Parting Shot


Randy Gragg is leaving the Oregonian.

And in his final column on Sunday (maddeningly, it doesn’t seem to be on OregonLive – go out and find a copy), Gragg throws down the gauntlet and suggests that our region is now approaching transit with timid incrementalism, while other regions are passing $10 and $15B packages for multi-modal transportation improvements.

By way of contrast, a piece on Planetizen yesterday (quoting the NY Times) described Jaime Lerner’s approach in Curitiba:

“Back in 1972, the new mayor of the city, an architect and urban planner named Jaime Lerner, ordered a lightning transformation of six blocks of the street into a pedestrian zone. The change was recommended in a master plan for the city that was approved six years earlier, but fierce objections from the downtown merchants blocked its implementation. Lerner instructed his secretary of public works to institute the change quickly and asked how long it would take. “He said he needed four months,” Lerner recalled recently. “I said, ‘Forty-eight hours.’ He said, ‘You’re crazy.’ I said, ‘Yes, I’m crazy, but do it in 48 hours.’ ””

So how can we assemble the political will to be bolder?


36 responses to “Parting Shot”

  1. shoot, i’m gonna miss the graggster. in this op-ed he mentions, for the second time in a month, the idea of a global warming induced permanent drought in the southwest creating “new Dust Bowlers and other environmental refugees”, who supposedly will mostly be heading our way. he suggests that the estimate of 1 million new residents over the next 25 years is off by one million, and we should expect two million. i always wonder how these estimates are made, but if we should expect two million new residents, maybe we could kill two birds with one stone and enact a “new resident fee” to pay off bonds for a completely planned transit system now!

  2. We shouldn’t discount Portland “working”. I left Seattle in 2004, and as far back as 2002 they were talking a Westlake->South Lake Union->Eastlake Streetcar. It’s a 1.3 mile line, which they’re finally constructing in 2007 and will be complete in 2008… and it’ll only have 2 cars.

    Considering how much work has already occurred on the transit mall, we’re making much better progress.

  3. I won’t miss Gragg. I remember him being critical of the public art installations along the Westside MAX line. And one of his complaints about the Burnside/Couch couplet was that Portland’s sidewalk extensions are justs for show. I’ve seen him lurking around town many times, frankly, always acting a little paranoid. Learning that he’s from Seattle explains a lot. Seattle has a diabolically twisted sense of art and demonstrably little understanding of pedestrian infrastructure.

  4. I argued in Seattle that the Lake Union Streetcar should have accessed the only portal to the downtown transit tunnel’s compatable rail line at Convention Place Station, via Terry and 9th Avenues. You’d think it was a no-brainer. Instead, this streetcar line diagonally traverses four, 6-way intersections on Westlake Blvd, making operation there difficult and potential for accidents high. The portal is to be cemented shut forever, the station decommissioned, and another luxury hotel constructed on the site. Money Money Money! The streetcar line stops two long blocks short of the monorail and transit tunnel station. I’ll wager Randy Gragg offers this most poorly engineered streetcar line glorious high praise.

  5. So how can we assemble the political will to be bolder?

    Mussolini made the trains run on time. And it appears from the entire NYT article that the success of Curitiba had similar roots in authoritarian government. The “mayor” of Curitiba was appointed by the Governor who in turn was responsible to an authoritarian national government.

    We may be getting there …

  6. The streetcar line stops two long blocks short of the monorail and transit tunnel station.

    I agree with your points about the questionable route and lack of connections to the transit tunnel, but regarding the monorail, this Seattle Times streetcar map shows a station at the Westlake Ave. / 5th Ave. / Olive Way intersection, which is about 300ft and two street crossings away from the monorail, and the monorail should be in full view of the stop.

    Has the plan changed since you last saw it, or is there something I’m missing about this location? It almost seems easier than the current situation in the Rose Quarter where riders must cross 3 streets to transfer from the Blue/Red Lines inbound to the Yellow Line outbound. (Not such a great setup.)

    – Bob R.

