Non CRC related I-5/I-205/I-84 development

[MarkDaMan]

^more reason to believe this is NOT the answer to the Portland metro's issues.

[westsider]

Originally Posted by zilfondel

Well, you still need railroads to move that freight long distances. Most of our food and goods we buy aren't even made or grown in this country, so they travel a long distance. Trucks are fine for local delivery, but for longer distances, rail is more efficient and less expensive. Oh, and its less environmentally damaging, too!

Thats exactly what I said at the end of my last post. Its just that you said earlier that ALL freight should be moved by train.

[RED_PDXer]

Originally Posted by rsbear

I think you're right - most of the freight goes in and out of Portland, and does not just travel through Portland. I remember reading (years ago) that Portland was the 10th largest distribution center in the U.S., which is amazing considering we're what, the 25th largest metro area? So most of the trucks on local freeways would logically be going to Portland or leaving from Portland, and not just passing through Portland.

I'm not sure I'm reading this correctly, but freight coming to or from Portland could just as easily be placed on a freight train. Trucks are only necessary for local distribution. Thus, a significant portion of the freight traffic on I-5 and I-84 are the result of freight being picked up at the port and then unnecessarily being driven to Idaho, Montana, Utah, Illinois, Indiana, etc.. Lots of pollution and adding to lots of congestion.

Existing highway infrastructure should be maintained through tolls and congestion pricing. But it will cost hundreds of millions more to add capacity in the Rose Quarter area and perhaps over a billion to do so. I find it laughable to think that an extra lane or two will alleviate that congestion. Too much local traffic is using the highways, as evidenced by the severely peaked auto flows during rush hour in the morning and evening at the I-5 bridge. I ride the MAX to work along I-84 every morning. Most every car I pass is carrying only one passenger. This is a ridiculously inefficient system that must stop. Why spend so much on a system that fosters socially- and environmentally-destructive behavior.

When the green line opens, the MAX line along that freeway will have the achievable capacity to carry about 7,000 commuters per hour (350 passengers x 20 trains per hour) in each direction. That's 3x as much capacity as a single auto lane in free flow traffic and even more capacity than a single auto lane in congested traffic. Investing in rail, transit, and multi-use paths is the most efficient way to improve our transportation systems and alleviate traffic. We need options, not more restricted lanes for inefficient behavior.

[JordanL]

Originally Posted by RED_PDXer

Existing highway infrastructure should be maintained through tolls and congestion pricing. But it will cost hundreds of millions more to add capacity in the Rose Quarter area and perhaps over a billion to do so. I find it laughable to think that an extra lane or two will alleviate that congestion. Too much local traffic is using the highways, as evidenced by the severely peaked auto flows during rush hour in the morning and evening at the I-5 bridge.

I think people have got the wrong impression about my suggestions... almost feel like I'm about to have an angry mob remove my "Portland creds".

Way too many people commute via the freeways, but a lot of that is because:

• A disproportionate numebr of new jobs are created in Hillsoboro, Beaverton & Downtown Portland compared to the number of housing units on the east side.
• All of the side streets that feed into Portland's bridges have a very large number (relatively speaking for a commuter pathway) of lights on them, and most, with perhaps only the exception of Morrison St, are far too narrow fo rthe number of people that work downtown or on the west side.
• The transit we have is incredibly efficient but terribly inconvenient because Portland has limitted sprawl so much.

People don't seem to get this: limitting sprawl brings thigns closer together, which is generally good. But it makes transit less convenient, especially since BRT will always face the same traffic delays that one would in a car, only with the added time of stops.

I commute from Division at Mt Tabor to downtown Portland every day, using the Line 4 bus. This takes me a minimum of 35 minutes each direction, often at least 45 minutes. Which is fine, I'm willing to do that. But a lot of people aren't because even in rush hour surface traffic it only takes me 10 minutes to drive from my house to where I work.

