— This text is by Jacob Apenes, an organizer with Dawn PDX.
My bus commute to work may be very lengthy. Two buses – forty minutes every – with a ten-minute wait in between and a ten-minute stroll to work. It’s not splendid, particularly provided that my second bus is a commuter bus which solely arrives 3 times per day. Nevertheless, it’s less expensive than proudly owning a automotive. It is a private case the place our area’s transportation system fails to supply good choices for its customers.
Right here’s one other private case. Rising up in southwest Portland, it wasn’t unusual for me to stroll on streets with no sidewalks or to want ditches as a substitute of strolling subsequent to high-speed SUVs. Being surrounded by low-density housing additionally meant rare or non-existent transit service. And I feel my mother would have killed me earlier than a automotive did if I ever determined to bike on Barbur Boulevard. Unsafe streets. Poor transit. No sidewalks.
Let’s do a systemic case the place our transportation system is failing. Given the rise in automobile weight and dimension and the poor design of our main arterials, Portland is experiencing an epidemic in site visitors fatalities. One loss of life is just too many, however this problem continues to worsen and worse annually. We even have crumbling roads and bridges as a result of an absence of funding, a local weather disaster that can’t deal with the variety of vehicles on our streets, and potential transit cuts… additionally as a result of an absence of funding.
Portland’s transportation system wants a severe overhaul. Portlanders deserve secure, inexpensive, and helpful choices for touring our metropolis and state. We should be lowering the quantity of vehicles on our roads by providing options which are corresponding to driving. We must be taxing automotive driving for the injury they do to our roads, our air, our local weather, and our lives. We must be utilizing that new earnings to construct the options which are corresponding to driving, not for extra freeway megaprojects.
With a lot improper with our area’s transportation system, we’ve a variety of work forward in making the modifications that profit us all. I do know that I started organizing with Dawn PDX two years in the past as a result of I felt referred to as to assist change the town for the higher. You may be studying this and are already a part of a gaggle like BikeLoud or Households for Secure Streets or Depave. Or possibly you’re studying this and are preventing for change in your personal means. Nevertheless you’re displaying as much as struggle, we’d like all palms on deck if we need to remodel a transportation system and supply equitable choices for all. And we have to struggle now.
Portlanders (and Oregonians as an entire) are hungry for change. The Urbanist Completely satisfied Hour, which began final week by Sturdy Cities, joins the choir of transportation and concrete planning themed neighborhood occasions. Transfer Oregon Ahead, the statewide coalition preventing for a people-centered transportation bundle, introduced OVER 100 PEOPLE from throughout the state to Salem and held greater than 45 constituent conferences demanding higher streets, higher transit, and sustainable funding. So many Portland-based organizations—together with Verde, BikeLoud, Portland DSA, and 350PDX—are actively collaborating for statewide reform. Might you think about what may get achieved in Portland if we had been unified and preventing as one? Might you think about what we may get achieved if there have been extra of us?
At Dawn PDX, our transportation workforce is working to construct a Portland the place all can journey by our metropolis rapidly and safely with no automotive. We would like a metropolis the place our bike community is full and guarded, the place transit arrives each 5 minutes as a substitute of each 15, and the place we’ve achieved Imaginative and prescient Zero. Most significantly, we’d like our metropolis to be taking fast motion to enhance the state of our streets: our elected leaders must be those paving the way in which, not pulling us within the improper course.
Our upcoming Transit City Corridor, hosted by Dawn PDX and Portland DSA, is one step of many for Portlanders and our elected leaders to change into aligned and return to the forefront of transportation justice. Scheduled this Saturday at 2pm, the city corridor is an opportunity for individuals to share points and provide options on our present transportation system. With the primary hour of the city corridor set for public testimony, Dawn and Portland DSA encourage all to share their concepts, giant and small, and to be constructive when constructing off the concepts of others.
The final half-hour of the city corridor is reserved for a panel Q&A with elected officers from a number of ranges of presidency. There might be a consultant from the Metropolis of Portland, Metro, and the Oregon State Legislature every able to reply questions on our area’s transportation system. The aim is to have the collaborative power from public testimony translate into an energizing dialogue from electeds. We’re lucky to have over 12 elected officers planning on attending! We hope the general public testimony affords them tangible concepts they will carry again to their places of work.
On behalf of fixing my work commute and constructing sidewalks the place I grew up, I’ll be there on Saturday. I hope to see you too.
