way to go Portland: you still lose
Something there is about a well-planned town that wants it to succeed, and that’s Portland (my first hometown) all over.
If urban growth and traffic management are the key variables, Portland is down for the medal round.
Having been around for some of the early strategizing, it’s truly amazing to witness the fruits of planning with forethought. Sure traffic’s a bitch here, like elsewhere, but imagine where suburban Portland would be without the truly massive investments in roads and multi-modal transport.
All of which is prelude to what comes next…peak oil.
What if Portland won the battle and lost the war. I mean, what if James Kunstler is right and suburbs are f_cked, no matter wot.
Can they turn this town that works for cars into a town that works without cars? All this carefully wrought grid system of feeder and bypass roads will stand for naught, come peak oil, we’re told.
Too bad, too. ‘Cause if oil supply wasn’t gonna be a problem, this is how you’d want other cities designed.
BTW, I tested my ’9:30 theory’ (for when to drive through metros on weekday mornings), and I cruised right through the heart of this metro with few delays.
Portland has plenty of shared rights-of-way, so the special bus lanes and light rail stations with park-and-ride lots are fairly well integrated with existing nodes and strips of development.
Also plenty of signalled on-ramps, some 3 lanes wide and sequenced to moderate the flow onto major thoroughfares.
I especially like the at-grade light rail running right through the center of town, and Portland’s spoke-like routes seem to work well for in-close nabes as well as exurban towns from Gresham to Hillsboro.
A nice touch, which you would expect in a well-planned town: the bus and train stations are centrally-located just off major roadways and across the street from a light rail stop.
And, downtown Portland has been totally renewed…down to and including the riverfront park. Quite a rack of major buildings by leading architects, too.
OK, so at least Portlanders will have some options when private cars don’t cut it anymore…
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