ODOT

Hey Oregonians!

Drivers on the road have the ultimate responsibility of driving safely, staying completely aware of their surroundings, and keeping in control of their vehicles at all times

Raining? Slow down. Low visibility? Slow down. Hate traffic? Take public transit, bike, roll, or walk

I was walking down a street in New York and I thought how lovely it was, with the trees and the light. Tried to take a photo and this came out. It’s incredible how blind we become to the ugliness of cars. They really do mess things up. Yet somehow we manage to filter them out.

Paris passe le cap des 300 rues piétonnes près des écoles pour être « plus accueillante aux enfants » La municipalité, qui a organisé samedi une fête dédiée, tire un bilan positif de ces espaces piétonnisés aux abords des établissements scola

Paris celebrated the opening of its 300th “school street”: landscaped & pedestrianized or semi-pedestrianized blocks situated in front of schools. Most have been completed since 2020.

Why your next car should be an electric cargo bike Rewiring cities for more human-centric transportation

Why your next car should be an electric cargo bike

The new price tag for this project is gonna top $10 billion, or you can take one of the vowels from Iannarone.

purple graphic featuring pictures of Doug Gordon, Sarah Goodyear, and Lillian Karabaic (holding white cat) alongside Life After Cars book cover. It says "Ticketed Event, Powell's City of Books, Thursday, Nov. 13th, 7 PM."

Hello, Portland! We are so excited to announce that we'll be at the famous @powells.bsky.social on November 13th in conversation with @opb.org's @anomalily.net about our new book, "Life After Cars."

Tickets, which include a copy of the book, are on sale now:

www.powells.com/events/sarah...

On one hand, reducing car use reduces urban pollution.
But on the other, everyone likes it and cities become more livable

Cars have degraded our environment, economy, and lives.

Forced car dependency makes us poorer, less healthy, and disconnected to our natural world.

The first step of a cure is to recognize that we have a car problem. Most of us don't even see where we are through our bug-splattered windshields.

Removing a highway is about more than eliminating a costly and decaying road. It’s about creating opportunity for community to thrive.

Rochester did it with the inner loop, and already the city is seeing the fruit of that labor.

"Compared to other modes, [walking and biking were] found to have positive relation with mental and physical health of an urban commuter."

doi.org/10.1016/j.jt...

Letting People Move - Climate and Community Institute Transportation policy represents a key tool to address both the cost of living and climate crises. In the United States, the shortcomings of today’s transportation system …

Letting People Move climateandcommunity.org/research/let...

@oregondot.bsky.social @pbotinfo.bsky.social @bikeportland.org @bikeloudpdx.bsky.social

POLITICS Portland Rose Quarter freeway project takes first step, but still short $1.5B By Bryce Dole (OPB) July 24, 2025 3:53 p.m.

TriMet announces sweeping cuts to services starting in November By Joni Auden Land (OPB) July 23, 2025 5:53 p.m.

Hey Portland, we on track to hit those mode split goals yet?

the funny thing about transportation policy is that the obvious fix is to stop wasting absurd sums of money on highway widenings that just make traffic worse but for some reason state DOTs are incapable of understanding that

A note for advocates: Despite the frequency of transit funding crises, they are not inevitable or “natural.” Starving transit is a political choice, and we must name and shame the elected officials who are allowing it to happen.

Action Alert! Tell the Oregon Transportation Commission: Pause Phase 1 of the Proposed $2 Billion+ Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion

ACTION ALERT!

The Oregon Transportation Commission votes Thursday to consider pausing the $2,000,000,000+ proposal to double the width and number of freeway lanes for the Rose Quarter Freeway.

Join No More Freeways in demanding OTC direct ODOT to pause the expansion:
nomorefreewayspdx.com/pauserq/

If Damian Lillard comes back to the Blazers, I’ll cancel the I5 Rose Quarter highway expansion

Beachgoers shadowed by looming presence of I-5 just north of the Marquam Bridge.

Just need to take down this freeway segment and Portland could have a great riverfront.

@oregondot.bsky.social

ODOT could cancel one of their underfunded highway expansion projects and keep the workers on. They choose not to. They are using the employees as hostages in a gambit to get money out of the Legislature to fund their highway building.

Here's the *real* future of transport (sorry, tech bros):

The Non-Polluting,
Autonomy-Building,
Fitness-Enhancing,
Happiness-Producing,
Self-Driven Vehicle.

Rose Quarter project starts soon — but 'Big Beautiful Bill' may have killed key funding source An effort to close the project's funding gap died in the Oregon legislature two weeks ago, and now the Trump bill appears to have revoked a previous federal grant.

It's time for a full stop on ODOT's Rose Quarter freeway widening. Between the feds bailing and mass layoffs at ODOT, it is critical we stop the bleeding.

Cancel all upcoming shovels in the ground BS. Send stop work orders to all contractors. Enough!
@oregondot.bsky.social @tinakotek.bsky.social

We just want streets where we and the people we love can safely ride our bikes and cargo bikes to the places we need to go to.

Cartoon showing a car driver having to press the “beg button” for the light to change to allow them to proceed, with people on bikes having the initial right of way

Time for another reminder — our values & priorities are revealed in countless small but key details in our city design, deliberate decisions that have prioritized cars over people for decades.

It will take equally deliberate decisions to change our priorities.

HT #Dutch cartoon by Verwey, 1980

America's Growth Ponzi Scheme The American pattern of development creates the illusion of wealth. Today we are in the process of seeing that illusion destroyed…and with it the prosperity we have come to take for granted.

biggest thing that stands out to me from the oregon transportation bill debacle: HB 2025 was a serious effort to charge road users the full cost of road maintenance, and it collapsed under its own weight. vindication of the @strongtowns.org view of america’s unsustainably overbuilt infrastructure

On it 🫡

devastating cuts to statewide transit on the horizon, but on the plus side, rose quarter is absolutely cooked. #orleg

Much opposition to the transportation bill has been about how Oregonians can't afford to pay more taxes to use our roads... But a study by the State Legislative Revenue Office showed that Oregon has LOWEST vehicle taxes among 7 western states. (And when HB 2025 passes, we'll move up to 6th place.)

I was also pretty unimpressed by the riverfront. The bridges are in poor condition for pedestrians. The waterfront park is aging. The east side of the river is a massive, multilevel freeway. Not great.