I'm certain some of you can relate to this:
I drive about 20 miles to my office, which is located by the side of a freeway in a suburban "edge city." I sometimes walk to a sub shop for lunch, but it's an arduous slog along busy four lane streets that sometimes have sidewalks, and sometimes don't. To get just about anywhere from my office requires another car trip.
Next Car Debate: Total Miles Driven The Wall Street Journal, February 5, 2008
... the U.S. Department of Energy projects that miles driven will keep increasing in coming years, and by 2030 could grow by 59% compared with 2005 levels -- still outpacing population growth, though not by as much in the last three decades of the past century. That means even though we'll be driving vehicles that slurp less petroleum per mile, carbon dioxide emissions could grow by as much as 41%, according to a report titled "Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change," published by the Urban Land Institute.
The reasons for the big growth in miles traveled are pretty obvious if you don't live in the center of a big city endowed with functioning public transport. To make space for ever larger suburban homes, housing developers pushed further and further from city centers and shopping areas. New neighborhoods often had street layouts cluttered with cul de sacs that forced people to drive farther to get to main roads or stores.
Next Car Debate: Total Miles Driven The Wall Street Journal, February 5, 2008
Joseph White sees the debate about environmental impact shifting to focus on total miles driven rather than improved fuel efficiency. That's because even if we do improve fuel efficiency for cars the built environment is designed (and, thanks in part to local and federal policies, largely continues to develop) to require a large amount of car driving to get even the simplest tasks done.
You see, the kinds of zoning laws and building codes we have, along with parking regulations and the distribution of transportation funds between public highways and public roads vs. mass transit has an impact on the built environment. People are going to go and buy lunch, go to work, and do other tasks no matter what-- so, what would it be like if we structured our small and large cities in such a way that this was possible without driving for every trip? That could have a greater impact than all the CAFE standards in the world! Of course it would not come quickly and there would be some extra intangible 'externalities' that might cause us to exercise caution about this idea such as:
* Saying hello to people on public sidewalks
* unintentional weight loss
* a strange feeling of "community"
* fresh air exposure
* young teens and other non drivers having more independent social lives and going off on their own to all kinds of places.
* unintentional savings on home heating due to denser housing
* an unexplainable urge not to drive
So, clearly we should exercise caution before considering sustainable development as a potential part of the solution to slowing climate change! Not!