Portland

[MiTT]

I'm on a road trip with my new Audi Q5 - drove the family to Portland Oregon for my daughter's graduation from Pacific University this morning. I love Oregon, been here at least a dozen times, and Portland is a vibrant place. BUT - what's with the traffic in this place? Holy Cow Jeff, how do you do it? I'd shoot myself if I had to deal with this traffic every day.

 

[Gordon Gray]

Tim,

Portland, like Seattle, have been very pro active in establishing growth boundaries (read dense development nodes in a limited area) and has also made a conscious decision to no longer try to solve traffic problems by building more and / or wider roads. It is meant to create disincentives to discourage use of single occupancy vehicles.

Its been clearly shown that building more roads is a short term, very expensive, and ineffective solution that encourages urban sprawl.

Atlanta is a classic example of trying to solve traffic issues by building more roads.

The end desired result is to get people out of their cars and use alternative transportation because of the difficulties (traffic jams, gridlock, gas costs, loss of time, etc.) of using personal vehicles for their primary transportation. This generally means use of public transit, ride sharing, bicycling, and walking.

I recently heard that Portland leads the nation in the percentage of people using alternative transportation.

Seems to be working.

Gordon

 

[tonepub]

Fortunately, being self employed, I don't have to drive in peak hours. That's a big part of it!

Honestly, I love Portland, but in my opinion the tree huggers have gone too far. I appreciate anyone that uses alternative transportation, etc etc, but there are times that you just need to get in a car or an SUV and carry large things somewhere.

I wish there was a way to make it work for everyone. You can't ride a bicycle to go to Home Depot. And should you buy this stuff and pay for delivery, you give up a whole day of your life to wait for the delivery guy to bring it to you, so that's not really a solution either.

And because there's no place to park in Portland, whatever you've done to shrink your carbon footprint by not driving all week and walking goes down the toilet when you spend 45 minutes driving around looking for a place to park.

As we say in Portland, "Keep Portland Weird" and so it goes.

Seriously, if I had to drive to work every day, I probably wouldn't live here!

Hope you have a nice stay while you are in town!

If you are still here on tues, give a call....

 

[Gordon Gray]

Jeff,

I agree that you can't ride a bike to Home Depot and take your purchase(s) back home.

I also agree that there is no "ideal" solution.

Having said that, the goal of transportation planning, IMHO, is to address the typical "commute" occurrence of getting from Point A to Point B.

When I was in Seattle in September 08 to attend the Pro Bike / Pro Walk conference, I stayed in the main downtown area. After the conference was over, I walked four blocks (suitcase in tow), hopped on a bus, and was in Redmond in 15 minutes. My nephew came and picked me up at the transit transfer station from the Microsoft campus, which was a ten minute drive. Microsoft helped fund the construction of the transit station as well as the buses needed to operate the route. I think it cost me $1.50.

Gordon

 

[tonepub]

Agreed Gordon.

And that's why I've worked at home (essentially) for the last 15 years. The time we've saved in addition to car wear and tear and gas consumed has been tremendous.

When the day comes that I retire (hopefully another 8-10 years in the future) we are thinking of moving into the Pearl district here so we could just get one little car and walk everywhere. I'd much rather do that. Something that the top goes down for the occasional drive to the coast and I'd be perfectly happy walking. One less bit of technology to maintain!

 

[timm]

So let me get this straight. They will build the housing and create everything that goes with it , but have decided not to spend the money from the increased tax revenue on an infrastructure that will support it. That is classic.

How about putting a moratorium on building? Oh I forgot - that's how the city collects taxes!! Am I missing something?

 

[Len44]

So let me get this straight. They will build the housing and create everything that goes with it , but have decided not to spend the money from the increased tax revenue on an infrastructure that will support it. That is classic.

How about putting a moratorium on building? Oh I forgot - that's how the city collects taxes!! Am I missing something?

Perhaps what is missing is the part where the developers would be required to pay for the infrastructure that their buildings require.

But I confess that is just a guess...

 

[JMAUSGP]

Actually, since it has been brought up, Portland takes a little more planned approach to growth and it is quite simple really.

They are copying some of the European cities approach to controlled growth like the city of London and it's surrounding countryside.

They simple legislate the total number of single family homes, multi-family dwellings and retail space per acre or per square mile. You then build roads to handle that number and you are done. Or if you are really good, you look at the road system as it exists, determine the total amount of traffic the roads can handle and work backward to that number and then legislate to the number of humans per whatever volume you desire.

