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March 3, 2010
The Question I Plan to Ask at City Club Tonight
Tonight, City Club is hosting a discussion of their new report, "Moving Forward: A Better Way to Govern Regional Transportation." (PDF, 5.5M)
[5:30pm at the Club offices, 901 SW Washington]
There's one recommendation that has generated a bit of controversy:
Voting Power on JPACT
- The elected officials of cities and counties on JPACT should be its only voting members, and their votes should be weighted in proportion to the population they represent residing within the Metro UGB. The Metro councilors and Oregon and Washington agency representatives on JPACT should become non-voting members.
This has me, and some others, scratching their heads a bit. The stated reason for this recommendation is:
The members of the Metro Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation (JPACT) are selected in a way that gives too much weight to Metro councilors and Washington state and agency representatives, and does not proportionately represent the residents of the Metro Region.
But as someone who's been to more than a few JPACT meetings (for three years, I served on TPAC, the technical advisory committee to JPACT) I wonder about the impact. My observation of JPACT is that the local government representatives sometimes focus more on making sure they bring dollars back to their jurisdiction than about how the regional transportation system functions. The polite label for this behavior is "ensuring geographic equity."
The folks City Club would disenfranchise are exactly the players at the table most focused on making the regional system work, which is the major theme of the remainder of recommendations in the report.
How do we reconcile this apparent contradiction? I'll be asking tonight.
Posted by Chris Smith at 12:44 AM
Comments
March 4, 2010 5:39 PM
John E Says:
Ask city club what's so good about density or Metro.
NEW TRAFFIC SCORECARD REINFORCES DENSITY-TRAFFIC CONGESTION NEXUS
March 5, 2010 12:14 AM
ws Says:
John E:"NEW TRAFFIC SCORECARD REINFORCES DENSITY-TRAFFIC CONGESTION NEXUS"
ws:Just check out those low dense metros with bad congestion too:
Phoenix 14th
Dallas/Ft.Worth 5th
Houston 6th
Atlanta 11th
http://scorecard.inrix.com/scorecard/Top100Metros.asp
Hrmmm, Portland's ranked 22nd -- well behind those cities.
March 7, 2010 12:10 PM
John E Says:
ws,
That was a entirely useless reply. They are also 2,3, 4 times the population of Portland.
The greater and more germane point is what has Portland/region been accomplishing with infill/density mandates and where will it be when it reaches the size of these cities you site?
If The Round, SoWa, Cascade Station, Villebois and ALL of the rest of the agenda experiments are a demonstration we're screwed.
Of course with so many pepertually enamored with the theories and concepts while ignoring the results resistance is seemingly futile.
March 13, 2010 9:35 AM
Nathanael Says:
JohnE, in New York City, nobody gives a damn about traffic congestion. They complain about subway congestion.
Get it yet?