  7. In his farewell column in the Sunday (May 20) Oregonian, Randy Gragg claims that the Portland region has “no plan” for transportation. On the contrary, the accomplishments he does mention, such as the growing light rail system, are direct results of decades-long, coordinated effort of the 25 cities, TriMet and Metro along with representatives from business, freight and community groups. Other successes include shortening work commute trips (10 miles average in 1990, 7 in 2000), the highest rate of bicycle use in any large metro area in North America, improved air quality (no violations of federal standards in 7 years versus 90 or more in the 1970s), declining per capita auto use and transit use growing at almost twice the rate of population growth.

    He is right that there are great challenges ahead including population growth, climate change and uncertainties around oil supply and price. Add to these, the failure of state and federal investment to keep up with needs (the last federal and state gas tax increases were both in 1993!). Far from doing nothing as Mr. Gragg claims, Metro is leading the region through a full re-examination of both transportation and land use policies to address these challenges.

    This is not an easy or simple task. We are all conditioned by 50 years of massive federal subsidy of highways. Up to 90 percent of highway costs were paid for with federal funds while transit has always been primarily a local responsibility. Making up the gap would require more than doubling the current Oregon gas tax. Current revenues don’t even keep up with desired maintenance—ODOT estimates it alone is falling $500 Million behind every year. No wonder we aren’t building new highways! Clearly, we will have to do things differently, like locating jobs and housing closer together as well as making walking and cycling easy, safe and attractive, if we are to keep this region livable and its economy functioning.

    What I find most perplexing about Mr. Gragg’s column, however, is his comparison of the transportation funding efforts of Denver, Houston and Phoenix with Portland – the insinuation being that we’re not as aspirational as they are. With all due respect, he completely misses the point on that one. Unlike Portland, which made wise, forward-looking transportation investments decades ago, those cities primarily built vast and unsustainable road transportation systems and had no land use planning. As a result, they have found themselves in a complete mess today. A mess that can only be cleaned up with multi-billion dollar tax increases. So I would argue that those transportation funding initiatives that Mr. Gragg holds up as models for Portland, really are more like lessons for all growing cities: if you don’t make the kind of smart investments that Portland did, you’ll get stuck with a huge tab trying to play catch-up.

    It’s taken half a century to create our current system, it will take time to build an alternative. Help plan this region’s transportation future by learning about the Regional Transportation Plan and let me know your concerns. http://www.metro-region.org/article.cfm?articleid=137

  8. Last I heard, the SLU streetcar line will stop at the Westin Hotel, just short of Stewart. This makes sense as I’ve heard the planned extension will turn on Stewart and run to 1st.

    There is actually only 1, 6-way intersection on Westlake at Lenora. However, Westlake does traverse the intersections ‘diagonally’, which as I claim, should make operation difficult in traffic.

    Westlake is currently 1-way and I’m not sure how the configuration will be arranged. My pdf file generator isn’t working, so I can’t view the Seattle Times picture. I have a map that shows a stop at the triangular island between Stewart and Olive, but that may have changed. Detailed maps are rarely available to the public in Seattle.

  9. My reaction to Gragg’s column was pretty much what Rex said. Personally, I’d rather build our system incrementally, one project at a time while following a flexible master plan, and focus our efforts on demand management rather than trying to increase the supply of rush-hour lanes.

    The advantage to taking our time and getting in a lot of public process is that we get (on the whole) better transportation projects. It’s not fast and it’s not always cheap, and we do make mistakes through political compromise (is there ANY justification to have both the PGE Park and Kings Hill MAX stations?) but I’m generally happy with the results.

  10. Unlike Portland, which made wise, forward-looking transportation investments decades ago, those cities primarily built vast and unsustainable road transportation systems and had no land use planning. As a result, they (Denver, Houston and Phoenix) have found themselves in a complete mess today. A mess that can only be cleaned up with multi-billion dollar tax increases. So I would argue that those transportation funding initiatives that Mr. Gragg holds up as models for Portland, really are more like lessons for all growing cities: if you don’t make the kind of smart investments that Portland did, you’ll get stuck with a huge tab trying to play catch-up.

    Unfortunately, Portland is exactly in the same boat – we have unsustainable transportation options that will absolutely require massive tax increases to fix.

