Maybe it is time to cut off subsidies to developers like in the Pearl district where the city paid for the infrastructure and the SoWhat where we are about to put in $250 million (approx official number) to $1 billion (more likely) to support developemnt.

Instead, lets force the developes to pay all costs: They Build the roads and connect to the existing roads. They pay to increase capacity of nearby roads as required. (gas tax from residents will pay to ukkeep and upgrade over time) They light the roads They put in sewers and hook them to existing city lines. They pay a bit towards the eventual expansion of the sewer processing pland. Same for water Electric & phone is private industry's problem - let them fight it out.

As to the cost of housing - we could cut the cost by 1/3 or more by ending the artificial shortage of land. (Land rationing just raises land costs.)

As to our roads: There is a simple solution. Promise to use all user tax money to build capacity instead of frills like bubble curbs, overly wide sidewalks, boulivards, streetscapes and bike lanes (bikers should pay for their lanes like cars pay for the roads). Once the promise is in place, a tax increase to pay for long neglected improvments, becomes a easier (not easy) sell. As long as gas taxes are wasted on frills, increase will be vigrously opposed by many factions. (I proposed the above to one PDOT head and he said no thanks - he wanted his frills or we could all suffer in gridlock)

I'll leave other elements to those more knowledgable in those fields.

Thanks JK

We now have an epidemic of overcrowded neighborhoods and cities, congested highways and roads, 3 billion gallons a year dumped into the Willamette by Portland, commerce mobility choked by congestion, shortage of affordable housing, shortage of land for growth, industry and jobs all consequences of the failure to plan for growth.

While spending more on planning than ever before.

The problem is the theoretical world of blind planning where concepts such as SoWa have no plans for any of the effects of spending hundreds of millions promoting high density.

It's all pretending to be something it is not.

Every day as more and more people witness daily the strain on livability and basic services the projects and spending grows in size and illegitimacy.

The upcoming Transit Mall will be a boondoggle proportionately similar to the Big Dig in Boston. And of course it is being promoted and advanced with the same disingenuous methods as the Tram.

Even bike/rail/transit advocates find it a waste.

"""However it is disingenuous to claim that the proposed Mall Light Rail Project will accomplish these results."""" ://portlandtransport.com/archives/2006/01/buses_trains_an.html#comments

Russell appears to have little interest in or understanding of how much money is actually being spent on the failed plans we are being forced to continue funding.

I'm having a hard time understanding the objective of the original post is besides stating the obvious: Growth happens and in the Northwest we haven't done a good job of dealing with it. This just raises the real question: And????

Also the failure to deal with the inevitable is an independent issue from the kind of "planned development" one of the posters mentions, which has little to do with dealing with real problems of growth and all to do with obnoxiously self-involved types thinking the community is a canvas for their own self-indulgence. And on top of it, they managed to do it very, very badly. Which is the real reason we got Measure 37.

No candidate running for governor or the Legislature is talking about it The real question we should be asking ourselves is, but it's not clear the author or the commentators so far care to ask it, is: Why? This is a question about the competence of candidates for elected office mainly to the extent that it is about us as an electorate since we choose the electeds.

As in the famous Pogo comic: "We has met the enemy, and he is us". To the extent things we feel government isn't working, it is "We the People" who have failed. Unfortunately, raising doubts about our electeds without questioning our collective culpability (and this doesn't mean everybody else) really is a failure to take responsibility.

""""Bitch, bitch, bitch! All this "wasteful" planning has helped Portland avoid most of the pitfalls befalling other major US cities."""

Has it? Hardly. Just the opposite. While pretending do so our planning is bringing us chaos on all fronts.

The Big Pipe will Not stop the spills.

It's patently ridiculous to claim that Portland has planned for growth.

Far beyond the "tradeoffs and difficulties" you diminish the detriments of no plan planning, the absence of plans for anything promises to hobble our transportation system, housing, industry, jobs and out economy for decades to come.
Genuine planning would include policies to be used to provide the needs of growth. For the most part we have none while Metro blindly moves forward with more of the same.

No where in the country has there been more imaginary growth planning than Portland.

Perhaps those who view the imaginary plans as real can simply describe for me the plan for traffic congestion or any other outcome of growth. Any. Punting away reality with slogan speak such as "Building roads ATTRACTS congestion" is the means to more imaginary progress.

Claiming road capacity increases induce more use is as foolish as saying building more schools causes student population growth.

Six years ago this was Metro Executive Mike Burton's opinion of transportation planning by Metro.

"Traffic congestion is bad and getting worse. It is a nightmare for commuters and it is choking freight mobility. There is no more clear illustration of our inability to meet growth needs than our failure to address our transportation needs. Within the transportation arena we are facing utter chaos."

From Metro head, Mike Burton's State of the Region Speech, 2000

Russell is right about one thing: tax limitation initiatives have reduced state & local government's flexibility and autonomy to deal with costs. Many would argue that is a good thing because it also reduces government's flexibility to have bloated bureaucracies and corrupt dealings.

Unfortunately, this hasn't been the case. Cities bloat their bureaucracies, then cut some popular service such as libraries and ask the voters to support tax increases for those services. This suggests that we haven't finished the job of curtailing government's ability to spend money. Something like Colorado's Taxpayers' Bill of Rights (TABOR), which limits budgetary growth to inflation plus population growth, would seem to be called for.

Russell is wrong to tie this into growth. Growth is a completely separate issue and the costs of growth have historically all been paid by the growth itself. Oregon's problem is that bureaucracies got bloated during the boom years of the 1990s, when tax bracket creep increased government revenues per capita. Then, when the boom ended, every bureaucracy expects to keep on growing and no money is there for it. Again, this suggests the need for TABOR.

The voters of Colorado have spoken: Something like Colorado's Taxpayers' Bill of Rights (TABOR), which limits budgetary growth to inflation plus population growth, would seem to be called for.

Now, if Oregon spending limit advocates would say something like " We believe so strongly in a spending limit that we have posted our proposed detailed cuts on this website {or printed the list which is available at...") that would be one thing. But they must be specific enough to debate and not generalized "cut waste in the.... program". Dollar amounts would be good---to eliminate the suspicion that, for instance, 1.8 million dollars worth of cuts are proposed to fill a $2 million shortfall.