In order to get to the MAX line, I have to travel 14 blocks on foot, grab the 71 to the MAX at 60th, then wait for the MAX. That's a 1.5 hour trip, assuming the 71 isn't running late which it almost always is.

The MAX is incredible... when I lived over on 70th & Glisan I'd walk to the MAX and I could get anywhere. But if you don't live within 15 blocks of the MAX, the billions of dollars invested in it are completely useless.

My whole point with this thread was that we need to recognize that we're leaving almost all of Southeast Portland, a lot of North East Portland, and a lot of far East Portland/Gresham without a viable reason to use transit, and also without a good solution for personal transit.

Honestly I'm more concerned about the effect congestion has on safety than on the congestion itself.

None of this will personally affect me, because I'll still be riding the 4, but to say that any roads we build will magically fill with cars that for some reason aren't already there now, and thus we should just never build roads, is about the stupidest thing I've heard in a very long time.

But then, this is Portland, and people here for one reason or another have always had real issues caring about anyone's opinion but their own. :/ Our regional politics make me shake my head... people get so angry so easily.

[cab]

Jordan I mean no disrespect, but you should take an urban planning or transportation course. Your entire premise is all over the place and totally off. I would highly suggest taking the FREE PSU/City of Portland transportation class given twice a year at PSU for PDX residents with an interest in these type of topics. I bet it will be a huge eye opener for you.

[JordanL]

Originally Posted by cab

Jordan I mean no disrespect, but you should take an urban planning or transportation course. Your entire premise is all over the place and totally off. I would highly suggest taking the FREE PSU/City of Portland transportation class given twice a year at PSU for PDX residents with an interest in these type of topics. I bet it will be a huge eye opener for you.

I am completely open to being wrong. I might take an urban planning course actually.

Would anyone be willing to take the time to explain some of it to me though?

[rsbear]

Originally Posted by JordanL

... people get so angry so easily.

You certainly made that point.

[JordanL]

Originally Posted by rsbear

You certainly made that point.

I just want someone to help me understand instead of saying "you're wrong I'm right".

[cab]

Jordon here is the site to the free class.

http://www.portlandonline.com/transp...ex.cfm?c=35727

[deasine]

Originally Posted by PacificNW

Is downtown Vancouver, B.C. still not serviced with a freeway?

No and thank god for that. Back in the late 60s and 70s (or it might be 70s and 80s, either way I wasn't there back then), there was a huge plan for freeway expansion in the Greater Vancouver area. As the city was growing, many planners and professors believed that freeway expansion was the way to fix our congestion and traffic problems in Vancouver. Transportation planners often used models such as Portland and LA.

The plan was to build a freeway from the Northshore (Hwy 1, which is the only highway that goes through Vancouver City) underground or above water to Downtown, then underground Downtown to Yaletown. Phase two of the project [sort of a vision] was to have a freeway go on Cambie street to Richmond connecting with Hwy 99.

Tunnel Option/Bridge Option


Interchange at Waterfront


I can't imagine what will happen if Vancouver continued on this freeway. We would probably not see Yaletown, Cambie-Heritage Blvd, and Gastown. Now JordanL, I understand why you think this way. As a matter of fact, when I started posting at SSP, I thought the same.


Source: US Department of Transportation Freeway expansion only solves congestion in the short-term, not in the long run.

Looking at Seattle, I-5 is heavily congested throughout the day and WSDOT continues expansion to relieve these problems. Only as of recently, they realize this isn't the way to go. Even though they continue expanding I-5, often, it's for high occupancy vehicles. When I was in Portland, I noticed congestion was horrible at many interchanges and junctions. Then I noticed that there were no priorities given to higher occupancy vehicles, for carpoolers and transit users? If there is any freeway expansion, it should only be for adding HOV lanes, and Bus Queue Jumpers. Transit and carpooling is not really an alternative to commuting if you are still stuck in the same traffic as everyone else.