    Ironically, it was Metro that recently announced that it is seeking a tax increase for transportation projects, and never mind that TriMet has exhausted its financial reserves having self-funded several MAX expansions – which directly resulted in disinvestment in the bus fleet, causing TriMet’s bus fleet to age and increased maintenance issues, while leaving TriMet in a cloud of smoke compared to almost every other transit agency in the western U.S. on environmental progression. ODOT is left with debt payments towards a massive bond measure that was passed several years ago, leaving it with few funds for highway projects – and certainly many of those dollars aren’t going towards the metro area but to other regions of the state.

    We’ve diverted millions away from highway funds, while congestion and roadway use is going up – despite billions in transit-based spending. Bus use is down, when every other transit agency is recording transit usage increases.

    Meanwhile, a long list of highway projects are becoming backlogged – the Interstate Bridge, I-5 and I-205 improvements, the I-5 to 99W connector, and despirately needed improvements to Highway 217. The Sunset Highway is progressively being widened despite MAX. And that’s on top of the required programmed maintenance required just to keep the roadway system functioning and vehicles moving.

    While Portland is certainly notable for its increase in bike usage, and has transit usage that is higher (as a percentage) compared to some other metro regions, to suggest that Portland is a model for transportation planning is a cloudy vision at best – with no highway plan, no regional commute plan, and essentially putting all of Portland’s eggs in the MAX and Streetcar basket.

    Metro is a regional government that serves many more people than just Hillsboro, Beaverton, Portland, Gresham, and Milwaukie. It also serves towns like Forest Grove and Cornelius, like Tigard, Tualatin, Durham, Rivergrove, Sherwood, and Wilsonville, like West Linn, Lake Oswego, Oregon City, Gladstone, Johnson City, and Damascus. And Troutdale, Wood Village, Fairview, and Maywood Park. (Did I leave anyone out?) What is Metro doing for the transportation solutions for all of those towns? Where, in Metro’s extensive transportation planning, is efficient and reliable transportation, both highway and mass-transit based? Why can’t I, as a Tualatin resident, get from one side of my own community to the other, using mass transit? (If anyone wants to suggest that such isn’t a Metro responsibility, I will argue that bike paths and sidewalks are inheriently local, and therefore not regional priorities either.) Tualatin and Sherwood have many commercial links to each other; however anyone who’s driven Tualatin-Sherwood Road knows that there is no “plan” for growth. And where is Metro on Highway 99W planning in Tigard – where Tigard is taking the lead on a highway project that rightfully belongs to ODOT (as 99W is a state highway), and on a highway that is probably one of the best examples of a regional transportation route (serving not only Portland and Tigard, but also Tualatin, Sherwood, and King City, plus Yamhill County, and is one of three major links between Portland and the Oregon Coast.)

  11. I’m going to get a statewide ballot measure put together to disband Metro. Does anyone want to sign my petition?

  12. Erik:

    I get the impression that you like to play armchair quarterback offering up lots of Monday morning game plans.

    Do you have any idea how much work Metro puts into transportation? Really? Or do you just like to bitch and moan about any government agency that doesn’t do what you want?

    You do know that Metro has citizen positions available on almost all of their committees?
    You are welcome to apply and be a part of the solution.

    But I would like to point out that on the transportation committees – JPACT and TPAC namely – it takes a LOT of work to come to agreement with the representation from all the different areas. There are city representatives, county representatives, agency representatives, and citizen representatives. So when you bitch about the situation in Sherwood or Tualatin – it could be because the representation from those places was unsuccessful or didn’t push hard enough to have their issues brought to the front.

    The TPAC and JPACT meetings are open to the public. I invite you to attend and see what the people at Metro who work very hard end up dealing with. Not to mention the fact that they have many workshops to work out the details on plans that come before the meetings.

    You cannot please all of the people all of the time.

    I have lived all over the country, and Portland has something nice with Metro. Otherwise you end up with a hodge podge of solutions that never match up. Like in the LA metro area. You have to take 20 different transit agencies to get around, there is no cohesion – you have to pay multiple fares – and schedules don’t match up.
    Some metro areas will have some cities who make a road 4 or 6 lanes, only for the neighboring city to leave it at 2 lanes – making a mess. Sometimes signage will change from block to block, or bike lanes strangely disappear and reappear.

