This article, (http://www.newgeography.com/content/003849-portland-s-transit-halcyon-days). Portland's Transit Halcyon Days?, gives an inside look to what has been happening to the Portland area since it first established the Urban Growth Boundary, to today when the push is for increased density and "multimodal" (light rail or streetcar) transportation systems in every community. These are not over simplifications or rumblings of an anti-Urbanist - this article is full of citations and data that give substance to the author's claims. Worth reading to see if what the Central Planners are telling is is true and where they are taking us!
Note: Many planning misdeeds are coming from the state legislature but being regulated and enforced by the Metro overlords. Serious and long-lasting change must come from a change in attitude in Salem - to embrace what is practical and what is preferred by the populace, rather than following whatever the trendiest theory or practice is.
The image below is deceiving. More recent transportation planning schemes show high capacity transit connecting Milwaukie and Tualatin via a direct route through LO along the RR tracks.
- Small yellow dots: Transit Oriented Communities (TOD) also called Station Communities
- Medium orange dots: Town Centers (includes Lake Oswego East End and Lake Grove)
- Large red dots: Regional Centers
*Who is Lysenko and what is Lysenkoism?
The link for "this article" is not working.
ReplyDeleteThe whole premise underlying this tailpipe gas concept maybe flawed. First, I personally am not a religious believer in climate change which underlies the concept. But even if I were, nothing needs to be done here to reach the 20% reduction except let the national goals impact us. The bad stuff in tailpipe gas is going away. If we do not want to eliminate the "bad stuff" but eliminate the cars that is a different issue.
NYC and the Bay Area are special "cases" in that they have concentrated centers where people live and work. Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas and a host of other metro areas including Portland do not have that characteristic. Given that most cities do not have that concentration, the planners are literally trying to remake our cities into NYC. NO, THANKS. I have lived in NYC and would not want to do it again.
But certain people in DC, Salem and other places think they know better than us; they think they are smarter than us and need to tell us what to do. NO, they are not smarter and do not need to tell us what to do. Instead, they should help us accomplish what we want.
I will fix that link - thanks for letting me know. Cars are getting cleaner, and even as more cars hit the road, GHG emissions from automobiles is going down. I will have to get that policy paper out soon. If government was serious about reducing GHG, there are far better and less expensive solutions that they choose to ignore, favoring instead policies that facilitate their social engineering goals of packing everyone into mega-cities with no one left in the countryside or wilderness except farmers and privileged few. Extreme? Maybe, and maybe not. You (everyone, not just Gerry) tell me. How is this not behavioral and social engineering?
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