The annual Oregon Business Plan Summit is next week, and in advance of the meeting they’ve published a discussion paper on transportation (PDF, 138K).
I find one point especially refreshing:
3. Develop new transportation planning and project selection tools to assure that each dollar spent on new transportation capacity achieves the greatest return on investment. Our existing transportation planning and project selection methods focus on supplying transportation services, particularly road and highway facilities. They are not designed to analyze the least-cost method of providing transportation services across modes; they do not evaluate demand management, nor do they consider the comparative economic, environmental and social costs and benefits of alternative solutions. We need to build on our ground breaking models integrating land use and transportation to develop new models for least-cost transportation planning.
And doesn’t least cost planning pretty much assure funding for bicycle infrastructure? I don’t know of a mode with a better return on investment…
8 responses to “Least Cost Planning”
Chris,
Thanks for reading the discussion paper and discussing it here. We will have a breakout session at the Summit where participants can discuss these recommendations. It will be a lengthy session of about 2 hours. We’ve also set up an online discussion forum around the event using a software program called Pathable. Once registered you will get an invitation to join. I’ve posted the recommendations there and asked for feedback as well.
Hope to see you and others on December 11th!
Jeremy Rogers
Oregon Business Council
Opening the market so that private owner- operators can participate might not cost much either.
Even with the inflated and overstated projections for bicycle crossings on the Sellwood Bridge, motor vehicles, some of which carry more than one person, will outnumber bicycles by more than five to one in the year 2035.
If tools that included achieving the greatest return on investment were used as part of the process to rehabilitate or replace the Sellwood Bridge, the most efficient use of transport dollars would be to increase the motor vehicle capacity of the bridge. Therefore, the proposals would and should include a full service four-lane bridge with more room for cars and trucks, and far less space and less resources allocated for bicycles.
Terry Parker
Therefore, the proposals would and should include a full service four-lane bridge with more room for cars and trucks, and far less space and less resources allocated for bicycles.
You may want to look at the streets on either end of that bridge, Terry. Four lanes?
“You may want to look at the streets on either end of that bridge”
I have.
The Sellwood Bridge is one of the few Willamette River crossings within the City of Portland that can be used without significantly impacting downtown Portland. It should not be viewed as a bridge to serve downtown Portland. Therefore, it would make sense to design this bridge not to serve downtown Portland, but to serve the cross-town travelers.
Moreover, the assumption that has been applied to Sellwood bridge planning is totally unrealistic when suggesting that additional inner-city and regional travel demands attributed to growth can be for the most part be accommodated by alternative modes of transport. Not everybody can or wants to ride a bike. Transit is to and from downtown oriented, often does not go where people want to go, often with too many time consuming transfers, and transit does not have the ability to transport cargo.
With the next generation of more eco friendly cars and trucks on the horizon, including plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles, the eco effects of driving are being lessened. More weight must be given to not only increasing the motor vehicle capacity of the bridge, but also increasing the motor vehicle capacity on the Tacoma Street corridor, or providing replacement motor vehicle capacity leading to and from the bridge on the eastside. Tacoma Street is a shared regional corridor (as are corridors that run throughout the city and through other neighborhoods), and does not solely belong to the Sellwood Neighborhood. Nor is the Sellwood Community alone in paying for the bridge. We can not just build a wall around Sellwood and say the street is theirs.
Terry Parker
More weight must be given to not only increasing the motor vehicle capacity of the bridge, but also increasing the motor vehicle capacity on the Tacoma Street corridor, or providing replacement motor vehicle capacity leading to and from the bridge on the eastside. Tacoma Street is a shared regional corridor (as are corridors that run throughout the city and through other neighborhoods), and does not solely belong to the Sellwood Neighborhood. Nor is the Sellwood Community alone in paying for the bridge. We can not just build a wall around Sellwood and say the street is theirs.
So you are suggesting that the City of Portland condemn property on both sides of Tacoma, displacing residents and small businesses and cutting a neighborhood completely in half in spite of the wishes of that neighborhood just to allow a few more cars between Macadam Ave at its narrowest point and McLoughlin Blvd? Why is this not exactly the behavior you condemn in City Hall?
In order for this to fit your description of “cross-town” you’re going to have to convert all of Johnson Creek Blvd to four-lane traffic as well. Does that even begin to make sense?
Jeff F said: “So you are suggesting that the City of Portland condemn property on both sides of Tacoma, displacing residents and small businesses…?”
NO -Tacoma Street was striped with four lanes before the City wasted taxpayer dollars to socially engineer the street with curb extensions, center islands, etc. What I am suggesting is to consider returning the corridor to the free flowing street it was before all that junk and those obstructions were added.
Terry Parker Says:
NO -Tacoma Street was striped with four lanes before the City wasted taxpayer dollars to socially engineer the street with curb extensions, center islands, etc. What I am suggesting is to consider returning the corridor to the free flowing street it was before all that junk and those obstructions were added.
So it’s “social engineering” when the City adds amenities but it’s not “social engineering” to turn Tacoma into a short 4-lane road? How does that work?
Somehow, I’m guessing that changes to Tacoma were done with the active participation of the neighborhood, rather than being imposed on them. How is it that you think the “cross-town” traveler has a priority over the neighborhood?
And Tacoma still makes a lousy cross-town corridor since it effectively ends at McLoughlin.