A New Source of Congestion


This sent out yesterday by the City of Portland:

Portland’s IKEA store is set to open on Wednesday, July 25. Enormous crowds are expected July 25-29 and for several weekends following.

People traveling to the airport or around the Airport Way area should be cognizant of the store opening and possible backups on all main highways and feeder streets.

But surely they’ll all be taking the Red Line?


26 responses to “A New Source of Congestion”

  1. Tri-Met would be smart to promote “Take MAX to IKEA” for the next few weeks.

    So would IKEA, for that matter.

  2. Isn’t transit oriented development wonderful?

    Can anyone in the City of Portland ever again criticize Woodburn for its short-sightedness?

  3. Isn’t this very near some great bike paths as well? And since IKEA delivers, there’s really no need to drive.

    This is pretty much the ideal situation for a furniture store that could produce minimal car trips. All it needs is some really good publicity.

    I’ve taken the Skytrain-bike combination to the IKEA here in Vancouver, BC several times, and I’m always the only bike there. To their credit, they do have two racks of the (somewhat inconvenient, but workable) standard type up here that can hold up to about 10 bikes each comfortably. It’s certainly more room than they need, unfortunately.

  4. I’m going to buy my furniture from France and have it shipped all the way here. (Seriously)Where is IKEA’s stuff shipped from?

  5. Ron: Almost nothing is made in the USA anymore. Just about everything we buy is shipped from the other side of the globe.

    Nick: There are other stores there too…

    But I think something key to remember is that the original plans for Cascade Station were made during the late 90s when we were all making lots of money.

    Then Airport MAX opened the same week as the September 11 attacks. The airports closed, and then for months and months almost no one flew. The economy hit a recession. No one was making money, no one was flying, and no one was riding the red line MAX to the airport.

    So therefore no “transit oriented developers” wanted to build there anymore. We had a glut of office space in the region, and we had plenty of retail space in the region as well.

    Plans changed.

    But I am glad to note that all of the people who criticize Cascade Station and the big-block development that ended up there – have NEVER had any of their plans change. All of those critics have been 100% perfect on their first try at everything.

  6. i personally plan on taking the max there if i go in the first week or so… why bother with the hassle of driving? i am sure i won’t be alone…

  7. Ron asked: “Where is IKEA’s stuff shipped from?”

    Info from Ikea corporate page:

    The Swedwood Group is the IKEA industrial group, which produces wood-based furniture and wooden components. Swedwood has manufacturing units in 9 countries, mostly in Eastern Europe. Operations cover every step of production, from forestry, sawmilling and board manufacture to furniture production.

    Nick asked: “Why then, does IKEA have a 1200-car parking lot, or so I heard?”

    Yes, according to numerous sources, the new Portland Ikea location has 1,200 parking spaces. As near as I can tell from reviewing Ikea’s web site, this is fewer than most other North American Ikea locations, even when square footage is taken into account. (Unfortunately the Ikea web site does not list parking spaces for all locations, so a definitive answer cannot be immediately known, and their press contact is on vacation.)

    The Bay Area / Emeryville store (located near a BART station) has 1,800 spaces, for example, even though it is a actually 6,000 sq. ft smaller store than Portland’s. Put another way: Emeryville has 50% more parking for 2% less store.

    The West Sacramento store has the same number of parking spaces as Portland, but is 15,000 sq. ft. (5.6%) smaller.

    The Portland Ikea will employ approx. 300 people, most of whom will not be needing to haul around large pieces of furniture in their own automobiles… presumably a high percentage of these employees will arrive via transit. Ikea also announced the installation of 75 bike racks.

    – Bob R.

  8. Plans changed.

    Yes, plans always change. But that is no defense of new bad plan.

    Allowing a big box retail development adjacent to the airport entrance is a bad plan. The problem isn’t that the old plan failed, its that the new plan is an abomination in that location.

    The region has a shortage of industrial land to begin with and the Port of Portland has turned the prime land next to the airport it should have held for industrial development into a big box retail center. The airport Max, which I strongly supported, has turned out to be a very expensive light rail line.

