UPDATE: 6/24, 5:10 p.m.
The PSRC responded to criticisms by calling their plan a “balanced, sensible and realistic approach to meeting our region’s transportation needs.” Cascade re-responds and calls them on their shit.
Cascade Bicycle Club has vowed to fight the Puget Sound Regional Council’s 30-year transportation plan because it does not do much to stop the unequal flow of funds to motorized transportation, according to the CBC blog. They are joined in the fight by the Sierra Club and Futurewise.
Our legal basis for this challenge is PSRC’s failure to meet the statutory goals and benchmarks for reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through the adoption of T2040. The failure to meet VMT reduction limits results in increased motor vehicle traffic on the region’s highways and arterials, the construction of fewer miles of facilities for non-motorized travel and in turn, reduces the desirability and safety of bicycling throughout the region.
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Principally, it continues a practice of biasing transportation investments toward automobile infrastructure by widening local roadways and state highways, supporting low-density development on the urban fringe, and violates laws calling for reductions in per capita vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and greenhouse gas reductions.
In and of themselves, VMT and global warming are not Cascade Bicycle Club’s issues. The projects and priorities in the plan that cause it to fail to comply however, also undermine our mission, and move us farther along a path that diverges from our vision of a bicycle-friendly region.
