Research desk

Numbers you can check our work on

Every campaign we run stands on a report we publish first — with the methodology and the limitations printed right next to the findings. If a number can't survive its own footnotes, we don't take it to a hearing. Two current reports, summarized below.

Report · February 2026 · 38 pp.

The Calder Clean Power Gap

An accounting of every kilowatt-hour Calder City government buys, and the realistic path to sourcing all of it cleanly by 2030. The short version: the city's own roofs and a community solar subscription get most of the way there, at a first-five-years net cost of about 1.2% of the operations budget — and savings after that.

Key findings

46 GWh

used across the city's 214 municipal electricity accounts in FY2025 — about as much as 4,300 homes.

12 roofs

of the 31 surveyed municipal buildings can host arrays covering the majority of daytime municipal load.

1.2%

of the city operations budget — the estimated net cost of the full switch across the first five years, before savings begin.

$0.4M/yr

estimated annual savings after year five, at current utility tariff escalation rates.

Methodology

Consumption figures come from twelve months of utility billing records for all 214 municipal accounts (FY2025), obtained via public records request and reconciled against the city's published budget actuals. Rooftop capacity estimates use the county GIS lidar layer with a standard 10 kW-per-1,000-sq-ft usable-area assumption, discounted for shading and roof condition per the facilities department's 2024 assessments. Cost modeling uses three published utility tariff scenarios and current state clean-energy incentive schedules.

Limitations — read these too

This is a planning-grade analysis, not an engineering study: individual roofs need structural review before construction. Tariff projections beyond 2031 are inherently uncertain, and the community-solar subscription price assumes program rules as of January 2026. All figures are rounded to avoid false precision — and, as everywhere on this site, the city, the data, and the report itself are fictional, presented to show how we would frame real research.

Cite as: Forward Climate Coalition Research Desk, The Calder Clean Power Gap (Feb 2026), 38 pp. Request the full report →

Report · October 2025 · 24 pp.

Who Rides Route 12?

A rider survey of the county's busiest crosstown bus line, run to replace anecdotes with numbers before the FY2027 budget debate. It found a working line: most riders are commuting, many have no alternative, and the evening schedule is where the system fails them.

Key findings

1,204

riders surveyed across 86 scheduled trips, weekdays and weekends, over three weeks.

61%

were traveling to work or school at the moment they were surveyed.

43%

had no car available for the trip they were making.

22 min

average evening wait reported — nearly double the posted 12-minute peak headway.

Methodology

Surveyors boarded 86 scheduled Route 12 trips selected by stratified random sample across all service periods over three weeks in September 2025, offering a two-minute intercept questionnaire in English and Spanish. 1,204 complete responses were collected (71% response rate among approached riders). Results are weighted by boarding counts per service period from the transit agency's automatic passenger counters; the margin of error is ±2.8 points at 95% confidence.

Limitations — read these too

Intercept surveys under-represent riders who avoid the line because service is poor — the people a better Route 12 would serve are partly invisible to it. Languages were limited to English and Spanish. Evening-wait figures are self-reported, not clocked. And as with everything here: the county, the line, and the survey are fictional, framed the way we would frame the real thing.

Cite as: Forward Climate Coalition Research Desk, Who Rides Route 12? (Oct 2025), 24 pp. Request the full report →

Our standard

If we wouldn't accept the method from an opponent, we don't use it ourselves

Raw data sources are named; public-records requests are listed with dates.
Margins of error and response rates ship with every survey figure.
Numbers are rounded to what the method supports — no false precision.
When a finding cuts against us, it stays in the report. (Ask us about evening headways.)

Numbers you can check our work on

The Calder Clean Power Gap

Key findings

Who Rides Route 12?

Key findings

If we wouldn't accept the method from an opponent, we don't use it ourselves

The numbers hold. Now they need voices.