Month: April 2021
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The Week Observed, April 30, 2021
What City Observatory this week 1. Restorative justice without funding is a sham. Portland’s Albina neighborhood was decimated by the construction of three Oregon Department of Transportation highway projects in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, causing the neighborhood’s population to drop by more than 60 percent. Part of the marketing pitch for the current effort…
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Alexa: What is Cascadia Vision 2050?
A tech-centered vision of the future of the Pacific Northwest envisions creating a series of new urban centers 40 to 100 miles away from the region’s current largest cities—Seattle, Vancouver and Portland. The answer to sustainability isn’t building new cities somewhere else, it’s making the urban centers we already have more inclusive, prosperous and sustainable.…
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ODOT consultant: Pricing is a better fix for the Rose Quarter
Oregon DOT’s own consultants say congestion pricing would be a better way to fix congestion at the I-5 Rose Quarter than spending $800 million. Pricing would improve traffic flow and add capacity equal to another full lane of traffic, according to WSP who called it “our best alternative” for dealing with the Rose Quarter Failing…
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Getting real about restorative justice in Albina
Drawings don’t constitute restorative justice ODOT shows fancy drawings about what might be built, but isn’t talking about actually paying to build anything Just building the housing shown in its diagrams would require $160 million to $260 million Even that would replace only a fraction of the housing destroyed by ODOT highway building in Albina…
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The Week Observed, April 23, 2021
What City Observatory this week 1. Fighting climate change is inherently equitable. While there’s a growing recognition of the existential threat posed by climate change, it’s becoming increasingly frequent to pit equity concerns against decisive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It shouldn’t and doesn’t have to be this way. Climate change disproportionately affects those…
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The freight fable: Moving trucks is not longer the key to economic prosperity
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. Upton Sinclair It’s even harder to get a trucking industry lobbyist or a highway department booster to understand something when their salaries depend on not understanding it. Oregon’s economy has de-coupled from freight movement; our economic success stems from doing…
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Fighting Climate Change is Inherently Equitable
Happy Earth Day, Everyone! If we care about equity, we need to make rapid progress on climate change Equity needs to be defined by substantive outcomes, not vacuous rhetoric and elaborate process. Ultimately equity is about outcomes, not merely process. The demonstrable results a decade or two from now have to be measurably more equitable…
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The Week Observed, April 16, 2021
What City Observatory this week 1. Taking Tubman: The Oregon Department of Transportation is planning to widen the Interstate 5 freeway in Portland into the backyard of Harriet Tubman Middle School. The $800 million widening project doubles down on the historical damage that ODOT highway construction has done to this neighborhood, and literally moves the…
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ODOT’s peer review panel admits it didn’t validate Rose Quarter travel forecasts
ODOT has claimed a “peer review panel” vindicated its air pollution analysis Now the panel says they didn’t look into the accuracy of ODOT’s travel forecast Travel forecasts are critical, because they determine air and noise pollution impacts In short: the peers have done nothing to disprove the critiques of ODOT’s flawed traffic modeling A…
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Why cheap gas is our real climate and transportation policy
Forget about lofty greenhouse gas reduction goals and vision zero, our real climate and transportation policy is cheap gas The fall in gas prices in 2014 led to more driving, more SUV purchases, less transit ridership, more deaths and more greenhouse gas emissions In retrospect, 2014 was a turning point for driving, climate and safety. …
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Taking Tubman: ODOT’s plan to build a freeway on school grounds
ODOT’s proposed I-5 Rose Quarter project would turn a school yard into a freeway The widened I-5 freeway will make already unhealthy air even worse Pollution from high volume roads has been shown to lower student achievement ODOT also proposes to build sound walls in Tubman’s school yard Portland’s Harriet Tubman Middle School is one of…
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How ODOT destroyed Albina, part 3: The Fremont Bridge ramps
ODOT’s Fremont Bridge wiped out multiple blocks of the Albina neighborhood A freeway you’ve never heard of leveled dozens of blocks in North and Northeast Portland The stub of a proposed “Prescott Freeway” still scars the neighborhood This is the third of a three-part series looking at how ODOT freeways wiped out much of the…
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Wholly Moses: Pave now, pay later
Oregon legislation goes whole hog on highways HB 3065 would launch a whole new round of freeway boondoggles, and plunge the state into debt to pay for them The classic Robert Moses scam: Drive stakes, sell bonds The Oregon Legislature is considering a bill, HB 3065, which while it sounds technical and innocuous, is really…
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The Week Observed, April 2, 2021
What City Observatory this week 1. How the Oregon Department of Transportation destroyed a Portland neighborhood, Part 2: The Moses Meat Axe. We continue our historical look at the role that freeway construction (and the traffic it brought) destroyed Portland’s Albina neighborhood. Our story began in the early 1950s with the construction of a waterfront…
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The Cappuccino Congestion Index
The Cappuccino Congestion Index shows how you can show how anything costs Americans billions and billions We’re continuing told that congestion is a grievous threat to urban well-being. It’s annoying to queue up for anything, but traffic congestion has spawned a cottage industry of ginning up reports that transform our annoyance with waiting in lines…