Planning in and of itself is not the problem, Sg.
It's how it is implemented. Such as parking lots that are too cramped to move about in without danger.....seen those? How about streets that wander through neighborhoods with multiple dead ends.....how green is that?
Planning should evolve around efficiency, aka, useability. If you have trouble directing strangers to a location (like your address), you are experiencing a planning problem. If you have to back up to fit your car into a parking spot, you are experiencing a planning problem.....more, much more.
Every time I have to jump a curb with my boat trailer because some jerk planner thinks entrances only need be wide enough for compact cars, something is wrong.
Bicycles and pedestrian-only area may function for some, but they are far from functional for many.
Similarly, I have motorized boats.....because I want to get where I want to go.......I don't enjoy waiting in lines any more than I would enjoy waiting for the wind to blow in a favorable direction.
When planners and efficiency start talking to each other perhaps I'll change my view of them being obstructionists. (probably a "progressive" concept?)

Hank luckily we have tons of money for police, fire, and schools in Portlandia..

Hank don't forget those costs you quoted don't include construction costs.. Which conviently were not put out to bid on the last light rail project and just happened to be given to Stacey Whitbeck, which has family ties to Nancy Pelosi.

The whole purpose of Long Range planning coupled with the growth management plan was to help eliminate politics out of the system. What was best overall would be planned, and then changes would be hard and have to face public scrutiny through lengthy plan amendments. Unfortunately, they then allowed neighborhoods to develop their own plans. The result is that where I live we have commercial zoning on one side of us, aparments behind and across the street, and a residential neighbor one the other. We are one minute from the freeway and have a major bus line stopping in front of us. But, we are restricted to single family homes with one of the highest lot sizes within the growth area. But, 12 miles out further, in an area with no sewer, no bus lines and a 30 minute commute to the city, they have it zoned for condo's. Why, because our area was mostly developed and they needed to make their numbers.
We have state highways with residential zoning, and then 3 blocks away they are pushing for tax credits to stimulate growth. The whole idea of planning is a joke.
Regulations can be just as bad. I have flat, dry, single family lots that are almost completely gravel, and I am putting in more sediment controls then the county highway project a mile away. They have mud for a mile on the road, something that would shut me down immediately. But, it sounded great on paper.

Krijack,

Really? ". . . whole idea of planning is a joke." So things turn out better without planning?

Slab,

Do you think they're planning for you? I'm guessing they don't. Here's how it works when planning a parking lot: Land costs money. More land for bigger lots costs more money. So you get lots with parking stalls and drive pathways that require you to jockey your bulgemobile car or truck back and forth a couple times to wedge yourself into the too-small space. From the planner's and lot owner's perspective that is your problem not their's. You got your parking space; they got your parking money for it. Whatever makes you think it's about you and your convenience? It isn't. BTW, I agree that this is a pain. I even have to jockey the Subie to get in some places. But I understand that your and my convenience is not part of their plan.

If you understood the rules of problem ownership, you might . . . naw, you'd still be pissed because the regional planners don't make it all about YOU.

Sg

City and municipal zoning is different than rapid expansion of cost inefficient public transit. Personally I think Portland and the surronding burbs have done a fine job with their city planning. No need to look farther than bend locally to see a complete lack of zoning or planning. Responsible city planning make for nucleus areas of production surrounded by close in residential and light commercial. with adaquate arterials to support the traffic.

News flash, they are not building anymore freeways in the Metro PDX area.
Populations are on the rise, what's the answer?
Mass transit connecting out lying areas to the CBD is the most cost efficient, low carbon foot print way to get commuters to and from the downtown core area.
Your thinking in the here and now, planners are thinking 50-80 years in the future.

Thanks for providing the anti mass transit position Hank, but like was mentioned above we are not talking about the here and now, but rather generations in the future.

Try some less slanted information.

http://trimet.org/pdfs/publications/factsheet.pdf


Easing traffic congestion
MAX carries 26% of evening rushhour
commuters traveling from
downtown on the Sunset Hwy. and
Banfield Fwy.
Westside MAX can carry the
equivalent of 2.9 extra lanes of traffic
on the Sunset Hwy.
Most riders (84%) are choice riders:
they have a car available or choose
not to own one so they can ride
TriMet.
43% of adults in the region use
TriMet at least twice a month.
Nearly 90% of people in the TriMet
district live within 1/2 mile of transit
service.
Clean air
Each weekday, MAX eliminates more
than 87,000 car trips from our roads,
easing traffic congestion and helping
keep our air clean. That adds up to
28.6 million fewer car trips each year.
TriMet’s MAX and buses combined
eliminate 207,300 daily car trips, or
65 million trips each year.
For each mile taken on TriMet, 53%
less carbon is emitted compared to
driving alone.

