city won’t retire its last diesel bus until 2039.

However, groups aligned with the Community Climate Collaborative (C3) — which emphasizes social justice in its work to reduce emissions — are relieved the city was willing to address route and ridership issues in addition to a commitment to wean itself off diesel and avoid compressed natural gas as a power source altogether.

“I think this is a victory,” said Caetano de Campos Lopes, C3’s director of climate policy. “We are very pleased that the city’s approach was so thorough and holistic.”

As it stands now, Charlottesville Area Transit (CAT) plans to double the size of its fleet from 38 to 76 by 2034. That peak fleet will be a blend of diesel and electric buses.

CAT is on track to roll out a pair of  pilot programs to add at least two battery electric buses and then at least two hydrogen-electric fuel cell models by 2029. The transit agency will stop ordering diesel buses in 2027, meaning the last ones will come into service by 2028 or 2029. 

While CAT is owned and operated by the city, the University of Virginia and Albemarle County contribute a small amount of its non-capital budget.

De Campos Lopes was reassured in late February when the Charlottesville City Council voiced unanimous support for advancing zero-emission fuel choices, because compressed natural gas was still under consideration the previous year. At its June 17 meeting, the council is scheduled to take a final vote on CAT’s Transit Strategic Plan.

C3 had collaborated with several dozen private companies and environmental, social justice and faith groups to pressure the council to adopt a measure in favor of zero-emission buses, particularly battery electric. It submitted a petition with 640-plus signatures last autumn.

Ben Chambers started his position as the city’s transportation planning manager in November 2022, when the community was in the thick of a back-and-forth exercise about its fleet makeup. The University of Virginia graduate is no stranger to the region or its routes, as he drove a University Transit Service bus while earning a religious studies undergraduate degree in 2006.

Over the last several years, he said, his most difficult task had been explaining to the public that CAT can’t turn on a dime to purchase zero-emission buses and upgrade their accompanying charging and fueling infrastructure.

He praised the council for conducting its deliberations openly so the public could better understand the process.

“For a long time, the constant refrain in the community has been ‘Get cleaner buses,’” Chambers said. “We’ve come to a solution that may not please everybody, but at least people understand how it’s going to work. We’re in a much better place now.”

Don’t let money overshadow emissions

C3, which released a transit equity and climate report in 2021, prodded the city to think beyond financial considerations when it found out that same year that CAT was on the verge of studying how to fuel its future buses.

The nonprofit and its allies feared the city would lean toward a known entity, compressed natural gas, and shy away from less time-tested technologies such as battery electric and hydrogen fuel cells.

That choice, de Campos Lopes said, wouldn’t align with the city’s ambitious target set in 2019 to curb greenhouse gas emissions 45% by 2030 and 100% by 2050. The transportation sector is a leading source, with an estimated 30% of total emissions.

Indeed, a recent analysis for CAT by the Northern Virginia-based Kimley-Horn engineering firm revealed that running CNG buses would amount to only a slight drop in emissions when compared to diesel.

In contrast, that same Kimley-Horn report stated that switching to battery electric buses or fuel cell buses powered with green hydrogen would reduce greenhouse gas emissions 99.4% and 99%, respectively, compared to the baseline diesel fleet.

Both technologies come close to achieving carbon neutrality, assuming the Virginia Clean Economy Act is heeded. Dominion Energy is supposed to achieve a carbon-free electric grid by 2045, with Appalachian Power following suit by 2050.

Both types of buses use batteries to power their electric motors. Fuel cell models use hydrogen to charge a battery, while the other uses electricity from the grid.

Initially, CAT had eyed compressed natural gas as one option because it’s cleaner than diesel and the gas buses didn’t cost that much more, Chambers said. Plus, both Richmond and Williamsburg had demonstrated success with gas buses, which qualified for funding under the federal government’s low- and no-emissions grant program.

