Like the climate change-induced heat, flooding, and fires they fear so much, a group of teenage activists refuse to go away. [Read more…]

Slide from presentation shared at IBR Program July meeting.

Will the Columbia River Crossing project’s multibillion dollar successor fully integrate climate change into its design and construction? Or will climate change merely be a box that is checked on the way to a wider I-5 that encourages more driving and more emissions? That question took center stage at the July meeting of the Interstate Bridge Replacement project’s Executive Steering Group. [Read more…]

Suzanne Carlson is the new director of ODOT’s Climate Office.

Hopefully Suzanne Carlson hasn’t forgotten her roots.

The newly-hired director of the Oregon Department of Transportation Climate Office got her start in the transportation world in the 1990s by starting Bike Works, a Seattle-based nonprofit that runs a community bike shop and teaches young people how to refurbish used bikes (similar to Portland’s Community Cycling Center). [Read more…]

(Source: Sunrise PDX)

“Enough is enough!”

Portlander Hami Ramani is pissed. He’s tired of what he sees as a lack of bold action against climate change from the Oregon Department of Transportation and their bosses. To do something about it Ramani has just launched a new ride that will happen this Wednesday (tomorrow, 7/21) to show support for Sunrise Movement PDX and their ongoing protest at ODOT headquarters in downtown Portland.

As you might recall from our story on this protest last month, youth climate activists organized by Sunrise PDX have staged twice-monthly protests outside ODOT Region 1 headquarters on Northwest Flanders. The protests have grown in size in recent weeks. This is in part because the clear evidence of climate change-induced catastrophes is unfolding here in Oregon and in many other places worldwide, as our leaders sit back and rest on incrementalist rhetoric and status quo decision-making. Also fueling these fires are recent decisions by the Oregon Legislature and at Metro to endorse funding policy that will lead to more freeways being built and more cars being driven. [Read more…]

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US DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg speaking in Eugene yesterday.

These are wild times for climate change in America. We have floods and droughts and fires and heat waves — scary, deadly, catastrophic events — unfolding in front of our eyes as policymakers scramble to satisfy an anxious public and activists increase the volume of their pleas.

Yesterday in Eugene, the Biden Administration’s top transportation leader, US Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg appeared at a press conference with U.S. Congressmen and Chair of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, Peter DeFazio. They and other officials spent the day viewing safety challenges on Highway 99 in Corvallis and driving an all-electric bus. The high-profile visit was part of a tour to tout Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework.

As the climate issue heats up, so too are calls to use transportation policy as a way to address it.[Read more…]