Issue Brief | Aligning Transportation Planning with State Climate Goals
February 5, 2026
Opportunities for State Departments of Transportation
Read the full issue brief (PDF)
As the agencies that oversee the planning, funding, and maintenance of most of the nation’s transportation systems, state departments of transportation (DOTs) have a critical role in aligning transportation policies and investments with state climate goals.
In a new issue brief entitled Aligning Transportation Planning with State Climate Goals: Opportunities for State Departments of Transportation, GCC's Ryan Levandowski and James Bradbury, along with co-author Chris McCahill of the State Smart Transportation Initiative, examine opportunities for state transportation agencies to use data-driven decisionmaking to refocus their investments toward projects that reduce climate pollution. These investments can also lower transportation costs, improve air quality, and make it easier for people to get from place to place.
States are already federally required to adopt and implement a performance and data-based transportation decisionmaking approach to pursue national safety and system reliability goals, and states can incorporate their own transportation priorities, including climate pollution reduction, into this approach.
“State DOTs have an important opportunity to accelerate transportation emissions reductions and provide key benefits to communities by harnessing the performance-based planning and programming framework,” write the authors. “By integrating climate considerations early and often, including when setting goals, allocating funding between programs, selecting projects, and evaluating investment performance, transportation planners and decisionmakers can set the stage for better outcomes from transportation investments.”
Since 2023, Georgetown Climate Center has partnered with the State Smart Transportation Initiative to co-facilitate the Sustainability Network, a group of state DOT officials from across the country that share a common interest in improving multimodal access and managing travel demand. The Sustainability Network convenes at least once a month, and members are encouraged to share updates and engage in peer-to-peer learning, including by developing and advancing best practices for expanding access to more equitable multi-modal transportation systems.
Read the full issue brief here.