Source: TANK Bus

Portland has been mainly focusing on light rail expansion for a while now. This isn't a bad thing, but it's not good either. I think Portland really needs to start a Bus Rapid Transit network and further improve their frequent transit netowkr, trying to connect as many communities and possible. It's far cheaper to have than LRT, and BRT can be easily converted to LRT should there be demand for it.

Then, there is biking! JordanL, have you ever tried to get to work with a bike before? It's magical. Portland's a national leader when it comes to biking developments, particularly with the new bike boxes and new bike routes. Many trips under 5 km can be made with biking, even trips under 10 km.

Basically, Portland needs to adapt this kind of guideline (from the greatest priority to the least)
1) Pedestrians
2) Cyclists
3) Transit
4) Goods-Movement
5) Carpooling
6) Single Occupancy Vehicles

I'm half dead right now so I don't really know what I'm typing makes sense... zzz...

[rsbear]

Great post, deasine, and thank goodness Vancouver didn't push that freeway through downtown.

[JordanL]

Originally Posted by deasine

Then, there is biking! JordanL, have you ever tried to get to work with a bike before? It's magical. Portland's a national leader when it comes to biking developments, particularly with the new bike boxes and new bike routes. Many trips under 5 km can be made with biking, even trips under 10 km.

Basically, Portland needs to adapt this kind of guideline (from the greatest priority to the least)
1) Pedestrians
2) Cyclists
3) Transit
4) Goods-Movement
5) Carpooling
6) Single Occupancy Vehicles

Yeah, biking is an improvement of about 5 minutes over the bus, but is way more refreshing.

Unfortunately we have something like 220 rainy days a year...

The times I've found it hardest to not have a vehicle, or the times I've been most frustrated with Portland's transportation, is actually when I'm going somewhere for R&R.

Getting from South Tabor to Lloyd is at least an hour. Ditto for Clackamas. Getting somewhere like Classic's Billiards on Powell and 122nd is nearly an hour as well.

And in all those cases 11:30 is the absolute latest I can start heading home. People talk about night life, but right now that night life is restricted to those who have a car or those who can afford a $300,000 condo downtown. :/

I seem to be missing something that other people know though. How does getting rid of freeways/purposely making it less convenient to own a motorized vehicle make it any less trouble to use alternate transit options? I think the freeway's are ugly, noisy and intrusive, but I don't see the alternatives people are referring to.

I stay home quite a bit right now because I don't want to spend two hours in transit for an hour and a half of R&R. How does purposely not investing in roads lower that time?

I guess that's what I'm most confused about.

[MarkDaMan]

I think Portland should really be pushing TODs. Create community centers along the line so the billions invested in creating MAX create the density needed to fully utilize the system.

[PacificNW]

Thanks for contributing to the discussion, deasine. I agree with creating TODs along the MAX lines, Mark.

[JoshYent]

Originally Posted by alexjon

We need a by-pass is all.

205 is inadequate in this regard. Give the by-pass limited access points and just let people use it to get around the city

i agree with you

there are so many available areas/options and if they did it right they could establish a few key areas that are needed on the outskirts of the metro area....theres alot of land, and if they did it right and controlled the development kind of like a ring highway either east or most likely west near forest grove then up over the mountains into st helens and over the river which would really help our coastal region develop as well.
and then back up into washington

or maybe along the columbia through longview then alight back up with I-5

this would really increase development between vancouver and longview and st.helens, this would open up all sorts of areas along the river, especially the island, and they could slowly raise the level above 100 or even 500 year flood levels.....and create an entire new area/development, this would maybe open up more ferry travel, max or an express lines could be pushed to the outlying areas and concentrate everything inside of that ring permanently.... sort of like a two state urban growth boundary...

this would allow the cities to grow together and form kind of a competition on either side of the river for both states....they could create so many jobs in close proximity to the major transportation corridors, and allow the area to compete with the seattle area...