“That CNG option caused a lot of mistrust,” he continued. “People thought CAT was trying to get around their request for clean energy buses. We dropped CNG mostly because of the feedback we got from the environmental community.”

In addition, some green groups said the transit agency was acting in bad faith by keeping diesel as part of its fuel mix. 

The timing for looking beyond all fossil fuels was right, Chambers said, when usage data about electric buses was becoming available from other transit agencies and funding opportunities became abundant.

“We could finally have that conversation about electric buses, but we weren’t just responding to what the mob wants us to do,” he said. “We want to balance the hue and cry for alternative fuel with the need for reliable bus service.”

The transit agency is in the midst of devising a zero emission transition plan to submit to the Federal Transit Administration this fall, Chambers said. The document includes details such as a turnover timeline and specifics about bus storage and storage infrastructure.

On the pilot program front, the city is set to order as many as five battery electric buses this summer — each one roughly twice the cost of a $500,000 diesel model — that are scheduled to join the fleet in 2027. CAT will wrestle with details such as driving range, maintenance requirements, and whether it makes sense to install on-site solar to charge the buses.

“I have serious concerns about longer routes and the impact of terrain because we’re quite a hilly town,” he said. “We’re talking about big heavy machines and the details can get technical.”

Bringing up to five hydrogen-powered buses on board by 2029 — at between $1.2 million and $1.3 million each — will be trickier. Most pressing is finding a nearby source of hydrogen fuel that doesn’t contribute to emissions of heat-trapping gases.

“We’re investigating the idea of on-site generation,” Chambers said. “But if we need to truck it in, where would it come from?”

CAT won’t necessarily choose one technology over the other as it replaces its diesel models, he said, adding that having both choices available provides an added benefit of resiliency.

Money for the pilot programs is a mix of federal, state and local dollars, with the bulk of it from the federal government. The exact funding formula is still in the works, he said. 

“Lucky for us, we won’t be the first out of the blocks,” Chambers said about gaining insights from transit agencies “on the bleeding edge to learn about the headaches they had to deal with.”

For instance, neighboring Blacksburg has put battery electric buses on the road, and leaders in Oakland, California; the Champaign-Urbana region of Illinois; and Montgomery County, a suburb of Washington, D.C.; have experience with hydrogen fuel cell buses.

He admitted that Charlottesville was a bit leery about delving into alternative technologies because of continued hassles with the 10 hybrid diesel buses it purchased about 15 years ago. Some of those models are still in the fleet. Parts of the hybrid drivetrain failed regularly and replacement parts were often on back order. As well, CAT had problems fully charging battery packs that didn’t last as long as promised.

“CAT couldn’t keep them on routes,” he said. “We didn’t want to end up with that same scenario.”

Getting everybody aboard the bus

Susan Kruse, C3’s executive director, said she recognized that some groups focused solely on climate issues were frustrated by the city’s plans to boost greenhouse gas emissions in the short term by not pivoting away from diesel immediately.

Her group tried to play the role of mediator because “it was best to take the time to get everyone literally and figuratively aboard the bus,” she said. 

“Sure, we would rather see buses move to zero emissions faster. But this is a great example of how moving toward a carbon-neutral community is difficult. This issue is complicated and we have to take the time to get it right.”

Generally, diesel buses cycle out of use after 12 years of service or accumulating 500,000 miles on the odometer.

It’s vital that CAT’s strategic plan calls for addressing shortcomings that frustrated riders, Kruse said. CAT will be doubling the amount of service, adding routes on nights and weekends, and limiting wait times between buses to 30 minutes.

She and her colleagues are especially pleased by the local environmental impact of battery electric and fuel cell buses powered by green or “gray” hydrogen produced using natural gas. A transition would improve air quality and reduce noise levels, according to the Kimley-Horn report.

For instance, the changeover would eliminate emissions of pollutants such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides and volatile organic compounds, all gases that are harmful to humans. For example, nitrogen oxides can irritate airways, aggravate asthma and other respiratory diseases, and lead to emergency room visits and hospital admissions.