    But the lesson that needs to be learned is that no matter what the planners intentions, they will not trump short term economics. Whether its a super market parking lot on Interstate or a big box retail creating congestion at the airport, the lane will be used for the most immediate economic benefit. There is simply no political will to say no to development now because it does not fit a long term plan for the future.

  9. “the new Portland Ikea location has 1,200 parking spaces”

    Anyone know how that compares with the average number of parking spaces at WalMart stores?

  10. Why then, does IKEA have a 1200-car parking lot, or so I heard?

    You’re missing my irony. Of course a lot of people are going to drive, but there other options, which is different than many big-box stores.

    In the Netherlands I visited an IKEA (by bike) just outside the center of a small city.

  11. Friday morning I rode my bike over to a roofing supply company, and wanted to buy 600 ft^2 of roofing, (for my detached single car garage,) delivered. The roofing itself was $230, and having roofing delivered is great, cause they put the bundles directly onto your roof, (instead of carrying 80 lb bundles up a ladder, which is a PITA.) But they wanted $170 for delivering the 2 miles to my house, and at that point I went and got a flexcar[truck] and came back…

    Hopefully Ikea’s delivery is cheaper than that. But most of Ikea’s stuff isn’t as heavy as roofing, so I could just haul it on my bike trailer instead…

  12. “The Bay Area / Emeryville store (located near a BART station) has 1,800 spaces, for example, even though it is a actually 6,000 sq. ft smaller store than Portland’s. Put another way: Emeryville has 50% more parking for 2% less store.”

    >>>> Yeah, but the Bay Area has 50-100% more people than Portland Metro. I would assume that the store in SF gets “intensive” traffic.

    Actually, when i do go out there, I will take MAX, because I don’t drive. Howevetr I would have preferred BRT to the airport. This way, Trimet could have run premium fare express buses with luggage holds to the airport. Faster, and much more convenient than clunky MAX.

  13. Terry asked: Anyone know how that compares with the average number of parking spaces at WalMart stores?

    The nearest example I could find was a June article from Olympia about plans for a new Wal-Mart which have been scaled back due to parking and tree concerns. Even with the reduced parking, that Wal-Mart will have about 25% more parking spaces per square foot of retail floor than the Portland Ikea.

    I could not find any reliable figures for the average number of spaces at more typical, larger Wal-Marts.

    – Bob R.

  14. Nick wrote: “Yeah, but the Bay Area has 50-100% more people than Portland Metro”

    Yeah, but the Bay Area has more than one Ikea store. (Three, in fact, if you count West Sacramento as “Bay Area” – some people do.)

    – Bob R.

  15. Tri-Met would be smart to promote “Take MAX to IKEA” for the next few weeks.
    Those “Take TriMet to (insert whatever here)” aren’t free – whatever business/event is being promoted pays for it.

    The Portland Ikea will employ approx. 300 people, most of whom will not be needing to haul around large pieces of furniture in their own automobiles… presumably a high percentage of these employees will arrive via transit.
    However… will Ikea’s shifts accommodate transit schedules? Will the people who work there live somewhere close to MAX or a viable bus route, or will they be driving most of the way anyway?

    Of course a lot of people are going to drive, but there other options…
    So if they can drive, they probably will – and we’ll no doubt see plenty of Washington-registered SUVs, minivans, and Hummers in their parking lot, along with the Oregon-registered ones. The “other options” seem too confusing or too socialist for many out there.

    Yes, I do see major problems with the last two issues I quoted.

  16. However… will Ikea’s shifts accommodate transit schedules?

    The official store hours are 10am – 9pm (oddly, the restaurant opens 30 minutes earlier.) Even allowing for early shift arrivals/meetings and late evening departures, the Airport MAX schedule interfaces well with this, serving the Cascade Station area every 15 minutes from ~4:40am (first airport-bound) to 11:59pm (last Gateway-bound).

