Recognizing that our 20th century toolbox of capacity expansion has failed, the Chair of the Commission said, "We will not be able to build our way out of the congestion issues that we have."
 |
| Salem's Congestion Relief Task Force, August 3rd Presentation |
The politics of decongestion pricing and its widespread unpopularity are what will dominate news about the OTC's meeting, but there was another matter a little buried on the OTC agenda that was even more wide-ranging and important.
The Directors of three other State agencies, DEQ, DLCD, and Energy sent to the OTC an interesting letter on greenhouse gases and transportation.
According to the Oregon Global Warming Commission’s 2017 Biennial Report to the Legislature, Oregon will not meet the Legislature’s 2020 target for greenhouse gas emissions reduction (ten percent below 1990 levels). We also are not on track for the Legislature’s 2035 and 2050 goals. With greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector increasing (rather than decreasing), and with transportation responsible for 39 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the state, it’s clear we need renewed focus on reducing emissions in this sector.It's time we also tied pricing to greenhouse gas emissions. We need to price road use better so we can make more efficient use of transportation resources. That efficiency must include moving more people with fewer fossil fuels.
And no matter how you slice it, this means saying "we must drive less." (The OTC isn't quite there yet, it's true. Chair Baney also said that tolling was a way "to get additional [auto] capacity out of the system." The OTC will also need to come around to the value of driving less, not merely to an argument about efficiency by increasing capacity without new road building or widening.)
That's a big change. You'll note on the Task Force's slide above, it says of the Downtown Mobility Study's recommendations that "adopted projects...[will] reduce vehicle capacity."
Somehow we have to get over this fetish for vehicular "levels of service" and vehicular capacity. We must develop and hew to new metrics that evaluate service and capacity for people who may be traveling - should be traveling - by any number of different modes. We need to make the drive-alone trip the mobility choice of last resort, not the default and automatic first choice for every trip. We have to start discouraging some car trips, even. A commenter here last month said this was "pie in the sky wishful thinking," but there are other things in the sky demanding even more urgent attention, things that have already generated plenty of wishful thinking. We have to change course.
1 comment:
“That efficiency must include moving more people with fewer fossil fuels.”
That’s where they get you — if you accept the idea that the amount people move around is fixed, then we’re toast. They love to get you thinking you’re making progress because the emissions per mile or per person are declining, while only rarely does anyone think to note that total emissions are still increasing. The whole “clean fuels” scam is just another way to keep the status quo locked in longer while pretending to be green.
Where we must go if we want any hope of avoiding runaway climate chaos with positive feedback loops driving us into societal collapse is for people to stop moving around so goddamn much. Period. Sharply less travel by people of all kinds, an end to mass jet travel entirely, and rare motorized travel in anything smaller than a bus or rail car.
The pipe dream is that we can continue to have 20th C mobility in a world of radically declining emissions. That’s simply not so.
As Chuck Marohn pointed out, in America today, our preferred definition of a solution is always “A way for everyone else to change what they’re doing so I don’t have to change anything about what I’m doing.”
But reality is hitting us in the head with a burning 2 x 4.
Post a Comment