Monday Mailing
Year 24 • Issue 01 11 September 2017 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
Quote of the Week: “The real work of planetsaving will be small, humble, and humbling, and (insofar as it involves love) pleasing and rewarding. Its jobs will be too many to count, too many to report, too many to be publicly noticed or rewarded, too small to make anyone rich or famous." --Wendell Berry Oregon Fast Fact: Oregon has the only double-sided state flag in the US. On one side is the state’s insignia and on the other is a beaver, the state animal.
TED Talk: Got a Wicked Problem? First, Tell Me How You Make Toast? Oregon Launches EV Rebates Funded by Auto Sales Tax Transportation and Tourism Contribute to Economic Vitality Webinar - Resilience: Planning on Disaster and Preparing for Disruption – September 20, 2017, 11:00am-12:00pm PDT. Resource - Smart Growth Self-Assessment for Rural Communities Trump Can’t Stop This: Climate Action in The Northwest 5 Stories Proving Manufactured Downtowns Are a Big Mistake Event - Oregon Main Street Conference & Awards Banquet, October 4-6, 2017 Oregon's $450 Million Plan to Widen I-5 Has Portlanders Preparing for War Hurricane Harvey Reinforces Need for Cities to Plan for Disaster Resiliency 5 Ways Planners Get Charrettes Wrong
1. TED Talk - Got a Wicked Problem? First, Tell Me How You Make Toast? Making toast doesn’t sound very complicated -- until someone asks you to draw the process, step by step. Tom Wujec loves asking people and teams to draw how they make toast, because the process reveals unexpected truths about how we can solve our biggest, most complicated problems at work. Learn how to run this exercise yourself, and hear Wujec’s surprising insights from watching thousands of people draw toast. To access this TED Talk, click here. 2. Oregon Launches EV Rebates Funded by Auto Sales Tax Democratic Gov. Kate Brown embarked on a two-day, statewide tour on Aug. 28 to promote the signing of landmark transportation funding package. The bill, HB 2017, includes a much-talked about bike tax, first in the nation; a 10-cents gas tax increase, and a 0.5 percent motor 'vehicle privilege' tax that funds a new Zero-Emission Incentive Fund to fund two rebate programs. By relying on the privilege tax, the Electric Vehicle (EV) Rebate Program takes a much different funding approach than a controversial bill in California which uses cap-and-trade auction revenues paid by all major emission sources to supplement the existing California Clean Vehicle Rebate Project. To access the full story, click here. 3. Transportation and Tourism Contribute to Economic Vitality Transportation and tourism are natural partners in the state’s economic vitality. Oregon’s tourism industry is one of the state’s largest industries contributing $3.5 billion to the state’s GDP. Recent Travel Oregon research shows “taking a scenic drive” as the second most popular activity among Oregon overnight visitors. Page 1 of 4
ODOT’s partners with many group to enhance scenic byways, scenic bikeways and provide transportation related services for travelers. Read more about this in the State of the System report (page 24). Speaking of scenic byways, videos of eight of Oregon’s beautiful scenic byways are posted on the OregonDOT YouTube channel. To access the full story, click here. 4. Webinar - Resilience: Planning on Disaster and Preparing for Disruption – September 20, 2017, 11:00am-12:00pm PDT. In light of an ever changing climate, increasingly stressed infrastructure, and growing security threats, we must take steps towards preventing and mitigating the duration and severity of water service interruptions. In this webinar, we will provide a basic framework for small water systems resilience planning and suggest various tools and resources to get plan implementation started. Presenter: Brandy Alexis Espinola, Program Manager, Environmental Finance Center at the University of Maryland To register for this webinar, click here. 5. Resource - Smart Growth Self-Assessment for Rural Communities The Smart Growth Self-Assessment for Rural Communities (2015) is a compilation of strategies, organized by 11 common "goal areas," that villages, towns, and small cities can use to evaluate their existing policies to create healthy, environmentally resilient, and economically robust places. This selfassessment was developed as part of EPA's Smart Growth Implementation Assistance project in Madison County, New York. For more information about the project, see Smart Growth SelfAssessment for Rural Communities: Madison County, New York. This self-assessment helps communities identify gaps in their policies, plans, codes, and zoning regulations by asking a series of "Yes" or "No" questions. All communities begin by completing the self-assessment's Revitalize Village and Town Centers section, which gives a baseline indication of smart growth development policies within the jurisdiction. It goes beyond regulatory issues to help communities take stock of their local initiatives, strategies, and plans. Rural communities are not all the same, and this tool shares practices that a variety of rural places have used to improve their economies, environment, health, and quality of life. It includes resources and examples from communities around the country. For more information and to download the tool, click here. 6. Trump Can’t Stop This: Climate Action in The Northwest With the rise of science denial in our nation’s capital, the responsibility for climate action has fallen to state and local leaders. The northwestern states have proudly picked up the mantle. (This blog series will not go into much detail on California’s accomplishments, as clean energy developments in California have been covered extensively in other NRDC blogs―see here and here for more on the state’s recent climate leadership and smart policy decisions.) These states have undoubtedly set a high bar for the rest of the country and the world as they lead the way in both renewable energy investments and ambitious clean energy policies, thanks in part to the strong network of clean energy advocacy groups in the region, such as Renewable Northwest and Page 2 of 4
