Oregon’s Transportation Bill
We created this helpful infographic to walk you through what’s proposed in Oregon’s transportation funding package, House Bill 2017-3.
Transportation bill offers key pieces for Oregon’s future + more work to be done
Electrifying Oregon’s Local Economies
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Voices of Support: Defending Oregon’s Climate Protection Program
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Oregon’s Report Card: The Urgent Need for Transportation Investment
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Celebrating the launch of the “Oregon Clean Grid Collaborative”
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Sweeping Environmental Wins in Oregon’s 2023 Legislative Session
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Climate Win! Oregon Lawmakers Take Powerful Action Passing the ‘Climate Resilience Package’
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Garlynn Woodsong
June 7, 2017 (4:12 pm)
Why is there no mention of the climate impact of this bill, either by the Leg analysis, or especially by OEC’s breakdown of the bill’s impacts???
Amy Lewin
June 7, 2017 (10:47 pm)
A great point to make Garlynn! We absolutely agree that the package must reduce GHGs. Here’s a response from our policy experts:
With all the pieces just coming together last week, there’s not time to do a full GHG analysis; but prior to the bill being released our team did look at the expected transit and EV investment. What we know from that analysis is that the transit investment is important and that it moves the GHG needle the most if the buses are electrified over time. In fact, there’s a co-benefit to conversion to electric buses, which is that an EV bus fleet requires less service and has far lower fuel costs than a diesel fleet, thus those savings can be plowed back into additional transit service. The package does require the state’s largest transit agencies to move to alternative fuels. With regard to the EV analysis, it showed that we need a larger investment in EV incentives than is currently in the package or in the EV companion bill, HB 2704. So we must push hard to make sure that the investment begins this session and is upped over time. Another important climate piece of the package is bike/ped (including Safe Routes to School), which is funded in the package but needs improvements that our coalition is pushing for.
The biggest climate question is the new road capacity funded in the package. New capacity fills up quickly if not managed, so we’re pleased to see the congestion pricing component of the package to manage demand. There is compelling research from Matthew Barth and Kanok Boriboonsomisin at UC Riverside on the GHG benefits of congestion pricing. They measured the additional GHG impacts of congestion as being quite significant, and modeled that pricing could reduce GHG impacts from vehicles by 7-12%. When paired with other measures to maintain steady speeds, such as enforcement of speed limits, this could reach as much as 30%. Of course, we’ll need to hold ODOT’s feet to the fire to make sure congestion pricing is applied correctly; that gets to the accountability components of the package, which are good (though our coalition has suggested amendments to make them even better).”