Budgets are written by line items. Our legislature has proven that they don't want open public discussions on cutting budgets, it is all a power game. So vague spending limits proponents must show they are willing to openly and publicly debate the details.

Should there be statewide health insurance for school (or other public employees) as a way to save money?

How many public employees make the Governor's salary or higher and why? Should there be a cap on what legislative leadership is allowed to pay their staff members? If unionized school employees or any other public employees are to have their pay capped, what about administrative salaries? Or should administrators be paid whatever the market will bear?

Are all tax breaks engraved in marble forever or is it time to openly debate each and every one and see which deliver value for the dollar?

Has contracting/privatizing always been a better deal in every sector of Oregon spending than having public employees do the same thing?

Why do we have the corporate kicker when much of that money goes out of state?

A debate like that would be good for Oregon. But that is not what we have seen in recent years. We have seen games played with budgets and anyone who asked serious detailed questions was dismissed as "pro-tax" as if no further discussion was necessary.

There were even those who suggested the common good was socialist or something. They need to be reminded that the Preamble to the Oregon Constitution says "that justice be established and order maintained". In what way does cutting the public safety budgets in this state (esp. in order to "return money to the taxpayers") satisfy that requirement in the Constitution?

If the spending limit people think businesses and well to do individuals deserve to get their tax money back and it would be better to see things fall apart than to go above a spending limit, they should come out and say so. But in 2006 reality that could mean "sorry that you home slid down the hillside, but we can't afford to fix it because of the spending limit" (or as we saw with the Measure 28 cuts, laying off of public safety employees and people not getting the medicine they depended on because of budget cuts). If the spending limit people want to tell us that no Oregonian has the right to health care they cannot personally afford, they should say so publicly. Then we the people could debate that premise.

I am a prosecutor's granddaughter and an accountant's daughter. I am tired of hearing that those of us who ask spending limit advocates to "do their homework" and list the specific line item cuts they support are "liberal, wasteful pro-taxers" or some such rot.

I think it is long past time for public debate of line items in the state budget. I will not support any "we need a spending limit but don't ask us to discuss details" proposal. It sounds like ideology is supposed to trump practicality.

Not to mention that everyday life is full of details and the ideologues who promote spending limit proposals are notorious for claiming that details don't matter.

One of the kindest things people can do to curb the population explosion and sustain the resources of our planet is to have fewer babies. That may seem radical but the overpopulation problem and its effect on our planet extends far beyond Oregon.

Russ, now this is what I call "rewriting history". It isn't even good fiction.

Russell is wrong to tie this into growth. Growth is a completely separate issue and the costs of growth have historically all been paid by the growth itself.

This is an outrageous misrepresentation of the history of growth. It has never paid for itself. New services for new residents have always cost more since the frontier was settled. But for a long time people saw new services as progress. Public schools with shop classes, gymnasiums, auditoriums, swimming pools, bands, orchestras, sports teams and college prep courses were ways to provide greater opportunities and a better life for their children.

Growth did bring the possibility of those things as more people could share the costs of such programs and facilities. But the fact is it was always more expensive to extend existing services to new residents than it is cost to pay for the existing level of service. Once existing infrastructure is tapped out, growth requires new infrastructure just to maintain the current level of services. And new infrastructure simply costs more than maintaining the current infrastucture.

But there is more to the libertarian argument for tax limitations. The basic argument is that democratic decisions to tax people to pay for services the majority want is "stealing" from people. You can hear that argument in the response to Maryland's tax on Walmart to pay for their employees health care.

The goal of tax limitations like Measure 5 and Measuer 49 is to frustrate any effective role for government. The inability of citizens to use democratic processes to correct problems with poor education, jails with no money to operate them, closed swimming pools, faulty bridges, etc is then used as evidence that government cannot be a force for progressive social change.

There continues to be good reasons for taxing people to pay for the kinds of services we want and to have the kind of community we want to live in. We can just let growth happen with no green spaces, schools, roads, public water or sewer, fire stations, libraries or other public infrastructure. Eventually the new development will stop of its own accord, when no one wants to live in Oregon anymore.

What surprises me is the people who spent almost there entire lives at the public trough, either directly in tax-supported institutions or indirectly in taxpayer-subsidized think tanks, will still make these arguments against government.

Russ Williams wrote:

Russell is wrong to tie this into growth. Growth is a completely separate issue and the costs of growth have historically all been paid by the growth itself.

This is an outrageous misrepresentation of the history of growth. It has never paid for itself. New services for new residents have always cost more since the frontier was settled ...

Growth did bring the possibility of those things as more people could share the costs of such programs and facilities.

This is one of those arguments that almost sounds correct, but lacks some key facts that make it impossible to determine if it actually is true. And the devil is in the details.

Russ acknowledges the amortization side of the argument. Simply put, spreading the cost over more people makes the cost of infrastructure more affordable to the community as a whole.

However, he make the common mistake of ignoring the multiplier effect of economic activity as growth occurs. That multiplier effect actually results in higher potential tax revenues per capita.

Without seeing total balance sheet in a particular case, it is pretty just BS'ing to make arguments one way or the other about whether growth pays for itself.

To pick up another theme I made earlier, across the political spectrum folks really aren't interested in doing the hard work learning the technical details before they make political decisions. That ain't the fault of the politicians. And talking about the balance sheet is different from challenging anti-tax cutters to name the programs they would cut, or criticizing those would pay for infrastructure as tax-and-spenders. All sides are equally guilty of not wanting to do the heavy lifting intellectually and would much rather score political points rather than actually discuss the balance sheet.

Ross Williams is correct. Randal O'Toole is incorrect. Growth has not paid for itself. Rather, it depends on subsides from taxpayers in genreal, who then get to put up with crowded transportation and schools as well as degraded air and water.

I would not be in favor of increasing state revenue for the purpose of supporting growth, predicted or otherwise. I would be in favor of increased state revenue to provide services to our existing population.

Tom - On what factual basis (please cite sources, including jurisdictional tax revenues, capital infrastructure costs, etc.) do you make the sweeping generalization?

Ross Williams is correct. Randal O'Toole is incorrect. Growth has not paid for itself.