the Northwest Energy Coalition. From impressive climate progress in Oregon to the fast-growing market for renewables across the Northwest, states throughout this region have repeatedly demonstrated their commitment to clean energy, economic development, and public health. And, as the region implements its Seventh Northwest Power Plan, its customers will continue to benefit from its strong energy efficiency programs and standards, which have already cut the region’s annual power bills by more than $3 billion over the course of the past three decades, while avoiding tens of millions of tons of carbon pollution. To access the full story, click here. 7. 5 Stories Proving Manufactured Downtowns Are a Big Mistake The intention behind them is usually honest and good; they're meant to encourage economic activity, bring people into previously ignored areas and help a community gather. They seem like a promising one-stop way to accomplish all these goals... And yet, "entertainment districts" and "lifestyle centers" are not the way to go about building strong towns. Strong towns are built from the bottom up, with small, incremental investments because that is a much more resilient and affordable way to build. A developer who comes in and constructs hundreds of new apartment units, sports arenas, movie theaters, and rows of shopping and restaurants (typically with a hefty financial incentive package from the local government) is not going to help you build a strong town. It might look productive in the beginning, but an examination below the surface—and beyond the first few months of operation—often reveals a financial house of cards. To access the full story, click here. 8. Event - 2017 Oregon Main Street Conference & Awards Banquet, October 4-6, 2017 Oregon Mail Street is celebrating 10 years of downtown revitalization efforts in Oregon! Join us in historic Downtown Oregon City as we celebrate and look to the future as take Main Street to the next level using the tools and strategies presented at this conference. Conversations will relate to rural, mid-sized, and urban communities. Get ready to bring back fresh ideas to revitalize and reinvigorate your organization and your downtown efforts! We will also be celebrating the accomplishments of Oregon Main Street communities at the Excellence in Downtown Revitalization Awards Banquet on Oct. 4 at the beautiful Abernathy Center in Downtown Oregon City. To register for this event, click here. 9. Oregon's $450 Million Plan to Widen I-5 Has Portlanders Preparing for War You’re fucking sick of traffic.Maybe you love your car. Maybe you merely tolerate it. But chances are you’re one of the 67 percent of Portlanders who commute to work in a personal vehicle. And chances are you’re over it. You already know why you’re over it. People are moving to Portland in droves. Many of them also commute by car. That means our old roads are serving more vehicles, which means Portland traffic is growing worse. “Traffic congestion in the Portland region can now occur at any hour of the day, including holidays and weekends,” reads a new report from the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT). “It is no longer only a weekday peak hour problem.”
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It’s the perfect environment for an old-fashioned Portland highway brawl. Earlier this year, Oregon lawmakers cobbled together a $5.3 billion package that will hike gas prices, raise vehicle registration and title fees, and even tax bicycle sales—all in the name of improving the state’s transportation system. To access the full story, click here. 10. Hurricane Harvey Reinforces Need for Cities to Plan for Disaster Resiliency When a community is decimated by a 1,000-year weather event, with multiple feet of rain deposited on streets, parking lots and roofs, there is no way to plan where to put the water. The water must go somewhere. Architects, designers and urban planners have been urging communities to plan for crisis-level weather events for years. Previous storms such as hurricanes Katrina and Sandy provided devastating and long-lasting effects from which we glean lessons on preparedness and construction, but no one can safely and legitimately plan for a rain and wind event that has a 1-in-1,000 chance of occurring. Instead, communities need to understand that events like Hurricane Harvey are the true definition of climate change. This force of nature will change the geographical maps of the cities of Houston, Galveston, Victoria and Rockport — along with the State of Texas — and the natural boundaries of the coastline. The hurricane will change the flood maps for large parts of the country and may (hopefully) change zoning and building codes. And Harvey will change the patterns of weather and predictions for future weather events. To access the full story, click here. 11. 5 Ways Planners Get Charrettes Wrong Design charrettes are, in theory, a valuable component of the urban planning process that help communities take a little bit of ownership over the changes coming to their streets. At their best, charrettes bring together everyone who cares about a complex design problem — residents, business owners, city planners, engineers, decision makers — to collaborate and compromise, ending with a solution everyone values. In practice, that is often not the case. City planners announce a charrette, but don’t do enough outreach. Only a few community members show up. Those who do attend get a jargon-laced presentation from engineers. Community feedback is taken, but not incorporated into the final design. Participatory design is an important piece of equitable urban planning. A well-executed charrette can help facilitate that goal. A poorly executed charrette can further the stereotype that city agencies only pay lip service to community concerns. With that in mind, I talked to several experts about the common mistakes they see in charrettes and ideas for running better sessions. To access the full story, click here.
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