A Quest for Sustainable Transportation

One truly rewarding thing about Missoula is the active and engaged community our city fosters. At Climate Smart Missoula’s Monthly meetup focused on sustainable transportation and smart growth it was clear much of our community is engaged and ready to make our communal transportation system more sustainable! In a jammed packed room at Imagine Nation Brewery, community members put their active minds and bodies together in hopes of formulating ideas and initiatives which help people reduce their transportation footprint. Transportation is an exciting and essential sector to discuss as it accounts for nearly 37 percent of our communities total emission output.

Many community experts in the transportation sector attended the meetup, including Bill Pfeiffer, the community outreach coordinator at Mountain Line, Bob Giordano, director of Free Cycles and Chase Jones, Missoula’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Coordinator. Transportation and smart growth is multi-dimensional, involving aspects of personal contribution, education, funding and urban planning. These transportation experts helped lead the conversation through the different dimensions by engaging in a dialogue regarding upcoming initiatives that promote sustainable transportation and allow community members to make a personal impact.
Here’s some exciting opportunities and ways to get involved:

Director of Free Cycles and long-time bike advocate Bob Giordano has helped nearly 15,000 people gain access to a bicycle in Missoula. Bob and other transportation leaders in our community would like to shift the dynamic away from a car dominated transportation system towards a system that’s more inclusive of bikers and users of public transit. Bob admits that significant barriers remain for reducing single occupancy vehicles (SOVs), like accessibility to bike lanes and comfort level in a vehicle centered urban landscape. In order to help solve this issue, street design and policy change is needed.  Bob was excited to discuss a proposed city council resolution regarding a 5th and 6th street bike lane change that would increase accessibility and safety for bicycles. He encouraged the group to contact their city council representatives and spread the word about the proposed bike lanes.

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In addition to education and personal contribution, a transportation plan needs “smart growth” in order to meet long term GHG reduction goals. So what does smart growth mean? “Smart growth” refers to planning that promotes multiple route options and multiple transportation systems to increase efficiency and reduce congestion in a transportation system. A few exciting “smart growth” city planning projects were discussed at the meet up.
 First, Missoulians have an opportunity to become directly involved in city planning through a project called Missoula Design Excellence. Essentially, the project seeks to define and “implement a system that will promote high quality commercial building development in terms of design, materials, construction and character.”

  The design of new buildings in our community have implications on accessibility for bikers and users of public transit. In order to achieve a holistic plan, which meets the needs and wants of Missoula, the project needs community engagement. The public comment period is currently open, so make your voices heard! If you feel inclined, please Review the Draft Strategy Report and submit comments to  by Friday, October 13th.

Another important aspect of “smart growth” was mentioned by Bill Pfeiffer, Mountain Line’s community outreach coordinator. Bill spoke about the ability to reduce single occupancy car dependence through increased accessibility to the public transportation system. Bill shared our community’s Long Range Transportation Goals .  MPOs Long Range Transportation Plan Ambitious Mode Shift includes goals of 20,000 fewer drive along commute trips, reduction of drive along to 34 %, triple biking, walking and transit shares and provide a carpooling increase by 2045.

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To achieve these goals, it will be important to provide multiple options of public transportation and come up with intriguing incentives for Missoulian’s to use them. Ultimately, says Bill, using our public transportation system “needs to be really easy”. Checkout the entire Long Range Transportation plan here:

With these goals in mind, our community is off to a great start, engaging in productive dialogue and brainstorming ways to build partnerships.

The room was still rolling, ready to solve issues and build partnerships when the 7:00 end time came around. The group decided to plan a follow up meeting which we encourage community members to attend. Time and date TBD – stay tuned. Let’s continue to advance Missoula’s quest for sustainable transportation and smart growth.
 
 
 - Max ​