Portland Transport

Category: Transportation Planning

  • Population Growth and Regional Traffic

    Yesterday’s Oregonian had a good front page story on traffic, capturing the essence of the issues facing this region and others: roads filling up as population and rates of car ownership increase along with the decline of major national investment in new transportation infrastructure. Whether you think these trends are “good” or “bad” the key…

  • “Goods and Services” or “Freight”

    When I was starting this blog, I got feedback from a number of potential contributors that just talking about “mobility” was a problem, that “access” was the more comprehensive way to look at the issues. I eventually compromised and put both in the tag line for this site. I’m getting a similar education about “freight”.…

  • Retrospective on the Seattle Bus Tunnel

    Kent Lind passes on this pointer to an article in the Seattle Post Intelligencer and asks: “Seattle built a bus tunnel with 1980s federal transit money. Portland built a light rail. Which was smarter?”

  • Tolls in Our Future?

    Today’s Oregonian reports on the possibility of using tolls to fund new lanes on Highway 217, and reminds us that tolls are not completely foreign to Oregon. The Barlow Trail was a toll road and the Interstate Bridge was once tolled. Metro forecasts that the 12-minutes average commute on 217 is headed to 16 minutes,…

  • My Trip: Jumping the Queue

    I recently flew to the East Coast for a long weekend. As usual, I left straight from downtown Portland, leaving my bike at work, and riding the Red Line MAX to the airport. As we sped by alongside I-84, I looked at the hundreds of cars creeping along, nearly at a standstill, and I couldn’t…