Columbia River Crossing: the bigger, the greener? The irrelevant?
February 3rd, 2009This is a sad indicator of the pathetic state of the environmental movement in Oregon: environmentalists would consider a 10-lane Columbia River Crossing rather than a 12-lane bridge a victory.
Some – like Commissioner Randy Leonard – argue that the 12-lane configuration would be more “carbon neutral.”
Gail Ackerman, chair of the Oregon Transportation Commission, goes so far as to claim that the 12-lane bridge could actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions “relative to the number of people crossing the bridge.”
What makes the bridge “green”? Tolling and congestion pricing! Here’s how the argument goes. By 2030, a 12-lane bridge with transit and tolling could result in 6,000 fewer cars a day than building nothing at all. A 10-lane or eight-lane bridge would also reduce emissions, but not quite as much as a 12-lane. An 8-lane span would trigger more accidents, more stalls and congestion, and more diversion to Interstate 205, all of which would increase vehicle emissions.
According to this logic, a 14-lane or even a 24-lane bridge would be greener still!
Have any of these folks ever heard of peak oil? Are they not aware that oil production peaked in July 2008?
Even though the idea that a bigger bridge is “greener” because reduced congestion results in fewer emissions is silly, what’s even sillier is wasting precious resources on a new bridge to accommodate a projected level of future automobile traffic which is nothing more than fantasy: the fuel to power those trips simply won’t be there.
The problem isn’t how to accommodate more traffic. It’s how to reorganize our communities and our lives to function well with less transportation.