As well, cleaner buses would reduce the tiniest bits of particulate matter by 25% when compared to diesel. The microscopic particles endanger human health because they can deeply embed in lungs and also enter the bloodstream. Regardless of bus technology, particulate matter is still produced by wear and tear on a vehicle’s brake pads and tires. 

C3 advocates and Chambers agree that Charlottesville’s achievements can be a model for smaller municipalities shifting to carbon-free buses. After all, the timeline for its proposed transition is ahead of Denver and Washington, D.C.

Setting an example doesn’t just apply to public transit, Chambers said, emphasizing that other communities view the university city as a test bed for plucky endeavors.

“In Charlottesville, we tend to think a bit bigger than our britches when it comes to policy decisions,” he said. “We do new bold things because we like to see if we can get it done.”

Charlottesville, Virginia, shows how small cities can take a lead on zero-emissions public transit is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

The following commentary was written by Kelley Trombley, senior manager of state policy at Ceres. See our commentary guidelines for more information.

With housing prices skyrocketing, far too many Colorado workers can’t afford homes. Traffic, already slowing down commutes and deliveries, is getting worse. And a warming planet is already hurting iconic Colorado industries, from farmlands to mountaintops. 

These are some of the major challenges keeping the state’s business leaders up at night — a sort of three-legged crisis with each individual prong presenting a real threat to the state’s economy. 

Make no mistake: Colorado is a great place to live and work. The state’s population growth in recent years is proof of its allure. But growing economies risk falling victim to their own success, as new challenges threaten to limit further growth. Right now, you can find those exact types of challenges in the housing market and on the roads. 

Home prices across the state have spiked by about 50% over the last five years, making it increasingly difficult for young workers and families to stick around at a time when the state’s workforce is rapidly aging. Meanwhile, around Denver, commuters now spend 54 hours a year stuck in traffic, making it the 17th most congested city in the country and slowing down workers, vendors, and really anybody who needs to get anywhere. 

Even more challenging: these problems risk building upon one another. If the only affordable places to live are further and further away from the places where people tend to work, that means people must drive even more. More traffic means slower commutes, delayed deliveries, and a less productive economy. 

And more traffic — as well as sprawling housing development that has greater energy needs — also means more pollution, which in turn causes the climate to warm. That is no longer a distant risk: Colorado’s mountain resorts, breweries, and other companies have repeatedly sounded the alarm about the impacts from climate change on their businesses and the broader economy. 

The good news is that for such a complex and interwoven set of challenges, there is a simple and low-cost solution that could go a long way toward resolving them — and it’s in front of state lawmakers as we speak. HB1313 would make it easier to put housing where people drive the least by removing burdensome red tape that makes it more difficult to build near public transit. As part of the legislation, cities, towns, and counties would gain access to new affordable housing tax credits and infrastructure grants to support the new development. 

Just judging by how hard it is to get it, there is plenty of demand to live near transit and jobs. Housing builders want to make more homes there but are restricted by regulations that limit how much housing can go anywhere. If those restrictions are softened, it’s all but certain that more housing will be built to meet that growing demand and ensure people can afford to live closer to work. And when people live closer to transit, they drive less because they have other options to get around — meaning less traffic and less pollution. Moreover, HB1313 would come at a time when the federal government has significantly increased infrastructure spending, which would help the state improve transit options to further bolster this policy. 

Like I said, it’s a simple change — but one with profound effects for taking on that three-headed monster of housing, transportation, and climate risks. In fact, if passed, this legislation will cut down on household driving by an estimated 13%, reduce climate-warming pollution by 8%, and have major positive impacts on land conservation and building energy usage. 

