"Five years after New York passed its landmark 2020 climate law, the state Department of Transportation is quietly undermining it as it expands highways, sidestep emissions reviews, and ignores the law's equity mandate. The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act requires steep cuts to emissions and protections of vulnerable communities, but the DOT is failing on both fronts, according to a report from New York Lawyers for the Public Interest."
"The transportation sector is now responsible for over one-third of New York's yearly emissions, yet the DOT is forging ahead with at least 40 expensive and environmentally ill-advised highway-widening projects. These will add to the state's already ballooned total driving miles, polluting the atmosphere and increasing rates of asthma. The continued focus on highways defies not only the climate law, but common sense, said Caroline Chen, director of Environmental Justice at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest."
""It's folly to think that we're going to build highways and at the same time be able to reduce vehicle traffic," she said. "We need to highlight that the trend has to stop and to take climate change seriously." It is well established that expanding roads doesn't fix traffic because the expansion itself induces more drivers to use the newly widened road. It's a never-ending cycle of traffic, driving up statewide emissions."
The state Department of Transportation is expanding highways, sidestepping emissions reviews, and failing to implement equity mandates from the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. The DOT posted only a two-page summary of the law without substantive implementation, a tactic described as 'threadbare.' The transportation sector now emits over one-third of New York's greenhouse gases, while at least 40 highway-widening projects proceed. Highway expansion increases vehicle miles traveled through induced demand, raising emissions and worsening asthma. New Yorkers drive more than 120 billion miles annually, producing CO2 emissions that would require a forest twice the size of the state to absorb.
#new-york-department-of-transportation #highway-expansion #transportation-emissions #environmental-justice
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