# What the GREEN Streets Act Actually Does

This bill changes how the federal government funds transportation projects by making climate change and reducing car dependency central to planning decisions. Right now, states and cities can plan highways and transit systems with climate as just one consideration among many. This bill flips that around—it requires transportation planners to actively work toward cutting greenhouse gas emissions and reducing the number of cars on the road, and it creates financial consequences if they don't meet these goals.

The practical impact is significant: when a state or city wants to build a major highway expansion project that costs $25 million or more in federal funds, they'll first have to publish a detailed analysis showing how many additional cars the project will attract, how much it will increase emissions, and whether it will actually reduce the number of people biking, walking, or taking public transit. This is a real change from current practice, where highway expansion projects often proceed with minimal scrutiny about whether they'll just create more traffic. If states consistently fail to reduce emissions on their roads, they'll be required to spend increasingly larger portions of their federal highway money on alternatives like transit, bike lanes, and pedestrian infrastructure instead of road expansion.

The bill also creates new national standards for public transit access in large cities and metropolitan areas. Transit agencies will need to measure and report on how many jobs, grocery stores, hospitals, and schools people can reach within 45 minutes by public transportation, how close people live to transit stops, and what percentage of trips people take by bus or train. This puts pressure on transit systems to expand coverage and improve service, particularly in underserved neighborhoods. For everyday people, this could mean better bus and train service in your area, more sidewalks and bike lanes connecting to transit stops, and more intentional planning to put housing and jobs near public transportation rather than spreading them out across sprawling suburbs that require a car to reach.

GREEN Streets Act

Huffman, Jared

Generating Resilient, Environmentally Exceptional National Streets Act or the GREEN Streets Act This bill establishes national goals to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions and improve the resilience of the transportation system. Specifically, the bill directs <ul> <li>the Department of Transportation (DOT) to establish minimum standards for states to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and per capita vehicle miles traveled (VMTs) on the National Highway System;</li> <li>DOT to establish measures for states to assess and reduce carbon dioxide;</li> <li>states and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to consider projects and strategies that reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions and decrease per capita VMT's;</li> <li>states and MPOs to publish an analysis of the impact on per capita VMTs and mobile source greenhouse gas emissions for each project that adds new lanes or otherwise increases traffic capacity and costs more than $25 million;</li> <li>states that are out of compliance with the per capita VMT standards or carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas emission measures to dedicate federal highway funding to achieve compliance; and</li> <li>DOT to establish national transit access standards and performance measures for transit accessibility, transit stop distance, and transit mode share.</li> </ul>