January 2022

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 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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Oregon, Washington advance I-5 bridge based on outdated traffic projections

The Oregon and Washington Departments of Transportation are advancing their $5 billion freeway widening plan based on outdated 15-year-old traffic projections.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

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