Abstract
The authors describe the development of a set of carbon dioxide emissions estimates for highway travel by automobile, truck, bus and other public transit vehicle movements within the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, in calendar year 2005. Considerable variability is found to exist across metropolitan areas when these greenhouse gas emissions are measured on a per capita and a per gross metropolitan product (GMP) basis. Least square regression modeling shows a relationship between emissions per capita and per GMP with truck traffic share, transit share, employment density, population dispersion within the metro area, and GMP per capita. As a result many of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas tend to have lower CO2 emissions per capita and per GMP than smaller and more recently developed metro areas.