[deasine]

Originally Posted by JordanL

Yeah, biking is an improvement of about 5 minutes over the bus, but is way more refreshing.

Unfortunately we have something like 220 rainy days a year...

See that's the problem. Everyone uses rain as an excuse, which really isn't the best one. The one I would accept is... that there isn't enough (or any at all) biking infrastructure.

If someone can throw me a few bike stats in Portland, that would be nice =P

Vancouver has the same climate as Portland, yet Vancouver has at least 5% of all trips made within the city made by bikers. This number significantly drops to 1-2% within the Metro Vancouver however. And the main reason for that is the lack of biking infrastructure.

There are many European cities that are just as rainy as Portland and Vancouver, yet they achieve a substantial number of bikers:

1) Netherlands - 27% of all trips made by bike
2) Denmark - 18% of all trips made by bike
3) Finland - 11% of all trips made by bike

(These statistics are based on a powerpoint presentation by John Pucher, a professor of urban design and development)

Mind you, these stastics are a few years old, so these numbers have increased significantly by today.

And why were they able to achieve such high numbers? It's because they made so many new biking developments. Back in 1970s, European cities were exactly like North American cities today. There were many lanes on a road just for cars. Because of the congestion, they decided to take a smarter approach. They began creating bike-only lanes and continued from there.

Now, I can tell you that bikers have priorities over cars. Many intersections have bike boxes, similar to the ones in Portland, just triple the size. Then there are bike signals, that give the green light to the bikers before cars. And the most impressive thing is that they have sensors that calculate the speed of the bikes giving bikers a "green wave" to bikes.

I believe Denmark has taken a bigger step: there is a smartcar equipped with sensors that detect potential pot holes.

Now, of course I'm not saying we need all of that and we shouldn't expect bikes to be roaming our cities overnight. But why shouldn't we start today? Portland has already introduced bike boxes and has a few bike lanes running around the city.

First, we need more bike lanes of course. But then that's also not enough. Often, bike lanes on the road still deter many from biking: it's still not very safe. Alright then, how about raised bike lanes?


My Image

Here's one that is being constructed in Vancouver right now. We only have one, but in Europe: holy cow. Many.

We want to make biking easy for everyone, not just for extreme bikers. Raised bike lanes are a crucial step. Just think of it this way: bike lanes should be an extension of the sidewalk, not an expansion of a road.

The other way is making side streets great for bikers, which is actually Vancouver's approach. We don't usually see bike lanes on arterial streets, but instead, made bike priorities on side streets near arterials. Traffic calming measures such as traffic circles, "false dead ends", and narrower streets help.

Example of a "false dead end":
Edit: I couldn't find a good example of one. But basically the road "ends" at an intersection but bikes can continue through.

Example of a Narrower Street:

Source: Flickr

Notice only one vehicle can get through the street without entering other lanes? But bikers don't have this problem.

Well hmm, alright we got our bike lanes but where are we going to park them? Simple. Have bike lockers or bike racks. You can even take away one parking space and be able to fit 10 bikes.

Originally Posted by JordanL

I seem to be missing something that other people know though. How does getting rid of freeways/purposely making it less convenient to own a motorized vehicle make it any less trouble to use alternate transit options? I think the freeway's are ugly, noisy and intrusive, but I don't see the alternatives people are referring to.

I'm only naming a few solutions. But if you don't outline basic infrastruture for biking, how can you make it an attractive option? It's the same formula for public transportation, if you don't have the infrastructure for public transportation, there is no way you can would achieve high commuting numbers.

It's a little harder in the Unities States because people are just so used to their cars. This is why we need to try even more to get people out of their cars, and get them into buses, trains, and bikes.

Originally Posted by MarkDaMan

I think Portland should really be pushing TODs. Create community centers along the line so the billions invested in creating MAX create the density needed to fully utilize the system.

Yes, yes, and yes! Hong Kong's MTR is incredibly sucessful because of this. The MTRC really played in the real estate, and they would sell land or build apartments and offices right on top of the MTR station or areas around it.

