This commentary is by Jim Stiles of St. Albans, who is a member of the Vermont Natural Resources Council, the Nature Conservancy, and the Environmental Defense Fund, and is active with the Vermont Healthy Soil Coalition.
Johanna Miller’s recent commentary on a better future for transportation in Vermont is well-reasoned and appealing in many ways. She does a good job in summarizing the facts of the situation and presenting a progressive, mainstream solution to the very serious climate impacts of Vermont’s bloated transportation sector.
Vermonters do a very bad job with transportation. From the standpoint of its climate impacts, we are among the worst in the world. However, converting to an electricity-fueled approach, as advocated by the Vermont Climate Council, is a shortsighted solution. To properly fix the problem, we must start reversing our ever-growing reliance on powered transportation, especially cars.
This will be a slow process — one measured in decades. There will be a place for cars in Vermont for generations yet. Through that process, electric cars are a modest step forward.
However, until Vermonters stop buying more cars every year, our greenhouse gas emissions from transportation are not going to improve much. To do that, we must demote cars from their central role in Vermont’s day-to-day reality. Until we do, cars — conventional or electric — will continue to power a diverse, and frequently deadly, set of problems.
Johanna’s commentary provides some excellent background and perspectives on how we should all try to live. Like her, we need to drive less. Living in good, walkable communities, as she does, is a great solution to most of our transportation needs.
Walkable communities are not a complete solution, and they aren’t going to happen overnight. However making Vermont’s communities walkable isn’t fundamentally complicated. Mostly, it comes down to delivering services and amenities to within walking distance of where people live. This has been the historic norm for hundreds of generations of people.
It is worth noting that many of the best places to live today are already highly walkable. Much of what makes them great places to live comes from their relative lack of cars.
Transitioning to walkability must be a top priority in any good transportation strategy for Vermont. It will come with challenges, but the transition may be far easier than most communities could imagine. A few basic community services — places to buy groceries and hardware, a decent cafe, a few shops, a library and a flexible community meeting facility — are an excellent start.
The details of aligning zoning, building codes and such with this strategy will entail real work. There are challenges. Some communities will handle such transitions with relative ease, and others will struggle. But in the end, this path creates a better way of living. A path focused on electric vehicles? Very risky at best.
However, regardless of whether Vermont succeeds in its newest greenhouse gas goals (and I hope we do), the sad fact is that very serious climate impacts are now a virtual certainty. Therefore, our primary climate goals should now shift toward adaptation. This will be a bitter pill to the people who have led the fight to actually fix climate change — which was and still is the right thing to do.
Walkable communities are just one way to cope with climate change and assure sustainable prosperity. Another great solution is healthy soil for all of Vermont’s lands. Such solutions can be implemented far quicker than all but a few envision. Realistically, they will not help us meet the time frames for Vermont’s greenhouse gas reduction goals. Based on our history and current trends, neither will Vermont’s latest climate plan.
We owe the youngest Vermonters lives at least as good as those we have enjoyed. Creating a Vermont where prosperity endures requires a durable, coherent solution to climate change. Transportation is an outsized piece of that effort. Electric vehicles will play a role in a good solution, but the larger part should be to find ways to drive less and enjoy life more.