With public policy to unlock housing development near where people want to live, Colorado can make real progress against the housing and transportation challenges that are confronting so many American cities right now, while further brandishing its role as a leader in the fight against climate change. Since each of these challenges tends to get worse the longer it goes unaddressed, it is critical that action be taken quickly soon. I strongly encourage Colorado lawmakers to pass HB1313 this spring to ensure another generation of growth for the state and its key industries while protecting the resources that have made it so attractive to so many. 

Commentary: A business-friendly plan to confront some of Colorado’s greatest challenges  is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

The electric vehicle transition in North Carolina is well on its way, with new factories announced, charging stations rising up, and some 85,000 plug-ins now on state roads, exceeding a goal set by Gov. Roy Cooper to help combat climate change.

Yet for all their importance, electric vehicles won’t zero out carbon pollution from the transportation sector on their own. Doing so, experts warn, also requires reducing dependence on automobiles overall — no matter their source of fuel.

In North Carolina, it’s a task not easily said and even harder to do. 

The state’s current goal for reducing vehicle travel miles falls far short of what’s necessary. And legislators have severely limited funds for non-road projects, forcing local communities who simply want bike lanes or better sidewalks to go their own way.

Still, advocates say they’re cautiously optimistic about the final eight months of the Cooper administration, beginning with a new target for reducing vehicle dependence they expect this month.

“I’m feeling hopeful that N.C. is going to adopt a more ambitious goal,” said Megan Kimball, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.

‘Very modest’

Cooper, a Democrat in his second and final term who’s prioritized clean energy action, has issued a raft of climate executive orders and forged compromise with the Republican-led legislature on the clean energy transition.

A 2018 edict focused on the power sector, initiating a clean power plan that culminated in a bipartisan law, House Bill 951, which requires Duke Energy to zero out its climate-warming pollution by midcentury.

In 2022, the governor issued a similar order centered on transportation, today the largest source of global warming pollution in the state and the nation.

The Clean Transportation Plan called for in that proclamation “would be similar to the Clean Energy Plan,” Cooper said at the time. “That was an amazing stakeholder process that led to the passage of House Bill 951.”

Yet no such law has materialized — or is even on the horizon. That’s reflected in the state’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory, showing the transportation sector on pace to be just 39% cleaner in 2050, compared to Cooper’s goal of 100%.

Part of the problem may be the Clean Transportation Plan itself, issued a year ago. Advocates say the blueprint lacks concrete goals and action items. Most glaring: it didn’t set a goal for reducing vehicle miles of travel. 

And while the state’s Department of Transportation, as part of a court settlement, later established a per capita 2.5% reduction target by 2040, doubling to 5% by 2050, officials acknowledge it lacks ambition. 

“We recognize that it’s a very modest goal,” Heather Hildebrandt, the department’s supervisor for statewide initiatives, said during a recent webinar. “We wanted to set those targets at something we thought we could attain.”

Hildebrandt and her colleagues noted that other states’ targets far exceed that of North Carolina, with Washington state leading the pack with a goal of cutting per capita passenger vehicle miles in half by midcentury.

One Rocky Mountain Institute study found that even with a near 30-fold increase in electric vehicle registrations across the country by 2030, a 20% cut in per capita vehicle miles would still be necessary to meet climate targets.

Similarly, the organization’s North Carolina-specific analysis concluded that curbing miles traveled by 20% would reduce transportation sector pollution by a tenth , while saving households thousands of dollars and avoiding over 400 traffic deaths a year.

That’s why advocates are pushing a new vehicle miles reduction goal of at least 20% per capita. Officials say a more aggressive benchmark is forthcoming.

“This target will be more ambitious and help inform policy,” Hildebrandt told Energy News Network in an email.

Still, goal setting can only go so far. “That’s different than actually taking action,” Kimball said.

‘That’s on us’

A potpourri of incentives and educational campaigns — like Bike-to-Work Day and promoting telework — could help solve the problem on the margins. 