You all should go live in some bunker in Montana to get away from all this "growth" and the unpleasantness that would bring.

ask,

Before I go looking for reports, I'll reference the public school situation here in Oregon, one that is replicated in many states. Districts are not allowed to levy SDCs for capital improvement. Here in North Clackamas school District we passed a levy that built a new high school in the Sunnyside [high growth] area about five years ago. Now the district is asking for another bond levy, which will pay for more new classrooms in the same area. This is not a case of unnecessary building. The schools are full. Of course, if the levy does not pass, all schools, not only the ones attended by new inhabitants, will be overcrowded.

Senator Schrader has been pushing for school SDCs in the legislature, but has been thwarted by developer lobbying and Republican anti-government rhetoric.

pdx guy,

Oregon or Montana, the subsidization of growth is universal. This is leading us all in a nonsustainable direction that will be most inconvenient when resource scarcity makes suburban life untenable. The negative effects of this will be felt even by those living in rural bunkers, as we are all sharing an economy. Of course, those living in the broken-down sprawled-out cities will suffer the most.

Why would you want to build new schools? They will just fill up.

paulie said """" The debate over too much planning for growth, invisable planning, not enough planning seems to ignore the greater issue Mr. Sadler was making. In 20 years Oregon's population will double.""""""""""

Oh contrare. The central point in all of this, IMO, is to recognize the past 20 years did a horrible job of planning and accommodating growth, in every arena. An approach which remains no more than unworkable theory.

It is quite evident that unless something changes we will be getting more of the same. Commuter rail, light rail, transit mall, convention center hotel, open space set asides and more urban renewal for developers. Instead of the Sunrise corridor, I-5/99 connector, Dundee-Newberg bypass, new Columbia Crossing, long needed progress on the widespread deferred infrastructure maintenance and stabilizing of basic services budgets.

Question: Commuter rail, light rail, transit mall, convention center hotel, open space set asides and more urban renewal for developers.

Every year there are newly married couples settling down in Oregon. Suppose one such couple settles in Washington County because one works in Washington County and the other works in downtown Portland. Should closeness to MAX not enter into their housing decision because all good people should always drive to work?

Complaints about light rail seem to ignore such a couple. This happens to be a couple I know. They have spent several months with just one car (instead of immediately replacing an old car--and thus saving some money) because the one working in Portland takes MAX to work.

I realize some think that building roads (as in "Sunrise corridor, I-5/99 connector, Dundee-Newberg bypass, new Columbia Crossing" ) is better than having light rail. But can there ever be enough roads for all who commute across county lines to work?

Is it practical to say every Oregonian should drive to work (cars on highways, parking needed in places like downtown Portland)? Is this an anti-light rail / anti-mass transit ideology?

Marion County provides bus passes to people who have jury duty because of the problems parking downtown. Is that somehow wrong because there shouldn't be bus service or because jurors who live on a bus line should drive to jury duty anyway?

Maybe it is because I was born in a big city, but I don't see the value of an ideology of rejecting mass transit.

""""""Maybe it is because I was born in a big city, but I don't see the value of an ideology of rejecting mass transit.""""""""""

Maybe it's because have yet to pick up the gist of the discussion or debate on our land use and transportation problems.

Where do yo get the "ideology of rejecting mass transit"?

Is it just easier for you to argue a notion that doesn't exist?

Mass transit has it's uses which would be far more efficient while serving more people around here if we were not wasting billions on rail to serve the very few.

t.a. It isn't an "unbelievably selfishness conservative movement" that is screwing up our region. It's the crazy planning theories about what our communities need or don't need and what will or will not accommodate growth.

"""it's still the best and most livable city of its size in the nation"""" Livability around here has been in decline for 20 years. All the reasons the Portland area continues to be a fine locale are those that existed before Metro's 2040 plan, infill, the UGB, light rail or Urban Renewal for developers.

Or is it you belief that Cascade Station, the Beaverton Round and the rest of the TOD's and high density are making the area swell?

The solution for growth is to put people where the services already exist. That would be the existing cities. Infill development can accommodate all of the projected growth in the state over the next couple of decades. Portland and the other major cities of the state were built to handle much larger populations than they currently have. Within the existing city limits of Portland, the city fathers projected a population of well over a million, by building it out along the lines of Paris. Thus the broad boulevards, the extensive park system, the wide thoroughfares. Now is the time to construct more in-fill development to meet this dream. More people living in Portland (and other cities in Oregon) will mean a larger market for services... so more amenities will become available to the average resident, within the same walking distance. I like more amenities. I like more restaurants, grocery stores, cafes, movie theaters, hardware stores, etc. within walking distance of my house. I also like higher frequency transit service, and higher quality transit services than the bus -- streetcars, trams and light rail are all services that I would love to live near and use on a daily basis.

So, I would embrace the coming growth, and look for ways to use it as a tool to enhance our existing communities, while continuing to honor our commitment to preserve the farmland, forestland and rural heritage of the state.

P.S. Gee, Randall O'Tools thinks we should not spend any more public money to that we can cut taxes. Oh, and sprawl is good, cars are good, light rail is bad, and planning is bad. What's new? Randall, go get a clue -- you belong in L.A., not Portland. Maybe down there, people will believe your B.S. Randall, go home. Stop being such an o'TOOL for the car and sprawl industries.

"Livability around here has been in decline for 20 years."

I don't think that is true. Although you can make the argument Portland was more livable with fewer people. I think you would find a lot of people, however, who remember the early 80's as a very difficult time to find a job. They welcome the fact that people want to move to Portland instead of moving away.

"ll the reasons the Portland area continues to be a fine locale are those that existed before Metro's 2040 plan, infill, the UGB, light rail or Urban Renewal for developers."

There may be some truth in this. We were able to preserve much of what makes Portland special because we provided alternatives to the typical growth pattern elsewhere in the country. I don't think Portland would be more livable if development ran along freeways halfway to Hood River, Astoria, Cannon Beach and Tillamook and continuously all the way to Welches, Eugene and McMinnville. I'm not sure whether opponents of the UGB don't think that's what would happen or don't think it would be so bad.

Would Portland really be better off with a freeway running along Division all the way to Gresham? That was the plan that light rail replaced.

Would Portland be better off with empty wharehouses north of Burnside instead of the Pearl? I don't really think it would be, much as I think we wasted a lot of money even after the Pearl was booming on its own.

Would we be better off with a belt freeway with outlet malls and gas stations running through Washington County instead of wineries and farms. I don't think so.

