The “PIELC” conference going on the same weekend as the Fair rejected my proposal for a panel on Peak Traffic and Transportation Triage. Apparently, freeway fighting is not a concern for their conference. I don’t think they have ever had a panel or speaker about stopping highway expansion. They did have a speaker about environmental justice implications of widening I-5 in North Portland, but not the larger energy reasons not to expand highways.

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“These forty million [poor] people are invisible because America is so affluent, so rich; because our expressways carry us away from the ghetto, we don’t see the poor.”
– Martin Luther King, “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” March 31, 1968

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

It’s astounding that even after we have reached Peak Oil and Peak Traffic (Vehicle Miles Traveled) the environmental movement (from Eugene to the national level) is allergic to pointing out that highway expansions are a dumb way to prepare for the energy downslope. Perhaps if it was ONLY Republicans the environmentalists would publicly object to the highway expansions.

And it’s also important to point out that transit can be well planned or poorly planned. The West Eugene Bus Rapid Transit plan (MX) fails to meet State law that requires integrating land use and transportation plans. An overpriced busway to Wal-Mart is not the best way to develop a new public transit system. The Mayor’s “collaborative” in West Eugene excluded all of the West 11th businesses and the neighborhood groups (two were finally allowed to attend the last meetings after a year of complains about exclusion). This alleged “collaboration” recommended doubling the width of West 11th, which would bulldoze lots of businesses.

To ONLY focus on the individual level and ignore the community level is similar to the US government suggesting that OTHER countries should reduce their pollution while we pretend conservation is not something we need to practice.

ps – as for the comment about an “old growth” redwood in Eugene, I doubt the tree is actually 180 feet high if it is only six feet in diameter, it would be extremely skinny if that was true. Technically redwood is not native in Eugene and is not “old growth” until it’s about 150 years old. Old growth redwood gets a LOT wider than 70 inches in diameter at breast height. Unfortunately, it’s not a great urban sidewalk tree, it does best in forests. The remaining slivers of old growth redwood on the California coast are some of the most spectacular biomes on the planet.

This plan was re-ratified by Mayor Piercy, County Commissioners Sid Leiken and Jay Bozeivich and the rest of the Lane Council of Governments Metropolitan Policy Committee in December 2011 with virtually no public notice or input.

It would be nice to see the “Sustainability” efforts of Eugene voice opposition to spending money and energy on highway widening. One proposal that has been under study is an eleven lane widening of Beltline in north Eugene. I-5 is currently being widened, I-5 / Beltline interchange has more widenings about to be done and expanding Route 126 in Springfield is in the pipeline.

Bike maintenance and individual / local efforts are certainly necessary, but if the community’s common-wealth is wasted on oversized projects it’s unlikely we will have the resources to mitigate the impacts of Peak Everything.

In concern & saddness~ Marshé