    At least with Metro we get a “coordinator” to help the region make sense. Otherwise cities only fight for what is good within their borders and don’t care about anyone else.

    But again, it is an open process. If you are so concerned about Metro – go be a part of it.

  13. I would like to have seen the South Lake Union Line positioned to fan out to the NW and NE from Mercer Street, and Dual-Voltage cars be used. ST for some reason chose to use 1500volts on Central LINK(Probably because of the tunnels and elevated portions), and the streetcars run on 600v. The tunnel would work.

    Now something interesting on who is doing the local assembly for Central LINK LRVs. It is at the Boeing Campus in Everett. It is the same company that took BOeing’s failed LRV design and used it is a template for a new LRV for the MBTA in the 1980s! KinkiSharyo.(I was pulling for Siemens to get that contract, to try to have some commonality with Portland)

    As for who designed our street grid up here, I don’t know. My brother said it was a certain drunk army officer named U.S. Grant! Not sure if I believe him. It probably had something to do with downtown’s geography for the first 50 years of Seattle’s history. Outside of Downtown, the streets were laid out by streetcars and streetcar suburbs. We just celebrated the 100th anniversary of the annexation of one of those, Columbia City. The irony? It had an Interurban in 1907, while 100 years later, we are spending too much to build a new line about 1/2 mile to a mile to the East of that original alignment.

  14. is there ANY justification to have both the PGE Park and Kings Hill MAX stations?

    Yes. It’s called the powerful Goose Hollow Foothills league. As for the article, I’m glad I got to read it. A good example of “timid incrementalism” that annoys me is putting MAX on the Portland Mall. Instead of an off-street route that actually helps people traveling from one part of the region to another, we get one where trains will be little better than a bus.

  15. (is there ANY justification to have both the PGE Park and Kings Hill MAX stations?)

    Yes – the Kings Hill Max station is really the Multnomah Athletic Club station. If it were named that everyone on the MAX would be reminded why they have to stop there.

  16. So how can we assemble the political will to be bolder?

    You mean like when the establishment ignored the
    voters in late 1998 and went ahead and built
    North-South anyway, and later made the deal for Airport MAX to be built and announced that no light rail projects will be voted on ever again?

    Bob Tiernan

  17. Just a note on the Seattle downtown street grid.

    It goes back to disagreements between the cities founding fathers Maynard and Denny. One thought the streets should be platted in orientation to the shoreline (Denny) while Maynard favored N/E/S/W. Each platted their land as they saw fit, although Maynards plan was eventually extended throughout the city.

  18. Mr Tiernan’s comment is interesting as it points out the challenges we face in this state. By his logic we should never build another road again since voters in 1998 voted 88 to 12 to NOT increase the gas tax.

    Of course, it is the responsibility of governments to try to meet the needs of citizens with the resources we have and by being creative. Trying to improve transportation with basically flat funding (if not declining in real terms) requires much creativity which is the value of having a regional problem solving table, i.e., the voter-created Metro regional government.

    While it is a challenge, it is also a privilege to be at the table.

    Rex

  19. So when you bitch about the situation in Sherwood or Tualatin – it could be because the representation from those places was unsuccessful or didn’t push hard enough to have their issues brought to the front.

    So, it’s OK that “the little guys” should get pushed out of the picture?

    It’s OK that these towns get no help from the regional government, yet pour tax dollars to subsidize everyone else?

    Metro is not the “City of Portland”, Metro is the region. There is no reason why the little communities get left out of any discussion. None.

  20. So, it’s OK that “the little guys” should get pushed out of the picture?

    Tualatin has not been pushed out of the picture, its Mayor served on JPACT for several years. As I recall, he spent a lot of time and political capital on getting a new freeway interchange, the Tualatin-Sherwood connector and other highway improvements.

    Suburban politicians love to blame Metro when citizens complain about decisions they made and some of the complainers accept that.

  21. No, I’m not complaining about those things.

    I am complaining about the lack of transit, something that both Metro and TriMet have a hand in (Metro gets the money and gives it to TriMet.)

