Even with an expanding network of light rail and bike routes, the Portland area's transportation system will generate about 50 percent more carbon emissions in the next 25 years, defeating state and city goals to reduce the gases linked to climate change.
Such massive growth in emissions would result if plans for more than $20 billion in roads, bridges and other transportation projects are not scaled back, according to Metro estimates. Regional leaders are preparing to endorse the plan today, though they acknowledge that building the 1,000 or so projects would, coupled with population growth, undermine climate change goals.
Portland Mayor Sam Adams threatens to vote against the plan, saying region needs to hold to its carbon-reduction goals. The Legislature has a goal of reducing emissions by 75 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. The city's goal is an 80 percent reduction.
"We're 50 percent in the wrong direction by just moving forward as it is," Adams said.
What to do? Adams suggests the region should label road, light rail and sidewalk projects for their potential impacts on climate change. Such an initial sorting would help policymakers choose among projects to fund and those to put on hold for further study in coming years. It could mean that cities or corridors planning to widen a highway would need to take steps to encourage denser apartments and office buildings nearby, with the idea that a more walkable neighborhood could compensate for additional driving that the highway encourages.
But the carbon label idea has hit a brick wall of opposition, from cities and suburbs. Suburban officials worry it would kill their road widening projects and Metro councilors say there's no time for such complicated analysis.
The stakes for cities and counties trying to reduce traffic congestion couldn't be higher. Every road, light rail line and trail that needs any federal or state money in coming decades must be included in the $20 billion regional transportation plan. Projects left out might not be added until an update in five years.
The carbon rating of transportation projects will come up at the 7:15 a.m. meeting today of the Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation, a 17-member panel that includes Adams and other elected officials.
The Metro Council will consider it Dec. 17, but normally follows JPACT's recommendation.
Metro planners tout the plan as a progressive achievement for an already mass transit friendly region. It includes $1.3 billion for bicycle and pedestrian projects, more than double the amount included in the 2004 plan. It also includes $6.6 billion for roads and bridges and $4.5 billion for highways.
And while many metro areas don't even attempt to calculate the expected carbon emissions that would result from transportation plans, Metro did at least come up with an estimate.
Adams says it's not enough to say the overall plan would boost emissions – the region needs to know which projects are the worst offenders. He calls for Metro to rate each of the 1,000 or so projects in the transportation plan as having a "negative to low," or "medium" or "higher" risk of boosting carbon emissions.
"Those that increase greenhouse gas emission trends –you may still want to do them," Adams says. "It's not that greenhouse gas trumps everything, but there needs to be discussion."
But some elected officials fear a carbon rating on road projects could amount to a Scarlet Letter – unfairly labeling a project that might have otherwise worthy attributes.
That could hurt growing suburban areas, says Roy Rogers, a longtime Washington County commissioner.
"We'll be in a position that says, 'No investments for you -- but you take some population,'" Rogers says. "How do you do that?"
Washington County motorists struggle with congestion on Oregon 217, for example, and regional planners often suggest that cities in the area should connect city roads to offer north-south alternatives to the highway.
But homes and businesses have filled in many of those potential routes for new city streets, says Rogers. That leaves the county to try to widen 217 and connect neighborhoods in the few places where land is available.
"Portland has a grid, we don't have a grid," he says. "If you only see it in one viewpoint, you'll penalize some parts of the region."
Metro councilors and planners say they're not sure how to do a project-by-project carbon analysis. Trying to do so could delay approval of the project list and risk losing federal funding.
Besides, the forecast of a 50 percent increase in emissions has significant flaws, and could be greatly reduced by new standards for cleaner fuels and electric vehicles, says Metro Councilor Carlotta Collette, who chairs the JPACT panel.
The problem underscores how hard it will be to reach carbon reduction goals, she says.
"The target is really ambitious," Collette says. "It will take a full frontal assault by everyone around the region to get to those statewide goals."
In following outdated federal guidelines, the emissions forecast doesn't reflect the impact of pedestrian and bicycle projects, she says.
It also reflects out-of-date land use assumptions - including the assumption of more farmland added to the urban growth boundary, Collette says.
Only if Metro adopts the transportation plan now, with all its flaws, Collette says, can the region approve a new tighter land use plan for coming decades that would provide urban and rural reserves and channel growth within the current boundaries.
"If we don't do all of this now, then we have to assume the transit stuff won't get built when we go to calculate the urban growth boundary expansions," she says.