HOW TO GET THE RIGHT ANSWERS TO THE RIGHT QUESTIONS.
-- Government agencies which are trying to solve for the “last mile”, are working on the wrong issue.
By Jim Miller

During my Stanford Law School days, it was pounded into my head by the surely professors, to examine each case first to determine what the real issues where – of both fact and law. Since the facts were generally given, the issue of issues was our high focus. Apparently, such rigous education is not the foundation of most governmental functionaries or consultants. I give you the efforts of Corvallis Area Metropolitan Planning Organization [ http://portal.ocwtech.net/campo/Shared%20Documents/Transit/Transit%20Report.pdf] and the Oregon Cascades West Council of Governments (COG) [ http://ocwcog.org/ ] agencies' joint effort to solve the “last mile” problem generated by the unexamined edicts of city and county land use planning and zoning:

“It is postulated by some residents of the Study Area that jobs are in Corvallis; shops are in Albany, and; housing is expensive in Corvallis. More than anything else, this belief points to a segregated distribution of jobs, houses and shopping opportunities in the Study Area.”

Table 3 - Means of Journey to Work

Means of travel	Albany	%	Corvallis
Car, truck, or van:	17,579	92.2%	17,725	75.5%
Drove alone	15,648	82.0%	15,531	66.2%
Carpooled	1,931	10.1%	2,194	9.3%
Public Transportation:	67	0.4%	579	2.5%
Motorcycle	10	0.1%	25	0.1%
Bicycle	132	0.7%	1,669	7.1%
Walked	492	2.6%	2,601	11.1%
Other means	121	0.6%	72	0.3%
Worked at home	673	3.5%	804

Total

19,074

23,475

Table 4 - Means of Journey to Work for the 2 Cities Combined

Means of Travel	2-Cities
Car, truck, or van	35,304
Public Transportation:	646
Motorcycle	35
Bicycle	1,801
Walked	3,093
Other means	193
Worked at home	1,477
Total	42,549

These studies show that over 35,000 vehicles start every day for trips to work in the cities of Corvallis and Albany. Now add-in the trips for shopping, education, health, entertainment and “all else”. The vast majority of trips are by a single occupant vehicle. This factoid should ring alarm bells all over the state and nation. Just spend a day driving around any large city, especially during late afternoon and early evening rush hour. I've never understand why they call it “rush hour” when it takes a couple of hours to get from one side of a large city to the other (e.g. LA) and most of the time the traffic is stop and go.

The big issue which seems to escape the attention of our city and county planners is not how to travel the “last mile”, but to reduce to the irreducible minimum the existence of the “last mile”. The obvious solution (obvious to me, at least) is to Work where you live and live where you work! How much simpler can one get?

Now that we have the real issue in focus, how do we undo 100 plus years of the wide-area distribution of workplace, residence, shopping, medical, government and other “destinations”. How do we make it possible for a family of four to lose one car or light pickup? We can't just take an eraser and obliterate our cities and start over. It would take an atomic bomb to do that.

The solution is to start over again with a series of new communities and eventually rebuild the older parts of the cities which are so sadly deceimated by buildings what are vacant, falling down, unsanitary and generally well beyond their design life-cycle, that redevelopment on a mini-community wide scale makes economic sense, if not also political sense. If you need proof, just Google “rust belt USA” or industrial ghost towns” or simpy “Detroit”.





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OREGON TRANSITION INITIATIVES

STATE OF OREGON

Mr. Ed. Tabor
Oregon Department of Energy

Dear Ed,

Buried somewhere in the Oregon energy plan is some mention of networking (not sure, but it should have been mentioned). Villages, towns, cities and counties in the UK and Ireland have networked on the issue of transition from abundant, cheap oil, to scarce, expensivie oil. A transition primer is found at: http://transitionnetwork.org/Primer/TransitionInitiativesPrimer.pdf.

The State of Oregon should get off it's duff, join this network and officially kick into high gear the creation of a similar network in the Pacific NW, if not the nation. Who says Oregon could/should/would not become the nation's leader in effectively addessing and ACCOMPLISHING the transition, rather than just spend words on a report, then file and forget it?

Best regards,

Jim Miller

In transition to justice, harmony, productivity, and right living:

“It's understandable, isn't it, that workers who come of age in an autocratic, authoritarian, paternalistic environment become reflections of it. It took some time for Camarão to adjust to the innovating, democratic, participative atmosphere at Semco.”

MAVERICK, The Success Story Behind the Worlds Most Unusual Workplace, Richardo Semler, Warner Books, 1993, p. 180; ISBN 0-446-51696-1

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Oregon Million Solar Roof Coalition Strategies http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:me5zppF7R6oJ:www.oregon.gov/ENERGY/RENEW/Solar/docs/ORMSR_Members-Strategies-05.pdf+%22ashland,+Oregon%22+transition+energy&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us
What is it? The Oregon Million Solar Roofs (MSR) Coalition is a broad group of affiliated solar organizations that are working to develop solar energy markets in Oregon. The coalition is based on the theme “Solar Works for Oregon.” Our implementation plan focuses on four key areas – technical issues, information, partners, and incentives. More than 2,500 solar installations have been documented in Oregon to date since the inception of the MSR coalition in 1998

ASHLAND, CITY OF

Discussion of the potential to maximize the City's energy independence by utilizing alternative energy sources. http://www.ashland.or.us/Page.asp?NavID=973




PORTLAND, CITY OF
Electric vehicles Zapping Gas Prices With A Three-Wheeled Electric Vehicle, A Zipcar And A Bike http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/07/zapping-gas-prices-with-a-zapcar-and-a-zipcar.php

My friend Carey is a single Portland, Oregon mom with a mortgage, a short commute to a full-time job and two school-age daughters. That translates to a fairly mainstream transportation need. She's also my choice for TreeHugger of the week because as of about two months ago she finally found a way to mothball her Honda and get off the gas roller coaster ride by buying a Zap three-wheeled electric vehicle. ======================================[
PORTLAND PEAK OIL – blog General discussion page: http://www.portlandpeakoil.org/discussion/
Jim Miller's blogpage: http://www.portlandpeakoil.org/discussion/blog/jimmiller5417

BACKGROUND RESOURCES
Net fractional production of useable plant materials:

Food to 2050

Posted by Stuart Staniford on March 10, 2008 - 8:40am

Topic: Environment/Sustainability http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3702#more
“Another way to try to get at the issue is to look at how current yields compare to the theoretical potential of photosynthesis. This is generally expressed as net primary productivity (NPP) - the amount of carbon that plants can fix, exclusive of that used to power their own respiration. The net primary productivity is the photosynthetic product that is available to be eaten by people and other animals, rot into the soil, etc. Here is a map of the fraction of net primary productivity appropriated by humans published by Haberl et al last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which I take to be a decent representative of the state-of-the-art in this kind of calculation:“ Global distribution of fraction of potential net primary productivity appropriated by humans. Source: Haberl et al: Quantifying and mapping the human appropriation of net primary production in earth’s terrestrial ecosystems
PLAN C
Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change http://www.communitysolution.org/plancbook.html

This year's conference, a cooperative effort between Community Solutions and Upland Hills Ecological Awareness Center, is organized around the recently published book, Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change, by Pat Murphy, Executive Director of Community Solutions. The book, and this conference, "point to the life we must lead, if we are to survive on this planet." http://www.plancconference.org/