More on the eerie parallel sprawl monsters stalking Portland and Salem

As with the story below, this piece focuses on the proposed new bridge over the Columbia but applies precisely to our situation in Salem -- where the Legislature passed and the Governor hailed a bill requiring Oregon to cut greenhouse emissions by 80%.

Yet when you ask people working in the Salem sprawl machine (ODOT/SKATS) what they plan to do about all the extra emissions that this new Willamette Bridge would produce, they reply by saying that the environmental impact statement will assess "all regulated pollutants" -- in other words, because CO2 is not yet a regulated as the pollutant it is, they plan on doing exactly nothing in the way of considering how this bridge would undermine the urgent task on reducing emissions while using up the resources we will need to provide transportation alternatives. Pitiful.

This issue alone -- the stable climate that is needed to feed, clothe, and house people -- is sufficient grounds to stop the third bridge proposal in its lanes. No new auto lanes across the Willamette, period.

Bridging the global warming gap
CO2-friendly - Planners of a new I-5 span juggle ideas on tolls and prices, looking for ways to slow the growth in trips
Sunday, February 24, 2008
DYLAN RIVERA
The Oregonian

. . . No law requires this of Oregon and Washington, builders of the $4.2 billion Columbia River Crossing. But climate change is such a concern that Northwest officials have asked that federal environmental reviews take into account how much greenhouse gas would be produced by the thousands of cars and light rail trips that would occur daily if the bridge is built.

"It is an extremely important concern for all of us," Vancouver Mayor Royce Pollard said. "Oregon and Washington should be setting an example for the rest of the country on how to be green and sustainable."

. . . Now technicians from both states have estimated CO2 levels from anticipated traffic volumes through 2030 for inclusion in a federal study of the project due out in two weeks. But experts and politicians disagree on exactly how to decide whether the bridge project would, in fact, have an impact on global warming.

Scientists have warned the world could face catastrophic floods and other warming impacts by 2050 if worldwide temperatures continue to climb. Oregon's governor and Legislature last year agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 75 percent by 2050. Gasoline-powered cars and trucks produce CO2, making the transportation sector a leading contributor to the CO2 linked to global warming.

Though the study isn't quite finished, Columbia River Crossing analysts have concluded that the new bridge would produce more net carbon but make greater volumes of traffic more CO2-efficient by removing the stop-and-go congestion now clogging approaches to the spans. Result: CO2 emissions would grow more slowly with a new bridge than if officials did nothing and let the old bridges collect yet more congestion, which causes more greenhouse gases.

That's not good enough, said Jill Fuglister, co-director of the Coalition for a Livable Future, a Portland-based sustainability group. She contends the project should reduce the amount of vehicle traffic across the bridge -- currently about 134,000 trips a day on average. "Any transportation investment we make today . . . should not contribute to the growth in driving, which equals growth in greenhouse gas emissions," Fuglister said.

. .

"Cheapest, greenest"

Metro Councilor Robert Liberty said the region should scrap the proposal entirely. Toll the existing bridge -- and change nothing else for a while -- to see how that reduces congestion and carbon emissions, he urged. Follow up with light rail and river navigation enhancements that would be less costly than the $4.2 billion proposal on the table.

"Stage it, so we can figure out what's the cheapest, greenest way of doing it," Liberty said.

. . . "There would be a lot of people that would be really frustrated," Gundersen said.

Not nearly as many as will be apoplectic after we blow billions on new highway capacity that we can't afford to use because we have to radically reduce driving. We need to spend the money on alternatives to auto domination, not enabling it.