Some Climate Updates amid Business as Usual at the OTC on the 20th

Last week at BikePortland, they wrote about a coalition of transportation advocates, the Clean and Just Transportation Network, who had signed onto a letter to the Oregon Transportation Commission regarding the new Federal funds for transportation. Coalition partners had written to

encourage you to utilize this once in a generation opportunity to focus on building a future multimodal transportation system that works for Oregonians -- one that is equitable, safe for people of all ages and abilities, and climate-smart in reducing vehicle miles traveled and electrifying the rest.

"Reducing vehicle miles traveled and electrifying the rest" seems like a good way to encapsulate the priority: Less driving foremost, and changing over the fuel source for when driving is the best solution. Currently our EV mania sidelines the less driving part. So this was a good corrective.

Our 350.org chapter signed on to the letter, it was nice to see.

EV mania at the OTC

The Oregon Transportation Commission meets tomorrow, Thursday the 20th, and the presentation from the Climate Office is all about EV mania. 

It seemed very symbolic that the only mention of bicycle transport was the coda image on the very last slide.

Bicycling as coda only

With some new planning rules, DLCD is ahead of ODOT, and in the packet are a couple of one page summaries of rules that will soon be enacted.

On climate

On transportation

The MPO has been resisting progress on these, and there will certainly be more to say as enactment approaches.

Slicing the pie: Two of the four proposals

On the new Federal funding itself, with $412 million over a five year period in question, ODOT currently has four options on offer to the OTC:

1. Fix-It: This scenario focuses on providing resources to preserve existing state highways, dedicating half of the remaining flexible funding to Fix-It programs while splitting the remaining funding between Enhance Highway and Public and Active Transportation (Great Streets and Safe Routes to School).
2. Public and Active Transportation: This scenario dedicates half of the remaining flexible funding to the Great Streets and Safe Routes to School programs while giving a quarter each to Enhance Highway and Fix-It.
3. Enhance Highway: This scenario dedicates about half of the remaining flexible funding to Enhance Highway programs; Fix-It and Public and Active Transportation each get about a quarter of funding.
4. Balanced: Each of the three categories receives about a third of the remaining funding in this scenario.

It's really time to stop "enhancing," which is a euphemism for widening and auto capacity increase, and stop "balancing," which is always a false balance biased for autoism. In so many ways we need to "unbalance" the system to prioritize walking, biking, and busing.

Critics of the I-5 Rose Quarter and the Interstate Bridge and highway project have more commentary:

Given recent headlines about how scary the climate apocalypse is getting and also how truly terrible ODOT has been on drawing up a meaningful climate action plan, you’d think the OTC would be issuing orders for ODOT to prioritize investments in public transportation, biking and walking instead of freeway expansion. Unfortunately, you’d be wrong.

They also have suggestions for comment to the OTC.

You can submit comment to the OTC on their website. (The new Federal funding is formally the "Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.")