TransLink (Vancouver) is finally doing such a thing. They realized they own a lot of land that can be sold for developers.

Please note: I'm still learning about all of this, and I haven't been in enough places so I can only use Vancouver as an example. But I know Vancouver too has a lot to learn. If you ever got a chance, go look at John Pucher's presentations: http://policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/pucher/. I learned a lot when I attended his presentation and the Vancouver regional bike strategy plan.

[westsider]

Originally Posted by JoshYent

i agree with you

there are so many available areas/options and if they did it right they could establish a few key areas that are needed on the outskirts of the metro area....theres alot of land, and if they did it right and controlled the development kind of like a ring highway either east or most likely west near forest grove then up over the mountains into st helens and over the river which would really help our coastal region develop as well.
and then back up into washington

or maybe along the columbia through longview then alight back up with I-5

this would really increase development between vancouver and longview and st.helens, this would open up all sorts of areas along the river, especially the island, and they could slowly raise the level above 100 or even 500 year flood levels.....and create an entire new area/development, this would maybe open up more ferry travel, max or an express lines could be pushed to the outlying areas and concentrate everything inside of that ring permanently.... sort of like a two state urban growth boundary...

this would allow the cities to grow together and form kind of a competition on either side of the river for both states....they could create so many jobs in close proximity to the major transportation corridors, and allow the area to compete with the seattle area...

If this is not tongue in cheek, its the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Sorry to sound harsh, but read that over again and try to see how your idea could do anything but destroy the west side and columbia county.

[RED_PDXer]

Originally Posted by JordanL

I seem to be missing something that other people know though. How does getting rid of freeways/purposely making it less convenient to own a motorized vehicle make it any less trouble to use alternate transit options? I think the freeway's are ugly, noisy and intrusive, but I don't see the alternatives people are referring to.

Limiting sprawl makes taking transit much easier. That's a no-brainer. Instead of riding Line 4 from the equivalent of Mt. Hood, you're riding it from Mt. Tabor (a 60+ mile commute is not unusual in LA or other sprawled places). It takes you 30-40 minutes to get to work as opposed to 2 hours like it would in LA. A local bus is always going to be slow, but only taking it 3 miles as opposed to 60 miles makes it tolerable. Taking transit to/from downtown is feasible for just about everywhere in this region on regional transit. It takes about 1 hour at most from Gresham or Hillsboro to downtown Portland if taking MAX. On the other hand, if there were freeways on every corridor, neighborhoods would be disconnected from their main streets, small businesses would be less likely to thrive from local consumers, walking to your destination or to transit would be more cumbersome, biking would probably be considered far too unsafe for 99.9% of the population, and vast parking lots would be the most dominate image of our region. I won't even go into the environmental effects of those actions.

Of course it'd be nice to travel more quickly on transit than riding a bus in mixed traffic, but that requires more density and more transit ridership to justify that level of investment. We're investing in more MAX lines on certain corridors where the right of way and opportunity for TODs are more conducive to regional transit, but we're never gonna have regional transit lines on every corridor.

It seems like you're gripe is with the adequacy of our transit system, which is totally justified from where you are on Division near Mt. Tabor. I think there's a huge demand for transit connections between the whole of SE Portland and N/NE Portland and there's currently no easy way to serve that demand. For one thing, there are few streets that directly provide that type of trip. Transferring once or twice is necessary for most "suburb to suburb" trips at this point, but it doesn't haven't be in the future. We can invest in better transit, and use it more frequently.

