GREEN Streets Act Overview

Summary#

This bill changes how transportation planning works. It adds a goal to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and to make roads more resilient. The Secretary of Transportation must set national rules and minimum standards for lowering per person vehicle travel, improving road resilience, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. States and metropolitan planning organizations must set targets and report performance. The bill adds new requirements before building projects that add road capacity, including studies of how a project will affect vehicle miles traveled, greenhouse gas emissions, and transit, bicycle, and walking trips. Projects that add lanes or get at least $25 million in federal funds are covered. For new single-occupancy-vehicle capacity, planners must show the project helps meet performance targets, is more cost effective than alternatives like transit or operational fixes, and that a public plan exists for maintaining the new asset. The bill also creates national transit accessibility standards. Metro areas of 250,000 people or more and States containing them must set targets and report on transit access, transit stop distance, transit mode share, first/last-mile access, and accessibility for people with disabilities. The Secretary must make rules and provide technical help. If a State misses targets for the road-related standards, the State must obligate specified shares of certain federal transportation funds toward projects that help meet those targets, and the required share rises over time until targets are met.

What it means for you#

• State transportation departments and metropolitan planning organizations must include greenhouse gas reduction and lower per-capita vehicle travel in planning goals.
• Before approving big road-widening projects, planners must publish analyses showing effects on vehicle miles traveled, greenhouse gases, and transit and active travel trips.
• Transit agencies and large metro areas must set and report on accessibility targets, such as how many jobs and services can be reached within 45 minutes by transit and average distance to transit stops.
• Communities identified as environmental justice communities will have project-level analyses of air pollution and other local impacts.
• States that miss performance targets may need to direct a portion of federal transportation funds to projects like transit expansion, active-transportation, micromobility, or land use changes.

Expenses#

The bill requires States to obligate portions of their existing federal surface transportation apportionments if they fail to meet certain performance targets. Specifically, a State that misses targets must obligate: 33% of amounts apportioned under 104(b)(1) and 10% of amounts apportioned under 104(b)(2) (with some exceptions) in the following fiscal year toward projects that meet the targets. If a State continues to miss targets, the 33% obligation increases by 2 percentage points each year until targets are met. No publicly available information on total projected costs or official budget estimates is provided in the bill text or metadata.

Proponents' View#

No publicly available information.

Opponents' View#

No publicly available information.