Month: November 2023
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The Week Observed, November 17, 2023
What City Observatory did this week 5 million miles wide of the mark.Portland’s regional government Metro, has proposed a regional transportation plan (RTP) that purports to achieve state and regional policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But there’s a 5 million mile problem: The climate analysis of the Metro RTP assumes that the region will…
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Lying about climate: A 5 million mile a day discrepancy
Metro’s Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) claims it will meet state and regional climate objectives by slashing vehicle travel more than 30 percent per person between now and 2045. Meanwhile, its transportation plan actually calls for a decrease in average travel of less than 1 percent per person. Because population is expected to increase, so too…
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The Week Observed, November 10, 2023
What City Observatory did this week Snow-Job: Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) threatens to slash snow-plowing and other safety maintenance unless it is given more money, while spending billions on a handful of Portland area freeway widening projects. ODOT claims it’s too broke to plow state roads this winter, with the not-at-all-subtle message that people…
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ODOT Snow Job: Give us more money, or we’ll stop plowing your roads
Oregon’s Department of Transportation (ODOT) says it doesn’t have enough money to maintain roads, fix potholes or even plow snow. This is a Big Lie: Mega-projects and their cost-overruns, not maintenance, are the cause of ODOT’s budget woes ODOT has chosen to slash operations, while funneling hundreds of millions to billion-dollar-a-mile mega-projects and consultants Plowing is…
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The Week Observed, November 3, 2023
What City Observatory did this week Killer off-ramps. The Oregon Department of Transportation’s $1.9 billion I-5 Rose Quarter widening has been repeatedly (and falsely) portrayed as a “safety” project, but the latest re-design of the project may make it even more dangerous than it is today. An earlier “Hybrid 3” re-design, added one dangerous hairpin…
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Rose Quarter’s Killer Ramps
The proposed re-design of the I-5 Rose Quarter Project now includes two deadly hairpin freeway off-ramps. Just last week, Brandon Coleman was killed at a similar hairpin highway ramp in downtown Portland The Oregon Department of Transportation doesn’t really care about safety. The plan to widen I-5 through the Rose Quarter, at the staggering cost…