Month: July 2021
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The Week Observed, July 30, 2021
What City Observatory did this week Oregon Department of Transportation’s Climate Fig-Leaf. Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gases in Oregon, and the state’s Department of Transportation is—yet again—advancing PR heavy strategy documents that contain no measurable objectives or accountability. The latest plan, a so-called “Climate Action Plan,” repeats disproven climate myths (that idling…
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Burn, baby, burn: ODOT’s climate strategy
The Oregon Department of Transportation is in complete denial about climate change Oregon DOT has drafted a so-called “Climate Action Plan” that is merely perfunctory and performative busywork. The devastation of climate change is now blindingly manifest. Last month, temperatures in Oregon’s capital Salem, hit 117 degrees. The state is locked in drought, and already…
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The Week Observed, July 23, 2021
What City Observatory did this week Selling Oregon into highway bondage. Oregon is moving ahead with plans to issue hundreds of millions—and ultimately billions of dollars of debt to widen Portland-area freeways. And it will send the bill to future generations, and perversely, commit the state to ever increasing levels of traffic in order to…
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Selling Oregon into highway bondage
Borrowing billions to widen roads endangers the climate and finances It’s doubly wrong to burden future generations with the environmental costs of wider roads, and then also send them the bill Bond financing of new capacity puts expansion ahead of repair and endangers the financial soundness of the transportation system Oregon Governor Kate Brown has just signed…
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The Week Observed, July 16, 2021
What City Observatory did this week An open letter to Secretary Pete Buttigieg on his visit to Oregon. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg came to Oregon this week to look at some local transportation innovations. The group No More Freeways, which opposes an Oregon Department of Transportation plan to widen I-5 through Portland’s Rose Quarter wanted…
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Welcome to Portland Secretary Pete! Now about the Rose Quarter Freeway
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is visiting Oregon to learn more about local transportation issues. The local advocacy group No More Freeways has sent him an open letter to provide some background for his visit. Here’s what Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg needs to know about Oregon DOT’s proposed $800 million neighborhood-wrecking, climate-destroying I-5 Rose Quarter Freeway…
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The Week Observed, July 9, 2021
What City Observatory did this week 1. Miami’s double standard for charging road users. The City of Miami is hoping to make their streets a safer place for bikes and scooters by building protected lanes along three miles of the city’s downtown. The city plans to pay for this infrastructure by taxing each registered scooter…
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In the bag: Pricing works
Denver’s new bag fee is another object lesson on how to use economics to achieve environmental objectives. Now do it for greenhouse gases Starting this month, you’ll have to pay 10 cents for each disposable paper or plastic bag you fill with groceries in Denver. The requirement goes statewide in 2023, under a Colorado law that is…
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Miami’s E-Scooters: Revisiting the Double Standard
In Miami, e-scooters pay four to 50 times as much to use the public roads as cars If we want to encourage greener, safer travel, we should align the prices we charge with our values Florida is home to some of the most unsafe cities to be a pedestrian or a cyclist. Miami is currently attempting…
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The Week Observed, July 2, 2021
What City Observatory did this week 1. The Texas Transportation Institute is back, and it’s still wrong about traffic congestion. Every year or so, a group of researchers at Texas A&M University produce report purporting to calculate the cost of congestion in US metro areas. Their flawed and biased methodology has been discredited multiple times,…
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It’s back, and it’s even dumber than ever: The Urban Mobility Report
There was an unprecedented decline in traffic congestion in the US last year. According to the Urban Mobility Report, there’s essentially nothing we can learn from this experience The Texas Transportation Institute has always been apologists and propagandists for the highway lobby TTI reports fail the basic scientific test of responding to repeated detailed critiques…