I’m trying to make sense out of a city report, presented to a city council committee yesterday, that driving less will cut greenhouse gas emissions and make this a better place to live.
Apparently, we’ve already done a fabulous job with this, doing even more than we promised in 2006. Dallas, mostly due to city government efforts like buying wind power, changing light bulbs and the like, cut greenhouse gas emissions by one-third from 1990 to 2010. All of which is well and good, and should make us all proud to live here.
The next step, according to the report, is “continued investment in land use/transportation policies set out in forwardDallas!”, the city’s master development plan. That includes building housing and retail around DART stations and creating jobs near where people live so they don’t have to drive too far to work. The funny thing, though, is that those things are designed to reduce the number of miles driven, which seems to contradict official city policy.
Because, as Mayor Vision recently reminded us, official city policy is about driving more, not living near where we work, and using cars instead of DART. What else would be the result of building the Trinity toll road? And people wonder why I’m so cynical about what goes on downtown.