Shoreline’s Climate Action Plan: fewer cars; more trees and sidewalks
Saturday, May 18, 2024
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| A graph from the 2022 Climate Action Plan shows 56% of total greenhouse gas emissions in Shoreline come from transportation (mostly gasoline-powered vehicles). |
By Oliver Moffat
On May 13, 2024 after hearing public comments from school children asking for safer streets, and tree activists calling for narrower sidewalks on 175th street, the city council reviewed how much progress was made on Shoreline’s Climate Action Plan.
The city’s first Climate Action Plan in 2013 set a goal to reduce emissions by 25% between 2009 and 2020; but by 2021, the city had reduced emissions by only about 6% for the entire decade.
In 2022, the city set a new goal to reduce emissions 60% between 2019 and 2030; meaning the city will need to reduce emission 6% per year on average for every year this decade.
The city also wants to reach net zero emissions by 2050 by offsetting all emissions with sequestration.
According to the city’s plan, Shoreline’s tree canopy covers 37% of the city and currently sequesters about 13,890 metric tons of CO2 each year; while Shoreline’s cars emit ten times that much CO2 each year: 139,782 metric tons.
At 56% of the total, by far the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Shoreline comes from transportation (mostly gasoline-powered vehicles).
Getting people to give up their cars will require safe sidewalks and bike lanes that people actually want to use, so the city’s plan lays out a long list of actions to make the city more walkable and bike-able.
But adding sidewalks and bike lanes on 145th street while preserving the wide, five-lane road for cars has required removing trees - angering tree activists who are now calling for narrowing the proposed sidewalk on 175th to save trees.
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| Councilmember John Ramsdell Photo courtesy City of Shoreline |
“Believe me, I love trees,” he said, “But I think there’s a really important statistic to be aware of: … a mature tree can absorb about 48 pounds of carbon dioxide per year.
"If we can remove one car from using our roads… according to the EPA, a typical car emits 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. That’s over 10,000 pounds of carbon dioxide greenhouse gasses per year.”