    Never mind that Beaverton has NUMEROUS freeway interchanges (Tualatin has two, one of which mostly serves Lake Oswego but is still within Tualatin city limits) and got a wider freeway, a MAX line, who-knows-how-many-bus-lines, etc. Shouldn’t Beaverton have had the tradeoff between freeway access and transit?

    Or Portland, or that matter? Portland, in fact, got a brand new freeway alongside transit (the eastside MAX line). Didn’t Hillsboro get a couple of brand new interchanges, too?

    Tualatin, on the other hand, has essentially two bus routes that provide any meaningful level of service, although geographically use the same route and barely serve any residents directly (instead relying on two park-and-ride lots). Four other bus routes barely dent Tualatin’s city limits, and one other bus route passes through Tualatin non-stop (albeit through a corner of the city, but one populated with several, what you Pearl Districters call, DENSE developments – a manufactured home park and two apartment complexes).

    And our “transit improvement”? A single rail line, that will not add intracity service, and adds only several hours of weekday rush hour only service, no intraday, weekend or holiday service. Yes, people in Tualatin are home on the weekends, just pull up to one of Tualatin’s shopping centers on a Saturday or Sunday – the parking lots are full. (Hmm, now if we had TRANSIT…)

    And, Ross, exactly when were those two projects in Tualatin completed? The Tualatin-Sherwood connector is nearly 20 years old. Under that guideline, if we are to apply the same standard, then we shouldn’t even think about expanding MAX. We have it, it’s done, move on. So maybe Metro needs to start planning to five-lane T-S road (which it should have been when it was rebuilt to Sherwood some ten or fifteen years ago). By the way, Tualatin-Sherwood Road at Boones Ferry Road carries nearly 40,000 cars a day, and is the second busiest non-freeway in Washington County (according to Washington County LUT records available on their website, which is something neither Metro or TriMet seem to want to publicize – actual usage of other transportation infrastructure.)

    It’s too bad that there isn’t a bus line that would help mitigate some of that traffic, because a lot of people could use transit to get to/from work, or Tualatin residents to go to shopping or other locations (notably the hospital on the east side of I-5 and is a major transportation generator). Too bad that if you’re in Sherwood, you can’t take a bus to most medical appointments, unless you don’t mind a 30 minute ride to Tigard (although you could drive straight to the medical center in 10 or 15.)

  22. …and thus the largest mistake of the entire planning problem, “Unfortunately, Portland is exactly in the same boat – we have unsustainable transportation options that will absolutely require massive tax increases to fix.” is embodied in one sweeping statement.

    Increasing taxes, direct Government Monopoly, object authoritarian control of the transit/transportation systems in this country are the effective sources of the problems. Portland and all those other cities are proving that very effectively. As the private companies where disbanded and the “authorities” created and now the political battles of this way and that way where created, that continue today, the actual functional solutions in place, being created, and being put in place became a secondary concern.

    We’ll never be able to tax ourselves into a solution. Well ABSOLUTELY tax ourselves into an authoritarian regime where we have to send bullets for communication instead of debate. That’s something that I DO NOT way and thus continually state on this blog, and in conversation and community involvement that I am able to participate in.

    Put simply, the solutions are in the hands of the individual peoples of this nation, not the Government and not the Corporations. We, especially a lot of pro-transit types, seem to absolutely ignore, or just forget how things got started in the first place. It’s strange and funny to say, but America once had systems that where the envy of the entire world. Now we’re a joke. What’s changed?

    The removal of the “individual” and the authoritarian monopoly of the committee.

  23. Tualatin has a much smaller population and employment base than Beaverton or Hillsboro, and a significantly different population demographic.

    It is silly to compare them directly.

    I agree that Tualatin could use more transit service, as could Lake Oswego.

    But it is NOT Metro’s fault. I would contend that there is really not too much “wrong” so trying to place “blame” is misguided.

    I would definitely say, however, that we can always improve. But I wouldn’t say that the area or region is not well off, either.

    People like it enough here to be moving here in droves – so I think something is going right.

  24. But it is NOT Metro’s fault. I would contend that there is really not too much “wrong” so trying to place “blame” is misguided.