Would Portland be better off if wide stretches of the Tualatin were inaccessible because no one had purchased access points? Would it be better off if no one protected Smith and Bybee Lakes? If there was no effort underway to purchase green spaces? Would it be better off without the Springwater Trail, and the trails along the Willamette?

Would Portland be better off without its library system. Would it be more livable?

Its hard for me to figure out what livable means when you take away all the things that public investment have brought to Portland. There is no doubt mistakes have been made - the Rose Quarter is a disaster largely because no one insisted on a pedestrian friendly urban developement. The result was a standard schlock freeway development flopped down next to a light rail station. But those aren't the complaints we are hearing. We are hearing complaints about the stuff that worked. Including the Beaverton Round.

"Randall, go get a clue -- you belong in L.A."

Last I heard, Randall was living in, or near, Coos Bay where he can drive to his heart's content without having to deal with light rail. Before that I think he lived in unincorportated Clackamas County, Madison, Wisconsin and Eugene. You notice a pattern there? Randall is not really interested in urban living. That may explain his opposition to the UGB.

O'Toole is wrong. Growth is problematic, and it seldom pays for itself. What you want is development, not growth. There's a difference. Portland is doing pretty well at developing instead of simply growing, building muscle and connective tissue instead of fat.

And Ross Williams is right about O'Toole. I think he's just fundmentally anti-city. Or a big-time golfer. Or both. Probably why he lives in Bandon.

It's true that dense cities can more easily approach sustainability than can suburbs, but so can tightly constructed small towns and villages. Afterall, besides on farms, that's how most people lived before fossil fuel made transportation cheap, a situation that is about to come to an end.

To the extent that growth happens as increased urban density, making mass transport more efficient, it may not increase per capita energy consumption. That is not what is happening outside the urban core, inside the UGB or not. Current development in Clackamas County is not going to work without automobiles, and will not work when energy becomes substantially more expensive. We will be left with blighted suburbs, as we were left with blighted urban cores. Expensive energy will mean our development mistakes will not be easily correctable. We will have f* ourselves, plain and simple.

If one considers the likely near future, the responsible path is to build local economy and end subsidies for growth. Subsidies should be offered only when they lead to closer-to-sustainable economy and support quality of life.

so can tightly constructed small towns and villages.

I am not sure this is true. Most small towns have limited services and people travel distances for more specific needs. And many small towns have the same sprawling development on their edges as large cities, just not at the same scale. And because small towns don't usually have much public transportation, people are often even more auto-dependent than they are in the suburbs. There is a tendency to romantacize small town life. Its no more naturally sustainable than large cities or suburbs. In fact, the challenge of the next decade may be how to adapt the lessons we have learned about building livable cities to smaller communities. As the baby boomers retire I think we are going to see more and more of them moving to smaller communities with cheaper housing and less traffic.

Well you just bolstered my point that we may likely be repeating the last 20 years.

The reckless over crowding of our cities and failure to accommodate growth is the real world around here. The theoretical world you embrace only works in your minds.

That's why you never describe the plan for traffic congestion or any other effects of growth. You just repeat the theories and concepts.

Mass transit has it's uses which would be far more efficient while serving more people around here if we were not wasting billions on rail to serve the very few.

So, you are saying that when MAX takes people living in Washington County to and from work downtown that the people living in Washington County always find a place to sit and never have to stand because the trains run empty?

And that if anyone reading this blog called someone they know who does such a commute, the person they know would tell them the trains are never full?

Define " the very few ".

To clarify, I think growth is good but mindless sprawl is bad.

The Portland area needs sensible growth. That brings diversity, both social and economic.

Ever notice that the "blue" areas in the country are usually the urban diverse regions, with some exceptions?

"That's why you never describe the plan for traffic congestion or any other effects of growth."

No goes to Portland any more, its too crowded.

with apologies to Yogi Berra

"That's why you never describe the plan for traffic congestion or any other effects of growth."

No one goes to Portland any more, its too crowded.

with apologies to Yogi Berra

Ross,

As life is lived now, it may be that small town inhabitants do a lot of driving in search of goods and services. That is a quaisi-suburban lifestyle made possible by cheap fuel. The important difference is that small towns and villages can support sustainable economy, while most suburbs cannot. For the most part, the types of communities that worked before the industrial revolution are the one that will work post-fossil fuel.

We are thinking shortsightedly if we consider future development as an extension of past development. A new paradigm will emerge, whether we like it or not. Getting ahead of the curve is the essence of good planning.

Steve schopp and friends are so obsessed by their dislike of public planning that their comments become trivial. Of course there have been planning failures. All human endeavor is imperfect. Abandoning planning because of this is like abandoning eating because it sometimes leads to indigestion.

The important difference is that small towns and villages can support sustainable economy, while most suburbs cannot.

I don't see the distinction. There is no doubt that large centralized services for many things will no longer be sustainable without fossil fuel vehicles, but I don't see a lot of advantages for sparcely settled small towns over more densely settled suburbs. In fact, the dispersed neighborhoods that small towns represent are likely to have more difficulty sustaining themselves than neighborhoods that are in close proximity to one another.

""""Steve Schopp and friends are so obsessed by their dislike of public planning""""""

Who's obsessed? You and yours wrote the book with your obsession with theories that are perpetually unsubstantiated. You cast out these crazy claims which emanate from anything but measuring the track record around here. In fact you hide, along with the bad and blind planning crowd around here, from the mess you create.

You respond to none of the failures while calling for more of the same.

Then you provide yourself cover by pretending the only alternative to the chaos planning is "abandoning planning" planning altogether. That I, in my irrational anti-planning hate am advocating zero planning.

Sound and responsible planning is desperately needed around here.

What you bring is the essence of irresponsibility and a reckless neglect of outcome and basic needs.

The failures are massive and you apparently see no value in either qualifying or acknowledging any of them.

The mental gymnastics which bellow out the theoretical advantages of the (not-really-planning) planning around here would be funny if it were not so detrimental.

Ross Williams and friends over at www.Portlandtransport.com show no respect for any fundamental needs of growth at all.

Their bizarre discussions, like yours, never analyze the detrimental outcomes of the extremely disproportionate emphasis on bike/ped/transit. While they talk of balance and choices their extreme emphasis is adversely effecting goods, services, commerce, commuters, industry, jobs, housing affordability and overall livability.

The ease at which you all simply punt away all consideration for these vital components (with your distorted vision of the future) is societal maleficence.

