Month: January 2022
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Portland: Don’t move or close schools to widen freeways
Adah Crandall is a sophomore at Grant High School. She is the co-lead of Portland Youth Climate Strike and an organizer with Sunrise PDX’s Youth Vs ODOT campaign, a biweekly series of rallies fighting for the decarbonization of Oregon’s transportation systems. City Observatory is pleased to publish this commentary by Adah Crandall on a proposal currently…
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The Week Observed, January 21, 2022
What City Observatory did this week Metro’s “Don’t look up” climate strategy. In the new film, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence play scientists who find that the nation’s leaders simply refuse to take seriously their warnings of an impending global catastrophe. Their efforts even produce a backlash, as skeptics simply refuse to look at the…
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Metro’s “Don’t Look Up” Climate Policy
Metro, Portland’s regional government, says it has a plan to reduce transportation greenhouse gases But in the 8 years since adopting the plan, the agency hasn’t bothered to look at data on GHGs—which have increased 22 percent, or more than one million tons annually. Metro’s Climate Plan is “Don’t Look Up” In the new movie…
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The Week Observed, January 14, 2022
What City Observatory did this week What does equity mean when we have a caste-based transportation system? Transportation and planning debates around the country increasingly ponder how we rectify long-standing inequities in transportation access that have disadvantaged the poor and people of color. In Oregon, the Department of Transportation has an elaborate “equitable mobility” effort as…
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Transportation trends and disparities
If you aren’t talking about our two-caste transportation system, you’re not really addressing equity. Portland’s regional government is looking forward at trends in the transportation system and their implications for equity. In December, City Observatory submitted its analysis of these trends for Metro’s consideration. Local and regional leaders are increasingly promoting concerns of equity in…
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The Week Observed, January 7, 2022
What City Observatory did this week 1. Metro’s failing climate strategy. Portland Metro’s Climate Smart Strategy, adopted in 2014, has been an abject failure. Portland area transportation greenhouse gasses are up 22 percent since the plan was adopted: instead of falling by 1 million tons per year, emissions have increased by 1 million tons annually, to more…
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The Week Observed, January 28, 2022
What City Observatory did this week Why Portland shouldn’t be moving elementary and middle schools to widen freeways. We’re pleased to publish a guest commentary from Adah Crandall, a high school sophomore and climate activist, who recently testified to the Portland School Board in opposition to move two schools to accommodate the Rose Quarter I-5…
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Oregon, Washington advance I-5 bridge based on outdated traffic projections
The Oregon and Washington Departments of Transportation are advancing their $5 billion freeway widening plan based on outdated 15-year-old traffic projections. No new projections have been prepared since the 2007 estimates used in the project’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement, The two state DOTs are essentially “flying blind” assuming that out-dated traffic projections provide a reasonable…
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Why the proposed $5 billion I-5 bridge is a climate disaster
The plan to spend $5 billion widening the I-5 Bridge Over the Columbia River would produce 100,000 additional metric tons of greenhouse gases per year, according to the induced travel calculator Metro’s 2020 transportation package would have cut greenhouse gases by 5,200 tons per year– 20 times less than the additional greenhouse gases created by freeway…