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transportation options while generating a variety of corresponding benefits. We are encouraged that a light rail system will finally be constructed within the Triangle, and we hope that the system will continue to expand as its promised benefits become a reality. In particular, we wish to highlight the environmental, human health, economic, and community benefits a light rail system will bring to the D -O Corridor and the greater Triangle area. A. Light Rail Yields Significant Environmental Benefits The environmental benefits of light rail are myriad. Most obvious, light rail reduces the number of vehicle trips that are made each day and correspondingly reduces tail pipe pollution. Pollutants from cars contain a variety of toxic and carcinogenic compounds.' Such pollution includes harmful carbon monoxide ( "CO "), nitrogen oxides ( "NO C ), and volatile organic compounds ( ,,VOCs ").2 NOX and VOCs emissions are precursors to ozone, which is associated with a variety of detrimental human health and ecological effects.3 Car emissions also contain greenhouse gases ( "GHGs ") like carbon dioxide ( "COz "), which contribute to global climate change. In addition, urban light rail systems such as this one encourage concentrated growth in already disturbed environments, rather than the sprawling development into undeveloped, natural areas that is often enabled by new - location highway projects.4 Light rail facilitates these concentrated growth patterns primarily because it is a "fixed- guideway" system. Once the light rail line is constructed and its various stations are fixed in place, the D -OLRT project will allow investors and developers to confidently invest in an area that will thrive due to the transportation options in place. Light rail will effectively anchor development within a predictable corridor along the light rail route. Such guided, planned land use with built -in public transportation options is environmentally beneficial on many levels. By containing development within a specific, planned, high - density area, the light rail system will help stall sprawling, unplanned growth patterns into suburban and exurban areas. This type of unplanned growth can lead to long commute times and an associated increase in vehicle miles travelled ( "VMT "). With more cars on the road driving for longer periods there is an associated increase in local air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, as discussed above. Likewise, as growth sprawls out of urban areas 1 E.g. HEALTH EFFECTS INST., SPECIAL REPORT 17: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ON EMISSIONS, EXPOSURE, AND HEALTH EFFECTS OF TRAEEIC- RELATED AIR POLLUTION 2- 17 -2 -18 (2010), available at http: // pubs .healtheffects.org /getfile.php ?u --553 'E.g. id.; EPA, AUTOMOBILE EMISSIONS: AN OVERVIEW 2 (1994), available at http: / /www3.epa.gov /otaq /consumer /05- autos.pdf, Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Transportation Sector Emissions, EPA, http: / /www3.epa.gov /climatechange /ghgemissions /sources /transportation.html (last updated September 11, 2015). s Ground -Level Ozone, EPA, http : / /www3.epa.gov /ozonepollution / (last updated October 1, 2015). 4 DEIS at 4 -291 (noting that "[t]he proposed D -O LRT Project and associated land use policies are expected to encourage more compact development, which has a smaller footprint than the auto- oriented development likely to occur without the transit investment "). 2