As you continue your betrayal of the common good, as evidenced with the Tram, SoWa, Transit Mall, convention center hotel, Cascade Station, Beaverton Round, TOD's, light rail and near criminal abuse of Urban Renewal, more and more people are witnessing the costly mess which you represent.

"Abandon planning"? No.

Start planning.

Sound and responsible planning is desperately needed around here.

I agree.

Ross,

Tightly constructed small towns and villages, which is what I wrote, are like the walkable neighborhoods tat urban planners extol. They have housing within walkable distance of important supplies and services. They can exist without autos, as they did pre-nineteenth century.

Suburbs usually have acres of housing away from shopping and services. Walking is not an option for those without lots of time and sound constitutions.

Steve,

I apologize if you are not obsessed with a dislike of public planning. I certainly agree that the OHSU tram and much PDC development are mistakes. I don't see how that is really to the point of how to deal with growth and how to pay for it, which is what Russell wrote about. I don't agree with your distaste for the rail and bike transportation efforts in the metro area, but that too is another subject.

Tom -

I think you would find most small towns are now as sprawling as any suburb. Milwaukie is a good example. It is both a small town and a suburb. I think it will be easier for Milwaukie or Beaverton or Tigard to shift to a model of compact development with services close by than it will be for McMinnville or Newberg or Estacada. They all will have the advantage of transit systems, something the isolated small towns just don't support. They can share some services with other close by communities and neighborhoods, where the isolated small towns can't. While the ideal small town is compact with stores downtown that people can walk to. The reality is that most services are now out next to the Walmart or Fred Meyers or Pamida or Kohls on the edge of town.

I think it will be easier for Milwaukie or Beaverton or Tigard to shift to a model of compact development...

Ross, I can't disagree with you more. I live in the city of Beaverton and am able to walk to many amenities near my home. However, not everyone, even in my small neighborhood, are willing or able to walk that far. People choose to drive. They want to drive. And if it wasn't for Metro's screwed-up transportation plan, it would be easier to drive. They don't want to live in a compact development or take mass transit.

Why do people at Metro think they can just force people into their vision of the perfect lifestyle? Talk about fascism.

Tom,

Didn't the bulk of the population in the nineteenth century live on farms and take their "cars" (horses) into town?

Why do people at Metro think they can just force people into their vision of the perfect lifestyle? Talk about fascism.

Chris, if you read the entire exchange the question was what would happen when we ran out of fossil fuel and people had to walk. Metro has nothing to do with it.

if it wasn't for Metro's screwed-up transportation plan, it would be easier to drive.

I couldn't agree more. The continued reliance on freeways and chasing congestion has guaranteed we will have too many cars in one place at one time. The development along Highay 217 is a great example. How can you expect there not to be congestion when the places people are going are all in the same place and you have to drive through that place to get anywhere else?

The discussion of what to do about Highway 217 was all focused on people taking trips past Washington Square and Beaverton when it should have been focused on how to help people get into those places. Metro keeps talking about supporting regional centers. But Beaverton and Washington Square are regional centers and they need more access points, not fewer, if they are going to attract businesses. But he transportation planners are all trying to figure out how to reduce access points because traffic getting on and off their freeway will they slow down traffic. We need to start planning for the here, there and in between instead of just how to get people from here to there in the quickest way possible.

I suppose that wasn't what you meant. But you are probably blaming the wrong group in any case if you are pointing your fingers at Metro. The real decisions on transportation are made by Washington County and, to a lesser extent, ODOT. Metro has control over a very small pot of money.

Re: "tightly constructed small towns and villages -- (do) small towns have limited services and... (do) people travel distances for more specific needs... many small towns have the same sprawling development on their edges as large cities, just not at the same scale."

I believe that rail transportation may be part of the answer here, along with retrofitting existing communities to be more bike/ped friendly, and beefing up the density of population and employment directly adjacent to the stations so as to provide a critical mass of activity to support services such as grocery stores, so that people don't have to drive to the next town over for them.

What type of rail?

Commuter rail. Whatever flavor you like, I'm talking about the type of commuter rail that much of the state (and nation) was built around. Trains that stop once in each town, then get up to speed and run at full speed to the next town, then stop briefly, all the way into the city. With modern technology, these can provide travel times competitive (or faster) than driving, they can connect rural communities with one another, can provide mobility for those who can't (or won't) drive, can provide an alternative to driving for those who want a more relaxed trip -- and can provide an impetus for more focused, concentrated development around stations, which can be just the catalyst that is needed to revitalize a small town or community.

Tri-Met and Metro have proposed the region's first new commuter rail line, on the west side between Beaverton TC, Washington Square, Tigard, Tualatin and Wilsonville. Ultimately, this line could be extended to McMinnville.

Projects such as this can work equally well in "smarter suburbs" as well as compact villages and towns -- they just need a critical mass of potential riders within walking/biking distance of the station.

I'd propose that the next regional commuter rail line could run east/west -- from Astoria through Columbia County (St. Helens, etc.), through Portland, then out the Gorge (Troutdale) to Hood River, and ultimately The Dalles or even Pendleton. If the R-O-W was improved significantly enough, and the proper rolling stock used... people could potentially commute in from The Dalles to Portland, if not all the time, at least for meetings, for work a couple of times a week, or for weekend pleasure trips (and vice versa).

You scoff?

People ride the trains from outer Long Island to inner Manhattan. From outer New Jersey to inner Manhattan. From Folsom and Sacramento to Oakland, San Jose and (via transfer) San Francisco. From Santa Barbara to San Diego. Long distance commuting via train is a way of life for some folks... but not for everybody. Giving some folks the option, however, can boost the economy that everybody is a player in.

cheers, ~Garlynn

P.S. For all you nay-sayers, I like the tram idea. I think the management of the project was bungled -- they should have been more honest about their cost projections -- but the idea of running an aerial tram to get to the top of a hill is certainly a great one, at least in concept. Yes, I'll defend this project, and I'll pay money to ride it (at least once) after it opens. Other regions are looking to Portland to provide leadership with regards to this technology. The San Francisco/Oakland (CA) region has proposed to link the island of Alameda with the West Oakland BART station using a similar aerial tram solution, and they're basically waiting for the Portland version to open so they can get a reliable final cost figure for the technology, as well as a reading on the reaction from the community after it has been in service for a while. After all, it's cheaper than building a new land-based transportation mode to serve the same destination, and something had to be done to expand transportation access to OHSU for its workers.

