Month: March 2019
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The Week Observed, March 29, 2019
What City Observatory did this week A note to City Observatory readers: Bear with us, folks: We’re in the last week of our month-long deep dive into Portland’s debate about whether to spend a half billion dollars to widen a mile-long stretch of freeway near the city’s downtown. Based on all we’ve learned in our…
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The Lemming Model of Traffic
Highway planners use a deeply flawed “lemming” model of traffic that rationalizes highway widenings The traffic projections made as part of the Environmental Assessment for the $500 million Rose Quarter I-5 widening project make an audacious claim that the project will reduce traffic congestion and greenhouse gases, and completely unlike any other freeway expansion project,…
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There’s a $3 billion bridge hidden in the Rose Quarter Project EA
ODOT hid its plans to build a $3 billion Columbia River Crossing in the Rose Quarter Freeway Widening Environmental Assessment The carefully crafted marketing campaign for the I-5 Rose Quarter Freeway widening project is adamant that you don’t call it an expansion. It’s an “improvement project” they say. We’re not widening the freeway, we’re just…
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Congestion pricing is a better solution for the Rose Quarter
Congestion pricing is a quicker, more effective and greener way to reduce congestion at the Rose Quarter than spending $500 million on freeway widening. Failing to advance pricing as an alternative in the environmental review is a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act For the past month, we’ve been taking a hard look at…
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National transportation experts: Portland, you’re doing it wrong
Long regarded as a national leader in transportation policy, Portland is being called out by some of the best and brightest for a wrong-headed decision to spend half a billion dollars widening freeways. The damage done is not just to the city’s reputation. Janette Sadik-Khan: Once king of sustainable transpo, Portland could be come jester…
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The Week Observed, March 22, 2019
What City Observatory did this week A note to City Observatory readers: We’re deep in the thick of Portland’s debate about whether to spend a half billion dollars to widen a mile-long stretch of freeway near the city’s downtown. Based on all we’ve learned in our research at City Observatory, and our analysis of the…
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Safety last: What we’ve learned from “improving” the I-5 freeway.
Expanding freeway capacity on I-5 hasn’t reduced crashes in Woodburn, but did triple in cost Today, we’re pleased to offer a guest commentary from Naomi Fast. Naomi currently lives in Beaverton, Oregon. Previously, she lived in Portland, where she learned to ride a bicycle as transportation while earning graduate degrees at Portland State University. Her…
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Safety: Using the big lie to sell wider freeways
Oregon’s Department of Transportation is lying about safety to sell a half billion dollar freeway project Fear-mongering is the one of the lowest, if unfortunately most effective, means of selling anything. Threaten anyone with a danger to their health and safety, and they’ll acquiesce to a sales pitch. Oregon’s Department of Transportation is using an…
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How a freeway destroyed a neighborhood, and may again
Portland’s Albina neighborhood was devastated by the I-5 freeway; Widening it repeats that mistake Freeways and the traffic they generate are toxic to vibrant urban spaces. The great lesson of the urban freeway building boom of the 1960s was that it served chiefly to destroy, devalue and depopulate city neighborhoods throughout the nation. Freeways accomplished…
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How tax evasion fuels traffic congestion in Portland
Tax free shopping in Oregon saves the typical Southwest Washington household $1,000 per year Cross border shopping accounts for 10-20 percent of all trips across the I-5 and I-205 bridges Tax avoidance means we’re essentially paying people to drive and create traffic congestion Those who live in “the ‘Couv”–Vancouver, Washington–often like to poke at their…
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The Week Observed, March 15, 2019
What City Observatory did this week A note to City Observatory readers: We’re deep in the thick of Portland’s debate about whether to spend a half billion dollars to widen a mile-long stretch of freeway near the city’s downtown. Based on all we’ve learned in our research at City Observatory, and our analysis of the…
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Distorted images: Freeway widening is bad for pedestrians
The proposed I-5 Rose Quarter freeway widening project creates a bike- and pedestrian-hostile environment The Oregon Department of Transportation has crafted distorted images that exaggerate pedestrian use by a factor of 200 As part of its effort to sell its $500 million dollar project to widen Interstate 5 at the Rose Quarter, the Oregon Department…
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The Hidden Rose Quarter MegaFreeway
ODOT is really building an 8-lane mega-freeway at the Rose Quarter You can tell from the tortured rhetoric about “auxiliary” lanes that the Oregon Department of Transportation is falling all over itself to make the freeway widening project it has proposed for the I-5 Rose Quarter area seem absolutely as small as possible. They maintain…
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The black box: Hiding the facts about freeway widening
`State DOT officials have crafted an Environmental Assessment that conceals more than it reveals In theory, the National Environmental Policy Act is all about disclosing facts. But in practice, that isn’t always how it works out. The structure and content of the environmental review is in the hands of the agency proposing the project, in…
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The Rose Quarter: ODOT’s Phony safety claims
There’s no evidence that widening the I-5 freeway at the Rose Quarter will reduce crashes. ODOT used a model that doesn’t work for freeways with ramp-meters When ODOT widened I-5 lanes and shoulders near Victory Boulevard in 2010, crash rates did not decline Research shows interstate freeway shoulder widths aren’t correlated with crash rates The…
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Why Portland shouldn’t be widening freeways
Why Portland’s freeway fight is so important to the future of cities everywhere The plan to widen the I-5 Rose Quarter Freeway in Portland, at a cost of $500 million, is a tragic error for one city, and an object lesson to others. A wider freeway will induce more traffic and pollution (and ironically, worsen…
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The Week Observed, March 8, 2019
What City Observatory did this week 1. Widening freeways increases car travel and carbon emissions. Induced demand from additional freeway capacity is now so well proven that it’s referred to “The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion.” Based on the scientific literature showing how more road capacity produces more driving, the University of California Davis has…
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Why do poor school kids have to clean up rich commuter’s pollution?
The fundamental injustice of pollution from urban freeways Item: In the past two years, Portland Public Schools has spent nearly $12.5 million of its scarce funds to clean up the air at Harriet Tubman Middle School. This money will buy an expensive state-of-the-art air filtration system that will make the air inside the school safe…
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Freeway widening for whomst?
There’s a huge demographic divide between those who use freeways and neighbors who bear their costs When it comes time to evaluate the equity of freeway widening investments, it’s important to understand that there are big differences between those who travel on freeways and those who bear the social and costs in the neighborhoods the…
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Orwellian freeway-widening
What pretends to be an environmental assessment is actually a thinly-veiled marketing brochure In theory, an environmental impact statement is supposed to be a disclosure document. The idea behind the National Environmental Policy Act was to force thoughtful consideration of potentially environmentally harmful projects and policies, and by providing the public and decision-makers with clear…
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Wider freeways don’t reduce congestion
Portland’s $500 million Rose Quarter Freeway Widening Project is being sold as a way to reduce congestion: But it won’t work In three recent commentaries at City Observatory, we’ve explored whether a wider freeway at Portland’s Rose Quarter would have any meaningful impact on daily traffic congestion. All of the available evidence says that even…
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Widening the I-5 Freeway will add millions of miles of vehicle travel
We can calculate how much added freeway lanes will induce additional car travel The takeaway: the I-5 freeway widening project in Portland lead to 10 to 17 million more miles of vehicle travel annually, which will in turn produce thousands of tons of additional greenhouse gas emissions. A key part of the selling point for…
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The Week Observed, March 1, 2019
What City Observatory did this week 1. The high price of cheap gas. The most fundamental point in economics is that people respond to incentives. Make something cheaper to buy, and people will buy more of it. Make something more expensive, and they’ll buy less. That’s plainly the case when it comes to driving, and one…