Portland, the darling of the urban planning world, is showing cracks and fissures between the City of Portland and it's surrounding communities.  But Metro marches on, dedicated to planting trees that will bear no fruit, because they are so heavily invested in the Smart Growth / New Urbanism planning effort.  Take that away and Metro would be left with only garbage, the Zoo, convention and exposition space (and now a hotel), and parks (even one for elephants on Mt. Hood).  

Without extensive involvement by Metro, cities would be left to act as all other cities in the state instead of being dominated by the urban core.  It's not just the high capacity transit that is objectionable, it's the high density, mixed use development that comes with it that will change the character of their cities and take away the reason they live where they do.  

I doubt that green house gasses and automobiles have much to do with cramming people into Station Communities.  This is an industry (contractors, consultants, bond traders, developers, planners and Metro) that continually needs new, fertile ground to keep money flowing in.  Environmental issues are just the excuse to keep the public distracted - it is inconceivable that Metro and the transit/development industry doesn't know the metrics about HCT - they just don't care because it's public money at stake, not theirs. 

Millions have been spent on just creating the various Plans with no actual infrastructure having been built.  If one counted the entire amount of public dollars spent on transit, planning, urban renewal, federal grants and local matching grants, on legislative and local government time devoted to the transit and land use plans - how many billions of dollars would that be?  

PORTLAND LIGHT RAIL REVOLT CONTINUES

From Newgeography.com by Wendell Cox 03/12/2014

Excerpt:
At the same time, Portland's transit agency faces financial difficulty and has been seriouslycriticized in a report by Secretary of State. The agency has more than $1 billion in unfunded liabilities and carries a smaller share of commuters than before the first of its six light rail and commuter rail lines was opened. Moreover, the latest American Community Survey data indicates that 3,000 more people work at home than ride transit (including light rail and commuter rail) to work in the Portland metropolitan area. Before light rail (1980), transit commuters numbered 35,000 more than people working at home. Over the period, transit's market share has dropped one-quarter.