In summary, there are two things going on here.. personal decisions and level of investment in non-auto infrastructure. If you really want a quick trip into downtown for work or otherwise, you could live close to a MAX station (like I purposely did) or close-in on a bus line. If you want a quick trip to work in general, you could move closer to work (for some people that's Wilsonville, Hillsboro or wherever those human factories are located). Most people have a choice and until recently, the decision to reduce the commute distance or locate near transit hasn't even registered for the majority of the population. Secondly, there needs to be more investment in "other" ways for people to get around to reduce the harmful side effects of "too much" driving and automobile dependence. This means better bike facilities, more intelligent transportation systems for transit (traffic signal coordination with buses), bus-only lanes, more MAX lines, more buses, etc. However, to justify spending more on transit and other modes, we need more people making personal decisions in support of these modes such as choosing to live in higher density housing near work/transit connections, commuting by bus, MAX or bike, walking to your neighborhood store instead of driving to a big box store 6 miles away, etc...

I can't spend all day speaking to the ill-effects of auto-dependence and sprawl, but hopefully this is step toward that understanding.

[alexjon]

2006 Bike Usage: 4.4%
2007 Bike Usage: 6%

[JordanL]

Originally Posted by RED_PDXer

Of course it'd be nice to travel more quickly on transit than riding a bus in mixed traffic, but that requires more density and more transit ridership to justify that level of investment. We're investing in more MAX lines on certain corridors where the right of way and opportunity for TODs are more conducive to regional transit, but we're never gonna have regional transit lines on every corridor.

It seems like you're gripe is with the adequacy of our transit system, which is totally justified from where you are on Division near Mt. Tabor. I think there's a huge demand for transit connections between the whole of SE Portland and N/NE Portland and there's currently no easy way to serve that demand. For one thing, there are few streets that directly provide that type of trip. Transferring once or twice is necessary for most "suburb to suburb" trips at this point, but it doesn't haven't be in the future. We can invest in better transit, and use it more frequently.

In summary, there are two things going on here.. personal decisions and level of investment in non-auto infrastructure. If you really want a quick trip into downtown for work or otherwise, you could live close to a MAX station (like I purposely did) or close-in on a bus line. If you want a quick trip to work in general, you could move closer to work (for some people that's Wilsonville, Hillsboro or wherever those human factories are located). Most people have a choice and until recently, the decision to reduce the commute distance or locate near transit hasn't even registered for the majority of the population. Secondly, there needs to be more investment in "other" ways for people to get around to reduce the harmful side effects of "too much" driving and automobile dependence. This means better bike facilities, more intelligent transportation systems for transit (traffic signal coordination with buses), bus-only lanes, more MAX lines, more buses, etc. However, to justify spending more on transit and other modes, we need more people making personal decisions in support of these modes such as choosing to live in higher density housing near work/transit connections, commuting by bus, MAX or bike, walking to your neighborhood store instead of driving to a big box store 6 miles away, etc...

I can't spend all day speaking to the ill-effects of auto-dependence and sprawl, but hopefully this is step toward that understanding.

I actually considered these things when I chose this location to live. Unfortunately this is as close to town as I could get where I could still afford more than a cardboard box.

I also couldn't have moved to the west side because most of the people I visit, including all of my family, are on the east side. From where I am it's already a 45 minute ride and two transfers to get to my sisters house at 102nd and Halsey.

It would have been at least three transfers and an hour and a half from the west side.

I suppose that chosing a more accessible location would be something that people could pay more attention to if the $/sq.ft. didn't get completely rediculous close to city center.

Thank you for the reply though, that actually did go in to a lot more detail on the things I was confused about.

It does seem to be a self-feeding cycle. In that sense, investment in public transit would have to be the bitter pill that is horribly inefficient for a while. I certainly don't want Portland to be like LA, and I can sorta see why people went nuts when I asked abotu adding one lane at the Rose Garden.

I still think that needs to happen, but it should definitely be part of a larger effort to minimize the impact of highways. The tunnel concept seemed the best asthetically... but it also sounds really expensive. The east bank south of the Burnside bridge is just so ugly and noisy... it'd be nice if they could bury that all.

Anyway, thanks for the reply, it was certainly enlightening. (And despite my gripes with it, I have been planning on biking most places I go.)