Climate Committee Reviews Idling Campaign and Get There Challenge on Monday

With the flooding in Spain following flooding in Asheville and Tampa Bay and other nearby places from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, extreme weather has been in the news of late. The Climate Action Plan Committee meets tomorrow on Monday the 4th, and they continue to think too small.

Emissions-intensified congestion (NY Times)

Hurricane costs (Sunday)

On the agenda are updates on the "idle reduction campaign" and the "Get There Challenge."

Monday's agenda

Here, the way these are framed up has seemed very puny, an instance of signalling over substance. It will be interesting to see if conversation around them develops with plans to do more, or if people are content to talk more than walk.

The City still also hides the reports. Not even the annual report is with the agenda.

Here's a clip from Cherriots' update to the Metropolitan Planning Organization last month on the Get There Challenge.

Get There Challenge (Oct. 2024 SKATS-PC)

Even it has some problems. There is no information on the number of people, and the reporting appears to be for FY24, which may scoop a whole year's worth of logging rather than the two weeks of the challenge itself.

Additionally, a number of counting stats might be better reported as ratios. A thousand somethings, trips in this case, looks like a big number, but as a proportion of the people and their trips in the total urban area, it is very small. Rather than reporting in the most optimistic, flattering way, reporting should be more critical so policy-makers can think more seriously about what it would take to make real progress.

And this is the greatest flaw in the Climate Action group right now. The City doesn't report data in a serious way, as if we were determined to learn from what is not working and to make course-corrections to make it work. We don't make reports easy to find, and what is reported is too often anodyne. There's too much theater and not enough actionable plan.

With a new budget hole of $18 million for next year, it would not be surprising if Council decides to reallocate time and budget away from climate action. This would be a mistake, and future Salemites would regret it terribly.

See previous notes on the Climate Action Plan here.