So a webste that's slanted against Trimet is somehow now creditable?
That is why I posted it.
Livability is defined in part by a regions mass transit, are you saying that's not true?

So Hank, with no new freeways on the planning drawing board, what's your solution for the next 80 years?

Portland metro area is predicted to have 3.85 million people by the year 2060, with no further expansion of the freeway system, how do you plan for these people to commute to and from their jobs?

The answer is fairly easy. For all of the bitching about liberal areas of the country they also happen to be the areas that have higher employment at a liveable wage and many other opportunities that one cannot find in a Tea Party conservative state.

Lets take my state of Idaho, run by conservatives. Yeah, there are jobs, but extremely low paying jobs; with a few exceptions, no unions and very little in the way of opportunity.

Like I tell the young people going to school. This is a great place to retire, not to have a career. Head west young man.

More freeways is off the table and has been for over 30 years, I don't see any other alternative to mass transit.
I don't know Hank, this link rates Trimet light rail 4th out of 33 US cites.
Perhaps your anti mass transit website is a bit biased?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_light_rail_systems_by_ridership

Hank,

How are you at arithmetic? Your suggestion is to put additional freeways back on the drawing boards. OK, that's a bit like Click and Clack's "pave it all" option. However, just where do you suggest they put these additional freeways? Not to mention additional arterials and supporting collector/distributor streets? There's only so much space, i.e., land, as Woody Guthrie said back in the 1930s, and God ain't making any more of it. Since downtown areas are already built up and otherwise developed, you would have to buy extremely expensive developed land and raze whatever's there to build these new freeways and supporting roads. And in that process you would be removing existing commercial and business development that is the very reason more people want access to central downtown areas. No offense Hank, but your suggestion smacks of trying to fit 10 pounds of sh!t in a 5 pound bag. Can't be done. Physically impossible. I thought you understood elementary physics. Traffic planners already figured out some time ago that we cannot build our way out of gridlock. As the driving population increases, roads and freeways can only get so large before gridlock becomes the unavoidable norm. In order to make a 4 to 6-lane freeway traffic flow smoothly, you have to DELETE on and off ramps. Access interchanges become the bottleneck limiting factor.

If the human population of urban areas like Portland and Seattle continue to increase, and they are, then the only way to physically efficiently (as opposed to $$ efficiency) accommodate all those people is by transportation alternatives to single occupant motor vehicles operating on conventional streets and freeways.

Do the math Hank.

Sg

You nailed it salmo... my sentiments exactly...





speaking of efficiency... As I'm looking out my window in the office, I am seeing the physically efficient solution to gridlock... condo's and apartments close to the downtown core...

Right now, there are no less than 7 cranes building residential highrise on capitol hill.

Look Hank compared to SF Bay area, Trimet light rail is heavily used.
SF area has a population of just over 7.46 million people Muni Metro has a daily ridership of 173,500 passengers, where Portland Metro area has 2.2 million people and 141,000 of them ride the train every day.
SF has 46.6 miles of track where Portland has over 59 miles.
So why doesn't SF have more mass transit projects?

So, you want Portland to be more like San Fran ?

No I don't, but I also don 't want voters deciding on an issue that they clearly know nothing what so ever about.

Well, I've rethought the whole thing. You guys are dead on right. Please do keep everyone living in apartments, high rise yet, and stepping out of their abode and onto a bus or train and go to work. Please have them trade their lives in for a man-made wonderland of work and play.

I'll continue to live my life daily in an area that people would travel hundreds of miles just to camp in for the night. Where I can pick my strawberries in my underwear if I so desire, and no one will be offended.

It's all a matter of perspective. Best of luck with yours.

Just a thought on those 50 to 80 years in the future thinkers.....If people are now retiring at a rate of 10K/day.....they will be dying at that rate in about 30 or so years.......whatchagonnna do with all the extras you build today......fill 'em up with immigrants?

I thought the basic tenant of our nation is we are governed by the people and popular majority.. Are you pushing for dictator ship now with the goverment imposing its will on the people as it sees fit, or is that only okay if it conincides with your agenda?