    So long as Metro controls the purse strings for most every transportation project in the three county area, and so long as TriMet controls mass transit planning in its service district, to suggest that both are immune from blame is to suggest that both agencies can simply act on their own whim without responding to the will of all constituents.

    Yes, Tualatin has a lesser population. (Or, the buzzword is “density”.) So what? The Airport has a lesser population density than Tualatin yet it has a MAX line. Is there a magical threshold that a census tract or city must have a certain population density before it receives certain transit services? (If so, please quote me the applicable ORS or OAR.)

    It seems as though the only solution really is for affected cities (not just Tualatin, but also Forest Grove, Cornelius, Tigard, Sherwood, and Troutdale) to vote out Metro and TriMet, and take matters into their own hands – as Canby, Wilsonville and Sandy have. Is this the real solution?

    I’m sorry, but if I’m in a position of leadership, I don’t accept complacency as a way to deal with problems. Either fix the problem (provide decent, reliable, frequent transit options to EVERY community), or find a way to eliminate the problem (remove the areas from jurisdiction). After all, isn’t Metro a form of a democratic government, a form of government that is “of the people, by the people and (most importantly) for the people“?

  25. “After all, isn’t Metro a form of a democratic government, a form of government that is “of the people, by the people and (most importantly) for the people?”

    That’s right Erik, it is. Read it again.

    I’d suggest that you should consider running for office or working to elect people who happen to share your views.

    In the meantime, I would appreciate it if you would consider the fact that many people voted for the people who are making decisions that you happen to disagree with. Disagreement is fine- telling me that it is “complacency” isn’t ok. It’s not complacency, it’s just not what you happen to advocate for.

    Time to quit writing and start doing.

  26. Time to quit writing and start doing.

    Are you suggesting I shut up, or that advocating one’s position is not something that should be done on the Internet? (In which case, we are all a bunch of hypocrites.)

  27. I think Metro should be disbanded and a private company should take over and operate the system. Many other countries around the world have privatized their transit systems and the quality has gotten much better. Why are we turning toward these socialist systems as everyone else is abandoning them? I think they should also disband the National Passenger Rail System (aka Amtrak) and let the freight companies run the system as a profitable enterprise. Anything the government does it does poorly. I could cite additional exaples. Schools anyone? Or trams?

  28. Greg –

    1. Metro doesn’t operate the transit system here. On several occasions you have called for disbanding Metro – do you mean the regional government, or do you mean TriMet, the transit agency? Please be more specific in the future — although these agencies often cooperate, their roles are rather distinct.

    2. Amtrak, depending on whose history you read, was created in part because the private railroads had no interest in continuing to operate passenger service.

    – Bob R.

  29. Greg, TriMet and Metro are separate governments. TriMet is governed by a Board appointed by the Governor, Metro by an elected Council.

    They work closely together as Metro has responsibility for regional transportation planning and is the conduit for much of the Federal transportation dollars coming into the region,

    But neither is a subsidiary of the other.

  30. Chris,

    Thanks for clarifying that for me. And just to clarify I am not anti-transit I just think a private entity with oversight (like utilities operate) would be more efficient and accountable than the current system.

  31. Yeah, I agree the airlines are terrible! They’re another government subsidized industry. End all subsidies and see what’s left standing.

  32. Too bad Randy is leaving. His columns have always been thoughtful and often pretty right on the money.
    Portland with few exceptions has always been an “incremental town;” added to that, we’ve become a real “process town” as well. So patience is essential; but what’s come along in the last 30 years is way better than what I grew up with in the 50’s and 60’s.
    I do hope we the “O” gets someone who will push the development community to up their budgets for more interesting architecture.
    re the millions who will be fleeing to Portland; they had better get used to living on smaller lots, in condos, riding bikes and using transit. And if they don’t like our lifestyle, they can always move on to Seattle or Spokane or Boise or Des Moines or wherever. We don’t need to accommodate them, but we do need to thank them for bringing new ideas, new energy, new blood.
    But actually, I think Portland may tend to attract folks who like the idea of living in a city that is less auto dominated, has better transit and more vibrant neighborhoods.

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