Month: December 2019
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The Week Observed, December 20, 2019
What City Observatory this week 1. Portland’s progress (or lack thereof) on climate. Portland likes to present itself as a climate leader, but the latest data on transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions shows that Portland is losing ground in a big way. Portland’s transportation greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 1,000 pounds per person since 2013,…
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Transportation planners flunk Econ 101: Price elasticity of demand
The most basic concept in economics is that higher prices lead to less consumption, yet this fact is routinely ignored in transportation planning and policy. If we got the prices right, many of our most pressing transportation problems would be much easier to tackle If we have too much of some things, and not enough…
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Portland’s Phony, Failing Climate Strategy
Portland has soaring climate rhetoric, but 1,000 pounds per person more in greenhouse gases from driving Portland has adopted bold climate goals, but when it comes to the single largest local source of greenhouse gas emissions, we’re moving rapidly in the wrong direction. Greenhouse gas emissions in the Portland area have grown by more than…
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The Week Observed, December 13, 2019
What City Observatory this week 1. Oregon DOT repeats its idle lie about emissions. It’s every highway builder’s go-to response to climate change: we could reduce greenhouse gas emissions if we could just keep cars from having to idle in traffic. That turns out to be a great way to rationalize any highway-widening project. Which…
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Freeway deja vu all over again: The freeway builders ignore school kids
The Oregon Department of Transportation has a decades long-tradition of ignoring Portland Public Schools when it comes to freeway projects So here’s our story so far. The Oregon Department of Transportation, ODOT, is proposing to spend half a billion dollars widening a mile long stretch of freeway in Portland adjacent to the Rose Quarter. We’ve…
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ODOT’s Climate Lie: An idle theory of greenhouse gas emissions
ODOT Director Kris Strickler makes a phony claim that we can fight climate change by reducing traffic idling in congestion Asked about how his agency will respond to the challenge of climate change, newly nominated Oregon Department of Transportation Director Kris Strickler repeated a long discredited lie, claiming that measures to speed traffic by reducing…
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The Week Observed, December 6, 2019
What City Observatory did the past couple of weeks 1. Using seismic scare stories to sell freeways. The Pacific Northwest is living on the edge; sometime (possibly tomorrow, possible several hundred years from now) we’ll experience a Cascadia subduction earthquake that will do significant damage to the region’s infrastructure. Fear of that event is real,…