But these initiatives skirt the reality that in much of the state, North Carolinians have no practical alternative to driving. There simply isn’t the infrastructure in the form of bike lanes, sidewalks, and reliable and convenient public transit.

At an event last year touting train ridership, Cooper noted the mismatch.

“I’ve talked to a lot of people who would definitely use public transportation if they could rely on it — and if it were more convenient and less expensive,” the governor said. “That’s on us to create more opportunities for them.” 

Indeed, experts have found the solutions to be relatively straightforward: Curtail funding for new or expanded roadways and support alternative modes instead. Pair investments in public transit with inducements for dense, affordable housing nearby.

“In our own research, it’s pretty obvious [what] policies make the change,” said Anna Zetkulic, a senior associate at Rocky Mountain Institute. 

But executing that relatively simple formula is complex, and the barriers are myriad.

Policy leaders have devoted most of the last century to making North Carolina “The Good Roads State” to promote economic development and alleviate poverty. And even as the benefits of four-lane roads in the state’s every corner reach diminishing and geographically disparate returns — and the injustice of replacing Black neighborhoods with bypasses increasingly recognized — many politicians continue to embrace road construction above all else.

Earlier this year, GOP House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger criticized Charlotte’s plan to invest in light rail, bike lanes, and other alternate transportation modes. While acknowledging some need for alternatives, they said the city should pursue a “roads first” agenda.

Such talk isn’t idle: to raise sales taxes to pay for a multi-billion-dollar transportation plan, Charlotte, like all local governments, needs permission from a legislature controlled by Republicans, many who represent rural areas. 

“Some of the things that we often hear from transportation advocates in urban areas are probably difficult for [legislators] to vote for,” Berger said, per Axios Charlotte.

The legislature doesn’t just weigh in on case-by-case proposed sales tax increases. A 2013 law helps ensure that nearly all state transportation dollars go to highways and roads. The statute also prevents the state from funding bike- or pedestrian-only projects.

“If you’re widening a road or building a new road, you can tack on a sidewalk or a bike lane,” said Kimball. “But if it’s not tied to a road project, it can’t be funded.”

State Sen. Julie Mayfield, an Asheville Democrat, sought last year to remove the prohibition with an amendment to the budget. 

“I’m sure many of you have enjoyed walking on a greenway,” she told her colleagues. “This would simply open up more funding for bike and pedestrian projects across the state.”  

The measure failed on party lines.

Compounding the political problem for advocates of transportation alternatives, special interests promoting road construction tend to be well-connected and well-heeled. There’s no equivalent lobby for biking and walking.

And though decades of research show that adding another lane to a highway does not reduce congestion, and instead invites more cars to the road and ultimately creates more traffic problems, that result is counterintuitive for both voters and the politicians they elect.

“Traditionally, highway engineers treat traffic like it’s a liquid that needs to flow through a pipe,” said Miguel Moravec, another senior associate with Rocky Mountain Institute. “But in reality, traffic is more like a gas that expands.”

Even adequately funded efforts to improve public transit and orient residential and commercial development around it have faced challenges.

A Raleigh plan to build the state’s first Bus Rapid Transit system in an historically Black neighborhood, for instance, has drawn critics who worry that the project, if coupled with zoning measures encouraging density, will displace long-time residents and echo destructive highways of the past. 

Powerful institutions and not-in-my-backyard interests have also bristled at intensive transit projects, such as when Duke University torpedoed a Durham-Chapel Hill light rail proposal in 2019. Charlotte remains the state’s only city with a light-rail line.

‘Real transportation choices’

But alternative transportation advocates do have cause for hope.

To help address concerns about gentrification and displacement, Raleigh is piecemealing new zoning rules around its first Bus Rapid Transit line, perhaps serving as a model for future transit-oriented development.

Political leaders in Chapel Hill and Durham have moved on from the failed light rail proposal, with many now working on local solutions and to change the law to allow more funding for bike and pedestrian options.

