bike commuting

Somebody forgot to tell the transportation bureaucrats to switch it off.

Seems Portland’s green goals – everything from increasing bike commuting and telecommuting to ensuring jobs and groceries are close to homes – have met up with the city’s ambitious $20 billion transportation “wish list.”

Darn it. A new study shows that the city’s population growth coupled with the goals in the proposed Regional Transportation Plan would result in so much increased traffic that greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles will jump 49 percent. That’s 49 percent. And it was just a couple weeks ago that Portland and Multnomah County adopted its Climate Action Plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. And just a couple weeks before that the city vowed to get 25 percent of its commuters on bikes by 2030, as InvestigateWest reported on and heartily endorsed here.

The Portland Tribune reports:

Environmentalists say the new Metro analysis confirms the folly of spending $4 billion on a new, wider Columbia River bridge – the largest project in the Regional Transportation Plan – as well as projects to widen some suburban roads to seven lanes. “We need solutions that don’t lead to more driving,” says Mara Gross, policy director of Coalition for a Livable Future, which represents about 90 organizations.

In the "wish list," roads, bridges and highways would get 57 percent of the $20 billion in the Regional Transportation Plan.

Here’s an update from the front lines of sustainable urban living.

Portland’s City Council has agreed to slash the city’s greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent of 1990 levels by 2050, changing how homes are heated, how residents commute and how food is moved from field to table, the Portland Tribune reports. This puts Portland, which already is considering putting 25 percent of its commuters on bikes by 2030, as earlier reported by InvestigateWest, front and center in green urban living.

"Some people ask why Portland and Multnomah County need to adopt such an aggressive strategy instead of letting national or global programs take their course," Multnomah County Commissioner Jeff Cogen said. "It does need to be addressed globally, but local leadership really matters.”

Portland's mayor says the plan will spur the economy by adding green jobs producing services and products that can be marketed globally. Read the whole plan here.