TLDR version: There’s a big hearing coming up with the Oregon Transportation Commission, and here’s three things you can do to help us kill that dang freeway:
1) Show up and testify at the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC’s) Decongestion Pricing Hearing on July 12 (details HERE)
2) SIGN OUR LETTER. (the letter in full is available HERE; add your name and additional comments to our letter HERE) by July 19
3) Want to send your own letter to the OTC? You can do that too, HERE, by July 20.
The Oregon Transportation Commission is Coming to Town
The No More Freeway Expansions campaign has extolled the virtues of decongestion pricing as a viable alternative to freeway expansion to the Oregon Department of Transportation (and their Value Pricing Committee) and to Portland City Council.
However, tomorrow (Thursday, July 12), you have an opportunity to speak to a group of influential and powerful lawmakers more powerful than them all: the Oregon Transportation Commission.
Without getting into the weeds, the OTC is the big, opaque oversight entity that monitors ODOT and the rest of the state’s transportation investments. It’s a Commission that rarely actively solicits public input, and is typically not directly under the public eye. The OTC is the entity ultimately responsible for crafting the official proposal for decongestion pricing that Oregon will submit to the Federal Government at the end of the year.
The OTC has heard from freight lobbyists, suburban sprawl advocates, and the freeway industrial complex – we need them to hear from you.
Jonathan at BikePortland has an excellent summary of what’s on the line at this hearing: numerous suburban jurisdictions are eagerly looking at decongestion pricing as a way to raise revenue for freeway expansions. Using decongestion pricing to expand freeways is like using revenue from a carbon tax to build coal plants. The very point of the taxing mechanism of road pricing – using market forces to gently guide individual behavior towards an optimal levels that maximizes public benefit (in this case, eliminating gridlock and encouraging usage of transportation alternatives during peak commute times) – is substantially undermined by the proposals to direct revenue towards expansion of freeways. Freeway expansion is horrifically expensive, deleterious towards our carbon emission reduction goals on a melting planet, counterproductive towards air quality and other public health initiatives, and (most pertinent to the Oregon Transportation Commission) proven to be wholly ineffectual in cost-effectively moving Oregonians reliably and efficiently.
The meeting will be held on July 12, 4:00 (sign-ups begin at 3:00; let us know if you’d like us to sign you up!)
University Place Hotel and Conference Center
310 SW Lincoln St., Columbia Falls Ballroom
Portland, OR 97201
(accessible via Orange Line MAX; Bus lines 35, 36, 43; SW 3rd and Harrison Portland Streetcar Stop)
You can SIGN OUR LETTER in which we support a thoughtful, robust, forward-thinking decongestion pricing policy that raises $300 million a year for transit investments instead of freeway expansion.
Thanks to all who came on our Pedalpalooza Ride!
ICYMI: Willamette Week covers the air quality issue at Harriet Tubman
“Construction crews are racing to complete the rehabilitation of Harriet Tubman Middle School for its reopening this fall, despite long-standing concerns about the air quality at the site. Now a new environmental study offers damning conclusions about the health risks to students from diesel fumes, even as state officials champion a nearby highway project.” Read MORE. (OPB covered it, too)