National Center for Sustainable Transportation

Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transportation poses a significant challenge in rural communities and at the edges of metropolitan areas where rural and urban populations meet, otherwise known as exurban fringe. Populations living in these areas rely more heavily on personal vehicle travel than nonrural populations do and are more likely to have trouble getting to and from important destinations. One approach to curtailing transportation GHG emissions is through land use planning, for example by directing population growth into compact, walkable communities with access to transit. However, nearly all research to date on this topic has focused on urban and suburban areas, leaving decision-makers in exurban and rural communities with little guidance for how to effectively reduce GHGs through changes to land use and development in their communities.

Researchers at the University of Vermont sought to answer the question: is the relationship between travel and the built environment the same in urban and rural areas? They analyzed nationwide data from the United States Federal Highway Administration on nearly 110,000 people and detailed information on land use and development from the United States Environmental Protection Agency Smart Location Database. They determined what aspects of the built environment in different types of locations (urban, rural, etc.) were associated with sustainable travel behaviors such as greater rates of walking and biking, less reliance on automobile travel, and fewer vehicle miles traveled or VMT, which is the number of miles driven in a car. This policy brief summarizes the findings from that research and provides policy implications.

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