The problem with this approach, is at least initially, people feel that their right to sell their land is compromised. The reality is their type of land or housing becomes more valuable because the supply is limited by legislation.

But the real problem is that Governments don't like it, because it tends to stop urban sprawl which cuts off the money flow from developers to politicians, reducing corruption. Unfortunately most places in America are so corrupt that this type of approach has no chance. But that is a whole other topic.

 

[Gordon Gray]

Well said JM.

And Len also has an accurate perspective.

GG

PS: timm, as I said in a previous post, cities like Seattle recognize that growth, within or outside their immediate jurisdictional boundaries, will have an impact on infrastructure (roads, etc.) and plan, on a regional basis, to collectively address that impact.

 

[timm]

Perhaps what is missing is the part where the developers would be required to pay for the infrastructure that their buildings require.

But I confess that is just a guess...

And pass that on to the consumer? Yeah I know how that works.

 

[tonepub]

It's really more simple than that. We have a city full of tree huggers that want a city, but they don't want to really run it like a city, they kind of want it to run like a fifedom. They want to have all kinds of social programs, which in theory is a great idea, but yet they don't collect sales tax and they do everything they can to discourage businesses to operate here. (and who do you think pays big chunks of taxes to support the social programs AND make charitable donations to the arts, etc.)

A new law was just passed to make local businesses pay tax on their gross sales instead of net profits.

Don't get me wrong, I love the trees, walk as much as I can and recycle as much as I can and I do think govt. should at least keep an eye on business, but when you make it really tough for businesses to operate, they leave. Taking tax revenue and jobs with them.

I hate to say it, but if we lose Nike, Adidas and a few other big companies, this place will turn into a ghost town quick.

What our local govt. really does not understand is that we need to come up with something reasonable that makes sense to both sides of the fence.

Personally, I think even if we paid a 2-3% sales tax, that would be a huge revenue stream and it wouldn't put anyone out that much. Even a 1% tax would help.

But as my mother in law says, they've been calling it "the people's republic of portland" since she was in college.

 

[Len44]

A new law was just passed to make local businesses pay tax on their gross sales instead of net profits.

That seems quite odd. I wonder how long they had to torture the data to come up with this "solution." Guess now I'm missing something...

Personally, I think even if we paid a 2-3% sales tax, that would be a huge revenue stream and it wouldn't put anyone out that much. Even a 1% tax would help.

Most states have found that a balanced approach in taxing policy is usually more palatable to the population than reliance on just property tax, or just sales tax, or just income tax. Although, having said that, I personally would prefer to not pay any of these taxes.

 

[Gordon Gray]

And pass that on to the consumer? Yeah I know how that works.

timm,

How would you address developer / development created infrastructure issues such as impacts to roads, water, sewer, parks, school systems, police departments, etc?

GG

 

[timm]

Perhaps what is missing is the part where the developers would be required to pay for the infrastructure that their buildings require.

But I confess that is just a guess...

timm,

How would you address developer / development created infrastructure issues such as impacts to roads, water, sewer, parks, school systems, police departments, etc?

GG

Gordon , that's a civil engineering issue isn't it? The city pretty much can control development with zoning laws etc. I think it is up to the city to handle such matters and plan for the fallout if they are going to allow a mega apartment structure or sub division. I just think that if the city is going to allow it - and it causes undo stress on the current roads etc ... That is poor planning from a civil eng standpoint. I don't look at it as a 'developer' issue. I look at it as a 'city' issue. And if they chose to allow it to reap the tax dollars or whatever - then I would expect them to take that revenue and improve the roads etc as opposed to spending it elsewhere in the 'guise' of being green.

 

[tonepub]

I can't remember who said it in an article i read the other day, but the fellow being interviewed said, people don't want to be green as much as they want to buy cool "green stuff" to tell their friends about.

Makes me wonder sometimes!

 

[timm]

I can't remember who said it in an article i read the other day, but the fellow being interviewed said, people don't want to be green as much as they want to buy cool "green stuff" to tell their friends about.

Makes me wonder sometimes!

Hahaha!! I think that is a good point Jeff... It IS really all about Marketing isn't it? Lets make 'green' cool - then the masses will follow.... I think being as green as possible is great... and unfortunately it does take a good solid - probably not so green - marketing effort to try to stir the public consciousness.... A good example of marketing driving perceptions - at least I think - would be the efforts against drunk driving... There was a time not so long ago -when it wasn't deemed a 'big deal' to get behind the wheel after you had a few. That has changed - and I think it was more the marketing effort behind it (the ads/billboards etc...) that made a bigger impact than anything else.