Beaverton for the People Project

Mission: Transition from car centric to people centric city.

Goal: Disrupt traffic in Beaverton to pressure Mayor and City Council.  Demand city return streets to the people by implementing the Active Transportation Plan faster and completely. (Yes, Washington County and ODOT control Canyon Road changes, but city has influence.)

Objectives:

1. Beaverton declares a climate emergency
2. Beaverton creates Climate Advisory Committee
3. Beaverton increases implementation rate, at increasing locations and across the whole city the recommendations in the Active Transportation Plan.

Phase One

Measure North/South traffic light timing along Canyon Road.  Measure timing with and without triggering the pedestrian walk signal.  Don’t use East/West crosswalks.  Does triggering the walk signal cause a longer wait time for traffic?

Count, list and map the target intersections on Canyon Road between Cedar Hills Blvd and east to highway 217.  Recruit people to work at intersections.

Phase Two

Recruit and train people to work in shifts at walk signals on Canyon Road.

Schedule days and times when traffic disruption will occur.

Prepare banners and signs.

Create communications plan to notify TV Fire & Rescue, Police, City and Media.

Create social media plan for live broadcasting of events and recording of results.

Phase Three

Implement plans.

Place a person at each crosswalk on Canyon Road between cedar hills blvd and 217.

Have them go back and forth using the crosswalk lights.

Don’t use East/West crosswalks, only the North/South on Canyon and Farmington.

Phase Four

Escalation of Disruption

Disrupting over time and across space.  

Make the disruption scalable to include Farmington.

Green New Deal

Green New Deal Legislation

The specific term "Green New Deal" was first used by Pulitzer Prize-winner Thomas Friedman in January 2007.  Friedman wrote a column for the NYT.   Since then the GND was used by several politicians to describe making systemic changes.

A national Green New Deal was proposed in the 116th Congress as House Resolution 109, dated February 7, 2019.  While we know about the Climate Crisis and the GND idea, HR 109 was the most detailed plan yet presented to the American people to transform the economy.  Even so, HR109 remains vague, and more a set of principles and goals rather than policies with specific funding sources.

An Oregon Green New Deal was proposed by organizations lead by Oregon Just Transition Alliance (OJTA).  The Oregon GND was last update 1/23/19 and remains a work in progress.

The primary difference between the above two GND proposals deals with the phaseout of fossil fuel infrastructure in the Oregon GND proposal but not in the national GND.  Neither GND proposal has detailed funding sources specific for each goal.

A third GND proposal called "The Green New Deal for Public Housing Act" was proposed by Sen. Sanders and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez in November 2019.  The bill would address current Climate Crisis and the affordable house crisis.  The bill would create seven grant programs under one application process to modernize the US public housing infrastructure.

2019 Transportation and Energy

The decoupling of fossil fuels from economic growth, something not imaginable for most of the industrial era, began to happen in relative and absolute measures.  China, California and the UK sales of new ICE vehicles peaked in 2017-2018 and declines continue through 2019.  This lowers the demand for oil, and causes prices at the margin to decline.  No new investment in fossil fuel extraction will happen without demand increasing.  Decoupling also happens when inequality leads to people not being able to afford a new car so they live in an urban area and use public transit, bike and walk.

Vehicle sales continue to fall in almost every major market while GDP grows. This remains new territory for investors.  The real impact we expect includes new mobility models and generational shifts.  Implementing a GND would mainstream the mechanisms behind this trend and make GND goals achievable.

Consumers began in 2017 delaying new vehicle purchases until the acknowledged tech of the future meets their price/performance threshold.  This causes sales of new ICE vehicles to drop and sales slow for new EVs (continue to increase at a slower rate).

Any GND at the national or state level will reflect what has already happened in the economy.  All the goals of HR109 and Oregon’s GND began happening prior to legislation.

For example, linear growth of solar in a business-as-usual projection has been consistently falsified.  Solar energy will grow globally from 10 GW in 2010 to almost 120 GW in 2020.  That’s greater than 7.2 percent per year compound growth rate, without a GND.

Transportation and energy continue decoupling from fossil fuels faster and faster as the market price of electric transportation and renewables falls below fossil fuel alternatives.

Energy Efficiency

Given an abundance of electricity from renewable energy, why should we focus on energy efficiency?  During the transition to an electric economy, investments in energy efficiency reduce the demand for remaining fossil fuel generation.  The Green New Deal for Public Housing Act focuses resources on weatherizing, electrifying and modernizing our public housing to serve as a model of efficiency, sustainability and resiliency for the rest of America.

Conclusion

Having a grand strategy without specific details for funding and implementation sounds like someone describing a dream or fantasy world.  Expressing pessimism of the GND or cynicism about the future by reporting all the details of how things could go wrong, sound like someone saying they don’t expect anything will get better or they don’t want things to change.

Leadership requires holding two approaches in our mind at the same time.  We need a Grand Strategy based on principles and goals, and detailed policies with specific funding sources.  Linking and aligning these two approaches happens when leaders step forward to take action.

198 Non-Violent Methods

198 Non-Violent Methods

By Gene Sharp

https://www.aeinstein.org/nonviolentaction/198-methods-of-nonviolent-action/

Under the category of "Methods of Social Noncooperation", boycotts ostracize people not complying with new social norms.  A selective social boycott leverages the overall mission and goals of Extinction Rebellion:

"We are facing ecological collapse due to the effects of climate change – and the fashion industry plays a big role in this. As part of Extinction Rebellion’s #XR52 weeks of direct action, we urge people to #BOYCOTTFASHION for a whole year, in order to disrupt business-as-usual and send a message to government, industry and public alike that enough is enough."

As an example, Greta Thunberg says she only buys what she needs.  Anyone noticing what she wears, knows that she walks her talk.