Winter Walking and Cycling

[danbrotherston]

This is a fundamentally defeatist position. If VMT continues to rise over 30 years (their planning horizon) we will absolutely fail to address climate change. We need to stop accepting failure, we need to plan for success.

The most frustrating thing is that with transportation especially, planning for success is the best way to guarantee success. If instead of building and widening all our roads, we built bike lanes and expanded transit, we would have less cars.

And the examples you cite (growing VMT) are occurring because that is explicitly what we planned for. We need to stop thinking of the results of our decisions as "inevitable" and start thinking of them as "the results of our choices".

I don't think VMT has to increase, and I don't think we can afford for VMT to increase given climate. Although I believe even NZ is not planning for VMT to decrease to get to net 0, they're just planning for more EVs for the most part.

Yeah, EVs aren't going to cut it unfortunately. If VMT doesn't rise, that would be a good start, sadly WR's transit plan include significant VMT increases.

I will say that the climate action plans being proposed and passed do have significant VMT reductions included in them. They are based in science with an eye towards what we need to do to succeed (or at least, are closer to that than other plans).

The problem is that the regional (and to some extent CoW) policies are not in alignment with that plan. And of course the Region redid their 10 year transportation plan in 2018...so they should redo it again in 2028, and it will start taking effect in 2030...or to put it another way...way too fucking late.

Of course, how could our transportation engineers have known that climate change would be a thing in 2021 all the way back in *checks notes*...2017.

We will see what council does, but I fear they will not be willing to force a change in staff's policy and culture, and I have little hope of Regional or CoW staff doing that on their own at this point. It is doubly difficult since they will be working against the existing transportation plan...a plan, which staff and council seem quite willing to compromise in the wrong direction...we can't even achieve the policy that will lead us to failure.