Train ridership between Charlotte and Raleigh hit records in 2022 and again last year as Amtrak increased frequency of service. A single-month record in October of over 65,000 passengers was aided by a special stop at the State Fairgrounds.

The federal Climate Pollution Reduction Program — a product of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act — allows the state of North Carolina, the Triangle and Charlotte to compete for $4.6 billion in grants for a number of projects, including funding transportation alternatives.

And while reducing auto dependence is easiest in the state’s most densely populated metro areas, there are also ample opportunities in small towns looking to revitalize their main streets, and in medium-sized cities, too. 

According to Rocky Mountain Institute, 45% to 56% of car trips in Wilmington, Winston-Salem, and Greensboro are five miles or less.

“Half of trips are in this sweet spot,” said Moravec, “where micro-mobility transit like e-bikes and other alternatives could better serve people and cut pollution.”

Perhaps above all, advocates are heartened by the shorter-term, non-climate related benefits of reducing our auto dependence, including less air pollution, fewer traffic fatalities, and more savings for households who spend less fueling and maintaining cars.

Greensboro, the third largest city in the state, plans to be car optional by 2040 – where driving is a choice, not a necessity. Hanna Cockburn, the city’s transportation director, said that goal was only partially informed by its aims on climate.

“That’s a piece of it, but it’s more nuanced than that,” Cockburn said. “I think there’s a recognition that thriving, successful cities have real transportation choices.”

A sticking point on climate in North Carolina: reducing auto dependence in the ‘Good Roads State’ is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

After setbacks to adopting electric vehicle sales targets in Maine and Connecticut, New England clean transportation advocates are regrouping with a focus on charging infrastructure and consumer education. 

Maine’s Board of Environmental Protection voted 4-2 on March 20 against adopting California’s Advanced Clean Cars II rules, which would have required electric or plug-in hybrids to make up 82% of new vehicle sales in the state by model year 2032.

Board members initially signaled support for the proposal, which came from a citizen petition last spring, before their first planned vote was delayed by a severe storm in December. 

Last November, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, pulled a comparable proposal from legislative consideration after it was not expected to have the votes to pass.

Neither state had opted to consider California’s Advanced Clean Trucks standard, which sets similar targets for heavy-duty vehicle sales. 

Maine and Connecticut are among more than a dozen states that have had earlier versions of California’s clean car standards on the books for years. Both states have also prioritized transportation emissions, the region’s biggest contributor to global warming, in their climate plans. 

Some advocates fear progress in this sector will stall in these states until they adopt the updated California rules. They say debate over the standards was clouded by false and misleading claims, often pushed by fossil fuel industry groups, that have ramped up as part of the 2024 presidential campaign. 

“It was really an attempt to confuse and agitate consumers, and unfortunately it was successful,” said Charles Rothenberger, the climate and energy attorney at the Connecticut nonprofit Save the Sound. 

Fear of ‘losing ground’

Even if Connecticut or Maine successfully revisits adopting the California rules next year, it would likely push implementation out to model year 2029 at the earliest, advocates said. 

States that don’t use the new California standards will default to federal rules for reducing vehicle emissions. These rules were just overhauled but have a slower timeline than California’s, designed to accommodate states with lower EV sales rates than in much of New England, Rothenberger said.

“Standards that really cater to the laggards when it comes to EV adoption are really not beneficial to states that are well ahead of that curve,” he said. “I fear that it will lead to us losing ground to states that continue with the California standards,” such as Massachusetts and New York, Rothenberger added. 

This could mean less choice and supply for both new and used electric vehicles as carmakers focus on those other states, he said. 

In the meantime, Connecticut EV advocates are backing a bill in the General Assembly to allow state bonds for charging infrastructure and EV incentives and create an Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Coordinating Council to work with utility regulators on system planning, among other provisions. 

Peter LaFond, the Maine program director for the Acadia Center, a regional nonprofit, said the delay in adopting California’s rules provides time for combating misconceptions and for utilizing increasing state and federal funds for charging infrastructure. 