Tri-Met and Metro have proposed the region's first new commuter rail line, on the west side between Beaverton TC, Washington Square, Tigard, Tualatin and Wilsonville. Ultimately, this line could be extended to McMinnville.

1) The Wasington County commuter rail was proposed by Washington County, not Metro or Tri-met.

2) The line would not extend to McMinnville. If it was extended, it would be to Salem. The McMinnville train track connects to the Washington county track at about its mid-point south of Tigard and then continues around Lake Oswego across the Willamette river to Milwaukie.

3) There has been some effort to look at a commuter rail line connecting Beaverton to the transit center in Milwaukie if the Milwaukie max line actually gets built.

Whether you can get sufficient ridership within walking and biking distance in a small town, I don't know. But I am sceptical. You may very well need the densities that will support a local transit network to feed into it before you can make commuter rail work.

While commuter rail has some uses, the truth is it is often used as remote parking by people who drive their cars to the railroad station. This means communities like McMinnville become bedroom communities for industry in Portland. That is not necessarily a positive, especially if its the small auto-dependent towns surrounding McMinnville that are the development targets.

Ross, I don't see the supposed end of fossil fuels meaning an end to the automobile. We'll always have cars, whether they're oil dependent or not. We should still plan for the automobile. It's the preferred mode of transportation and always will be (or until we can transport folks ala Star Trek).

And I find it hard to believe Metro has little to do with transportation planning when it's posted as a top priority right there on their web site: "Metro’s 2040 growth concept guides the region’s transportation and land-use planning." Furthermore, Metro worked with 1000 'friends' of Oregon to stop the westside bypass. If the bypass was built, cars would flow through 217 like s--t through a tin horn.

I don't see the supposed end of fossil fuels meaning an end to the automobile.

I tend to agree with you, but that wasn't the premise we were discussing. Or at least we were assuming scarcity would make current useage prohibitivley costly, which is certainly possible.

find it hard to believe Metro has little to do with transportation planning when it's posted as a top priority right there on their web site

They have a lot to do with transportation planning, but it is mostly adding up the transportation plans from all the various transportation providers.

Metro worked with 1000 'friends' of Oregon to stop the westside bypass.

ODOT dropped the westside bypass when it became apparent no one would use it without massive land use changes. The problem is no one is travelling from Wilsonville to Hillsboro.

If the bypass was built, cars would flow through 217 like s--t through a tin horn.

No, they wouldn't. In fact it would have very little impact on 217 The traffic on 217 is almost entirely shorter trips. You don't get from Tigard to Beaverton on a bypass. You don't get from Beaverton to Hillsboro or to Wilsonville. The bypass would probably relieve some of the congestion on Roy Rogers Road.

Of course if you built the bypass, it would get used. We aren't going to invest a billion dollars in a highway and then not let people make use of it by developing the land along it. The argument is do we want to expand the urban edge, provide the required new urban services and encourage new auto-dependent development. Or do we want to encourage development where we have existing houses, urban services and transportation facilities. Do we want to invest in transportation facilities that support existing development, or encouraging new development elsewhere.

The bypass is, and always was, a land use decision masquarading as a transportation facility. Its not going to relieve congestion on 217 or on Highway 99, it will provide new opportunities and people will take advantage of them.

"""""""The bypass is, and always was, a land use decision masquerading as a transportation facility. Its not going to relieve congestion on 217 or on Highway 99, it will provide new opportunities and people will take advantage of them."""""""

What utter nonsense.

You are making a better case against the commuter rail.

"""""The problem is no one is traveling from Wilsonville to Hillsboro."""""

It's the proposed Washington County commuter rail which will have zero impact on congestion while spending $150 million. Countless other millions will be lost when Urban Renewal planned for it's entire 14 miles delivers Tram/SoWa-Beaverton Round like subsidized development.

"""""""ODOT dropped the Westside bypass when it became apparent no one would use it without massive land use changes.""""""""

Have you had any head injuries?

I can't think of a more convoluted and historically bogus claim.

The Bypass was killed politically by those who push light rail, Transit Oriented development, the Round, Cascade Station, SoWa and

Today officials are struggling with the outcome of those poor decisions as they try and bring about the I-5/99 connector and perhaps more of a bypass in order to relieve the gridlock and choke points on 217 and I-5.

You apparently are not following what is happening and are not familiar with how and where Westside traffic comes and goes.

A westside bypass, if operational today would have cost hundreds of millions or billions less and would be used by short and longer distance traffic just as 205 is used while relieving the congestion our surface streets and thoroughfares, as well as allowing a better bus system to serve more transit uses. Win-win.

Instead we have the fantasy """""""""Or do we want to encourage development where we have existing houses, urban services and transportation facilities? Do we want to invest in transportation facilities that support existing development, or encouraging new development elsewhere.""""""""""""

Encourage development? I mean really, what Bullshit. Is that what SoWa and Beaverton Round are? Encouragement? Hardly. Along with most TOD's they are enormously expensive experiments in failure. Adhering to and propagating a theory which relies on perpetual convolution of facts and history.

The worst effects and hypocrisy with the "theory" is we ARE NOT "investing in transportation facilities that support existing development" at all. That's the problem. The desire to avoid sprawl at all costs, (regardless of design and function)
leaves us forced to accept an alternative that is not an alternative at all.

That's the punch line in all of this.

We have overcrowded chaos where most of us live, the UGB in near total dysfunction as 2002 expansions sit idle, stuck in the limbo of land use planning with no plans to facilitate development.

Obviously there are those who are gleeful that other bureaucratic constraints are in place to hold firm those previous UGB expansions but this is another example of chaos planning at it's worse.

And it ain't cheap. We are paying dearly for the chronic illusions shared by so many public officials. The frenzy to utilize Urban Renewal dollars to prop up the unworkable alternative is hobbling basic services budgets around the State.

With the Statewide UR drain on education funding at or near 5% of the $6 billion K-12 budget, $300 million is being chewed up by officials playing real estate developer games while presumably pretending the net result is a benefit. In Portland, the PDC is violating State Law by not completing yearly Basic Services Impact Reports (as most municipalities provide), thus showing no interest in knowing those impacts. As property taxes from 12,000 city acres are skimmed or totally diverted to fund the 220 employee PDC bureaucracy and all that produces the kind of spending like the $1/2 Billion on the Tram & SoWa, no one is watching the downside.

