Giving Compass' Take:

• The U.S. Transportation Climate Impact Index highlights which cities are doing the best at helping our climate. 

• How can funders help get cities the funding and support they need to improve their transportation infrastructure?

• Learn more about the future of transportation.

Transportation is the leading source of carbon emissions in the United States, with cars, trucks, planes, trains, and boats emitting 1.9 billion tons of CO2 each year. Cities are facing intense pressure to be more environmentally friendly, but what really makes a city “green” when it comes to transportation? According to a new ranking on the climate impact of transportation in the country’s 100 largest metro areas, it may not be entirely contingent on having a lot of bike lanes or good public transit.

Mobile analytics company Streetlight Data released this week its first annual U.S. Transportation Climate Impact Index, a ranking of how carbon friendly the country’s 100 largest metro areas are on several factors: total vehicle miles traveled (VMT), how much people are biking and walking, transit usage, population density, and circuity, which is basically the difference between how far two destinations may be as the crow flies and the route it actually takes to travel that distance by car. “If you have a messy urban road design, you might have people who, because they’d rather get on the highway than drive through town, drive way more miles then they need to to get from one place to another,” says Streetlight Data CEO Laura Schewel. “And that’s another place where you have a lot of potential for improvement.”

Read the full article about transportation networks to help our climate by Kristin Toussaint at Fast Company.