“Every month that goes by, I think there’ll be more and more chargers, and once there are, I think people will see the clear advantages,” LaFond said. “(EVs and plug-in hybrids) lower the carbon footprint and they’re less expensive to operate, and the cold doesn’t present as much of a challenge as the misinformation would have you believe. I think education is going to be a big part of this.” 

A snowball effect in rural areas

Scott Vlaun, the executive director of the Center for an Ecology-Based Economy, a nonprofit in the small western Maine town of Norway, said he sees a snowball effect of EV acceptance in his region.

“It’s happening, it’s just not happening fast enough,” Vlaun said. “This is the future, and if Maine doesn’t get its share, then … we’re going to be kind of stuck — in, especially rural Maine — with people driving beat-up, old, inefficient cars, and it’s not good for anybody.” 

CEBE has led a push for a large public EV charger network in and around Norway, which Vlaun said has helped make EVs and hybrids a more common sight everywhere from Main Street to nearby ski resorts. 

“We do this annual EV expo, and if you get people driving an F-150 Lightning, or a Chevy Bolt, depending on what their needs are, they get it,” he said. “So much of the misinformation — it’s almost comical, because it’s obvious that these people have never gotten behind the wheel of an electric car.” 

Vlaun was speaking from his own EV parked at a public charger outside CEBE’s office, having just driven back from a meeting in Portland, Maine, about an hour away. He said he would have liked to take a train or bus instead of driving, but doesn’t have an easy option for doing so. 

“We don’t see electric cars as a one-to-one replacement for gas cars,” he said. “We see electric vehicles as an interim step and a better solution to individual transportation than gas-powered vehicles — not the answer to the world’s transportation problems by any stretch.” 

Advocates in Connecticut agreed that encouraging cleaner public transit, more walkable cities and less driving overall is as much or more important to reducing transportation emissions as EV adoption. 

Community health impacts

Those emissions are linked to disproportionate asthma rates, low school test scores and other adverse public health ripple effects in Connecticut, said Dr. Mark Mitchell, the co-chair of the Connecticut Equity and Environmental Justice Advisory Council. 

“The people who have the least ability to afford cars and to drive suffer the most from the pollution caused by cars, and so we need to change that — we need to invest in public transportation and making cities walkable and bikeable,” he said. “We’re not going to get rid of cars… but we should make sure that the cars that drive through our communities are as clean as possible, as quickly as possible.” 

Mitchell said he lives in an especially low-income part of Hartford, the state capital — one of the lowest-income cities on the East Coast, with a mostly Black and Latino population. Mitchell said many of his neighbors don’t drive at all and can’t afford new cars, so they don’t yet “see themselves in EVs.” 

“But that’s not the point,” he said. “The point is that they’re very concerned about asthma, they’re very concerned about ADHD, they’re very concerned about school test scores.”

EV adoption across the state is one solution to those problems, he said.  

Jayson Velazquez, the Acadia Center’s Hartford-based climate and energy justice policy associate, used the term “through-emissions” to describe pollution from diesel trucks and other vehicles that traverse low-income neighborhoods and communities of color in Connecticut’s cities en route to nearby highways. 

Unlike those vehicles and their non-local drivers, Velazquez said, “the lasting health effects that come from that pollution don’t just get up and go.” 

Despite concerns about misinformation, advocates acknowledged that they share certain concerns with opponents of the California rules — such as affordability, charging access, the sustainability of minerals mining to build batteries, and strain on the power grid from increasing EV use. 

“There are real issues,” said Mitchell. “We do need to build up the infrastructure, both the charging infrastructure and the electric grid. … But until we set goals, we don’t know how quickly we need to do that. And it’s much easier to put things off if you don’t have a goal.”

Amid progress on electric vehicles, political setbacks frustrate advocates in Maine, Connecticut is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.