The Oregon Transportation Commission meets tomorrow the 17th, and the update from the Climate Office appears a little obtuse, even willfully so, focusing on EV mania, and utterly silent on reducing VMT and driving less.
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| That's a parking lot! Driving itself is a cause. (Climate Office slide deck) |
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| Highway to Hell? Not at ODOT! (Oregonian) |
ODOT and the OTC still operate primarily on a model of EV mania for "reducing GHG emissions from transportation" and do not give enough weight to "driving less."
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| It's all EV mania and nothing about reducing VMT (cover letter to OTC) |
The recent appointment of former State Senator Beyer to the OTC does not seem likely to help with any redirect.
See recently at BikePortland:
- "Transportation reform groups push Governor Brown to reconsider commission pick"
- "Despite opposition, Senator Lee Beyer sails through OTC nomination meeting"
Hopefully the choice of Tina Kotek for Governor will help with some course-correction at the OTC and at ODOT.
Also on the agenda is also a presentation on the new Great Streets program, to "Improve safety and multimodal accessibility needs on ODOT highways in incorporated areas that serve as main streets in urban and rural areas."
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| Eligible projects (Great Streets slide deck) |
This could fund work on OR-22, aka Edgewater, Front, Trade/Ferry, and Mission Street, or more on OR-221, aka Wallace Road. The cover letter has more on scoring criteria and other information.
The total fund is only $50 million, and so the improvements it will support will be small and often ornamental, and not the structural magnitude of any real street redesign.
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