Just the opposite. These same bureaucracies are being used to hype, promote, spin and obscure the process and costs as evidenced by the Tram budget and approval.

So where are we headed? Who do we ask?

Dismiss it as naysaying, but I can't think of a single public agency to go to for an impartial accounting or assessment. False pretenses, conflicts of interest, ulterior motives and back room agreements have made it effectively impossible to get straight answers and sound policies.

The "planning" around here amounts to no planning as there are no plans at all to accommodate growth. The massive amount of effort and money to plan the alternative is masquerading as growth planning as none of the most vital needs of growth are being accommodated at all. If that is an "unsubstantiated, patently false statement" then describe for me what need of growth are we accommodating? And what did Metro Executive Mike Burton mean? (below)

I stand by my statement.
No where in the country has there been more imaginary growth planning than Portland.

The imaginary world extends to your view that the Portland region is somehow not the """"strip malls and McMansions, that blurred any distinction between cities and towns, and spread ad infinitum into the hinterlands, in a willy-nilly layout"""" which you claim only exists elsewhere.

Here in the Metro region we have precisely that with the added discomfort of deliberate but unnecessary overcrowding of the 23 city region.

The Mcmansions around here are plentiful as the surrounding land, where any larger lots or acreage can be had, has been affordable only for the wealthy for many years. The entire UGB is ringed with estates conveniently closest to, but away from, the rat race you think is swell.

Your view of the region seems to be narrowly limited to the ever enamoring Pearl District or some other expensive piece of the discombobulated puzzle.

My previous post made plenty of highly germane specific points relating to the lousy planning around here.

You reply amounts to a, "nuh uh"

You have layers of multiple agencies staff and endless dollars to cooking up the endless stream of distortion and promotion. Is that all you can come up with?

"""Traffic congestion is bad and getting worse. It is a nightmare for commuters and it is choking freight mobility. There is no more clear illustration of our inability to meet growth needs than our failure to address our transportation needs. Within the transportation arena we are facing utter chaos.""" from Metro head, Mike Burton's State of the Region Speech, 2000

Ross,

Milwaukie was definitely not what I meant. It is a bedroom community, more suburb than town. You are right that many, most probably, towns have sprawled and been walmartized. Still, the model remains workable for a less energy intensive economy. Folks living in such towns will not have easy access to the symphony or hundreds of restaurants, but they can enjoy the benefits of close-knit community.

There was mention of most people once living on farms. This is true, as I wrote in an earlier post. As much as it seems farfetched, this may one day be true again. Modern agriculture is as fossil fuel dependent as transportation. The corporate farm may not survive the energy crunch.

Someone else mentioned the horse as the precursor to the automobile. This is true, and there may again someday be more horses than cars used for transport. This may also seem unimaginable to people whose grandparents and grandchildren have lived in an auto centered world, but utilization of the fossil fuel that has made that possible is a mere blip in human history, one that will soon be over. I am not convinced that all the alternative forms of energy available will be able to replace the oil we have used in a century, but which took nature eons to produce. One thing is sure: horses do not support a suburban lifestyle.

I must chuckle at Chris McMullen's claim that there will always be cars. That claim has been made about many technologies that are no longer around except in museums.

Chuckle away Tom, but personal vehicle transportation will always be the preferred mode. And to think that the purported end of fossil fuels will mean the end of the automobile is ludicrous.

Chris,

• Bicycles are personal vehicles.

• The round earth and sun-centered system were also called ludicrous. It's a matter of supplying the energy needed to fuel vehicles. I have no doubt there will be autos around, but I do doubt whether folks of moderate means, like me, will want to spend the money necessary to keep on driving. Energy comes from three places, the sun, the earth's heat, and atomic nucleii. Fossil fuel is stored solar power. We will soon be demanding more than can be pumped out of the ground. That will inflate prices horrendously. There's quite a bit of heat in the earth, but changing it into car fuel [hydrogen probably] is not cheap. We can build hundreds of nuclear plants and bury ourselves in longlasting waste, but the useable supply of uranium is also quite limited. Hydrogen can be produced using wind and PV gathered solar power, but the math indicates that we would be using a substantial portion of solar energy - which is also used to grow our food and keep ecosystems running - to replace fossil fuels in transportation, agriculture, industry, and domestic uses. The only viable longterm alternative, if we must keep on motoring, and remember that the Chinese and Indians want cars too, is nuclear fusion. We don't know if controlled nuclear fusion will ever be possible, let alone perfected in time to replace fossil fuel.

Torrid said"""""There, you just did it again. I'm not sure what you think the periodic encapsulation of land into the UGB represents, if not "plans to accomodate growth." Are they planning on making Damascus into a wildlife refuge? Silly me, I thought they were planning development there.""""""""

Obviously you haven't a clue as to what is going in with the UGB or Damascus or the total absence of growth truly being accommodated.

The 2002 UGB expansions are still hopelessly stuck in limbo and Metro is busy helping to pick winners and losers out Damascus way while pushing to preserve 2500 acres for a wildlife refuge.

Thank you for again demonstrating one of my points.

Tom, your vison of the vanishing automobile is a hoot.

Do you think you are saving us from the aftermath?

""""And you know what they call that? Planning."""""""""""

Boy you sure are shooting blanks.

That's the problem. They "call it" planning.

Planning is supposed to address and accommodate growth. Why don't you stop dancing and tell me, specifically, how they are planning for growth? For any of the needs of growth?

Or do you not understand the issue?

Tom Civiletti | Jan 25, 2006 3:36:49 PM: It's a matter of supplying the energy needed to fuel vehicles. I have no doubt there will be autos around, but I do doubt whether folks of moderate means, like me, will want to spend the money necessary to keep on driving. JK: Have you no faith in man’s ability to bring the price down? Just few years ago, a computer with the power you have on your desktop costed millions. I just bought a hard drive for around 1/50,000 of what I paid for my first hard drive.

Tom Civiletti | Jan 25, 2006 3:36:49 PM: Energy comes from three places, the sun, the earth's heat, and atomic nucleii. Fossil fuel is stored solar power. JK: And the Earth’s heat comes from what?

