Comments on: Where is Portland’s transit leadership?

By: Cornelius Swart

Cornelius Swart — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 01:05:22 +0000

A little hyperbolic but I appreciate the rally cry. I think, sadly for transit geeks, the heady days of Portland being the pioneer of light rail are gone. There are bigger cities like Dallas and LA that have caught on and they have more tracks to lay and more interesting projects in the pipes. But I agree that Portland has not cashed in on the transit we have invested in. Like PDC said in a recent economic report “Portland’s lauded quality of life has not translated into widespread economic development and job creation.” Our transit system is part of that- (in fact the report makes many visual references to light rail). I would say that we are still not seeing enough development in housing and job centers around the light rail that is all ready in place. But these are less transit concerns than economic development ones. I think the Land-Use-Transit-Air-Quality connection TriMet/Metro made in the 90s was right on. It was a pioneering jump- a move that cities like New York had tried to do ( one way or the other) since the 1930 (see Robert Caro’s The Power Broker) but could not do for political reasons. But making the Portland vision a reality is more a matter of building offices, stores and housing than more train and bus routes.
@corneliusrex

By: Alexander Craghead

Alexander Craghead — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 00:58:17 +0000

Garlynn: Thanks for the comments. Metro is a central force, and I hope that as the Metro president’s race draws nearer that we’ll see more discussion of these issues. In the meanwhile, however, should the philosophical reasons why we prioritize what we do be left defenseless? If not, then who should be carrying this torch?

Michael: I’m not sure if the CAC’s statement is accurate. I think the role of TriMet as a change agent is indeed understood by many of the public. It’s just that its disagreed with by a vocal segment of that public, and maybe over the last decade of expansion we’ve collectively forgotten about that aspect’s importance. When do our values become poster slogans for visiting dignitaries, rather than the way that we live our lives?

Maybe it’s a good time for us to revisit how and why we got here, and someone with more clout than you or I needs to be leading that conversation.

By: Michael Andersen

Michael Andersen — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 00:47:33 +0000

It’s a powerful idea, the mission of transforming Portland. I wish it had more legs.

So does TriMet, and its Citizens Advisory Committee. From page 37 of their May 2010 report:

“TriMet’s philosophy – that the purpose of transit is to build communities and transform the built environment as well as provide transit connections – does not reach the public.”

I’ve been talking this principle up a lot over the last month or two, and many people are enthusiastic about it — especially in the bike-activist crowd, who are often hostile to TriMet because of bad bus-bike incidents in the past.

By: Garlynn -- Undergroundscience.blogspot.com

Garlynn -- Undergroundscience.blogspot.com — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 23:25:36 +0000

Here, here. Portland’s linking of transit and land use, specifically of land use “pearls on a string” strung along light rail corridors, with denser transit oriented developments around each light rail station, has become somewhat of a model for the nation because it is widely acknowledged to work very well. Portland’s leadership generally is fairly articulate about why they do what they do, but perhaps this is a timely call for the good folks at Tri-Met to step up and put some time into defending their efforts to build light rail and link land use with transportation in support of regional goals — and also to kick the ball back into Metro’s court, since Metro is an integral partner in this effort for both planning and funding of the transportation and land use system!

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Thu, 08 Jul 2010 21:10:17 +0000

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