    Will the people who work there live somewhere close to MAX or a viable bus route, or will they be driving most of the way anyway?

    Given that the Red Line intersects many bus lines along its I-84 stations, people living on the east side of Portland should have a variety of one-transfer or no-transfer options. For people coming from east of I-205, a number of lines transfer at Gateway and Parkrose transit centers. And, in about two years, the Green Line will open providing fast service from Clackamas to Gateway, with a same or adjacent platform transfer to the Red Line.

    – Bob R.

  17. Just to be clear – there is a reason Ikea model is a big box retailer with free standing stores surrounded by a sea of parking. Its not because their customers are local transit users. Its a high-end Walmart/Target/Home Depot operation.

    There is a reason that, despite very good transit service as Bob points out, the city is warning of congestion and delays for people using the airport. They aren’t warning that seats on airport Max will be scarce (although you would hope they will be).

  18. If you’ve read “The High Cost of Free Parking,” you know that Home Depot, (and therefor, probably Ikea as well,) fairly accurately correlate their peak parking demand to store revenue… And given that Ikea can probably estimate a store’s revenue in a given market pretty accurately before it even opens, they probably know how many parking spaces, (and therefor, how much land to buy for said parking spaces,) they needed… As such, the fact that we have 1200 spaces vs the 1800 they installed in Emeryville may not have anything to do with biking/MAX, it may just be a reflection on how much money they expect to make in our market, (and why they opened 3 in the SF area, before they opened 1 in Portland…) Likewise, the book points out that the square footage of the store doesn’t correlate to anything for Home Depot, so it probably doesn’t for Ikea either. (Although, it does beg the question, why did they build it so big?)

    Obviously, I hope that they do really want people to bike or take MAX there, but I think they just don’t really have that variable to put in their equations for an American city… I think the logic went that 75 bike racks cost about as much as two or three parking spaces, and so it would pay for itself if it convinced just two or three people to ride a bike there, (and if 6% did that isn’t a bad thing either.) Likewise on the MAX.

    And yes, I hate the racks they are installing. The safest, (for your bike,) way to park on them is parallel to the rack, taking up several spots so that you can put both your U-locks on to the rack. And given that I’ll have my 8 foot trailer, that will probably be U-locked into the mess as well. The staple racks are much more popular with the high security crowd…

  19. Well, I continue to hold out hope from one local example. When REI opened in the Pearl, they had the largest opening weekend of any store in the chain’s history – and the parking structure never got more than 2/3rds full.

  20. You’re missing my irony. Of course a lot of people are going to drive, but there other options, which is different than many big-box stores.

    Most “big box” stores I know of are located on major arterial streets that have bus service.

    It’s too bad that TriMet doesn’t invest in quality bus service to attract not only businesses in focusing their businesses to support these bus stops, but for passengers to take the bus for their shopping.

    I have taken mass transit in many cities (notably Seattle) where taking a bus takes you right to the front door of businesses outside the downtown core. Unfortunately since taking the bus in Portland seems to be a drag and undesirable, a bus rider will have the “option” of going to a substandard bus stop, and a long walk through a parking lot.

    At least the “transit oriented development” of Orenco Station is more directly served by the 47 and 48 buses than it is MAX.

  21. At least the “transit oriented development” of Orenco Station is more directly served by the 47 and 48 buses than it is MAX.

    To tie this all together, I have taken MAX from NE Portland to Orenco Station to visit the Kitchen Kaboodle, and I purchased furniture… namely a coffee table and a bookcase.

    – Bob R.

  22. Matthew: Delivery at the Vancouver IKEA costs $39 (CAD, about $37.25 USD but you can’t really compare directly) for most of the metro area, and they deliver to other parts of the province, including the island, for higher rates. Presumably delivery rates in Portland will be somewhat comparable, i.e. fairly reasonable.

  23. You could probably carry a small chair on the MAX, but a 300-pound book shelf system that cost $1000 would probably make more sense to have delivered.

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