Tom Civiletti | Jan 25, 2006 3:36:49 PM: We will soon be demanding more than can be pumped out of the ground. That will inflate prices horrendously. JK: Again you show a lack of faith in man repeating what he had time after time: Finding new and better ways to do things. You are postulating man losing his ingenuity - never has been a good bet.

Tom Civiletti | Jan 25, 2006 3:36:49 PM: We can build hundreds of nuclear plants and bury ourselves in longlasting waste, but the useable supply of uranium is also quite limited. JK: Gee, nuclear scientist, Bill Wattenburg has said several times that uranium is very common and we have an almost inexhaustible supply.

Thanks JK

"JK: Gee, nuclear scientist, Bill Wattenburg has said several times that uranium is very common and we have an almost inexhaustible supply."

-- He may be the only one saying this.

John Schneider | Jan 26, 2006 2:47:22 AM: "JK: Gee, nuclear scientist, Bill Wattenburg has said several times that uranium is very common and we have an almost inexhaustible supply."

-- He may be the only one saying this.

JK: Don't count on it.

Thanks JK

Steve Schoop and jim karlock; along with our political, business, and media leaders; refuse to pull their heads from the sand and confront our impending energy crunch. Steve sees cars all around him and can't imagine them all going away. That's pretty high-level thinking. Jim repeats the prayer of the faithful: technology will rescue us. This is a common belief reinforced by the technological advances of the past few centuries made possible by the application of tremendous amounts of fossil fuel energy. Our predicament is about energy, not technology. The example of increasing computer speed and memory technology has zero relevance to the problem. I'm not going to be able to educate them in blueoregon comments. If they read some of the work in the field, maybe something by Richard Heinburg or James Howard Kunstler, they might be able to argue from more than common misconception.

Addressing some particular points Steve and jim raise:

• The high temperature at the earth's core - about equal to the surface temperature of the sun - is from gravitational heat remaining from its coalescence with some undetermined amount of heat from the decay of radioactive elements.

• Read this on World uranium supply

A massive increase in the use of nuclear power is, due to the limited supplies of uranium, hardly possible. The Van Middelkoop Commission applies in its report a wildly optimistic estimate of resources: '6 to 30 million tons' The estimates vary greatly in source and investigation. To stay on the safe side, this article is based on estimates from the industry itself. The Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe (recently renamed Forschungszentrum Technik und Umwelt) in Germany estimates the worldwide uranium supply to be 6.4 million tons8. Other organisations, closely affiliated to the nuclear industrie, maintain even lower estimates. The 1995 'Red Book,' for instance, estimates the actual supplies to be 3.8 million tons, and the speculative supplies to be 11 million tons9.

If nuclear power, in the frame of global warming politics, would take care of 70% of the electricity need, as is the case in France, there would be 6.2 million tons of uranium needed until 2015. From 2015 this would - in the case of continuing nuclear output- be 0.5 million ton anually. The known resources of 6.4 million ton would therefore run out in 2016-2018.

The demand for uranium currently is much greater then the availability. Industry prognosis reveals that in 13 years, by 2010, the production will provide only half the demand10. The international organisations explicity point out that there is an imminent chance of large shortages. It is difficult to accelerate production. One reason is the approximately eight year stretch it takes for the new uranium mines to be put into production. Another is the existing mines are grappling with ever tightening environmental rules, which is hampering a higher production pace. The data in the 'Red Book' point to insufficient production capacity now and in the future. This destabilizes the market, resulting in price raises.

• I doubt anyone will "save" Steve Schoop. More reasonable folks may be roused from their slumber to recognize that energy depletion is the most pressing long- and short-term problem facing humanity. Our leadership is paralyzed by moneyed interests and the kind of societal self-deception seen here. Either the people will lead, or our children will dream of some Mad Max rescuing them from their desperate post-peakoil lives.

"""""More reasonable folks"""""

What could be more reasonable than simply asking how the so-called planning is planning for, or accommodating, growth?

You still haven't given a single example.

You may find what Metro and others are doing as aligning with your ridiculous prediction of energy depletion and vanishing vehicles but that isn't their stated public mission or charter.

Furthermore they are not having any success at what you view as planning.

Try busting out of that comfort zone you decree from and get specific to the needs of the region.

Unless you have determined that all those needs are irrelevant because of your extreme left wing bizarre predictions.

With the massive amounts Metro and others are burning through with so little benefit produced all we are getting is one money pit boondoggle after another ushered along with blind rhetoric like yours.

If the "plan" is to "save us" from that future calamity you predict the planners should offer that up for public consideration.

You're all for informing the voters aren't you?

torrid said """""""Steve, what I understand is that you make yourself look foolish when you try to claim that there is no planning. What you mean is that it's not planning you approve of, but you won't admit that;""""

Pay attention. I said there is no planning for growth. I asked you for an example of any plan for any needs of growth and you provided none.

Why should I take you seriously? You offer nothing but "is to, is to".

Pick anything you want and describe the plan to accommodate that growth need.

Heck I'll suggest one that should be easy.

What is the plan to facilitate the use of past UGB expansions and the plan to make sure the UGB provides adequate land supplies for the region? For residential, commercial or industrial.

Steve,

I referred to your comments on energy use, not planning, as is obvious from the content of my message. You are far from reasonable on that issue.

You continue to support your view with characterizations such as "extreme left wing bizarre predictions", while exhibiting a total ignorance of the subject at hand. If you are going to take up space on a progressive blogsite, at least write something more than your opinions based on your attitudes. They are quite familiar to folks who read here.

"What is the plan to facilitate the use of past UGB expansions and the plan to make sure the UGB provides adequate land supplies for the region? For residential, commercial or industrial."

Pleasant Valley just completed its comprehensive planning process. Clackamas County just completed a land use plan for the area of Damascus and the new City of Damascus will be using that plan as the basis for a comprehenisve plan, including zoning decisions. Damascus and Happy Valley have been involved in an ongoing discussion over who will provide urban services, and ultimately government, in the area between the two. Gresham is conducting planning for the Springwater industrial area and ODOT has plans for improving transportation access to the area. ODOT also has completed an EIS and has partial funding for the first phase of the Sunrise Cooridor that will serve Damascus. It is also involved, along with the county and city, in planning for how that will be extended into the new city.

There is a long list of very specific planning projects for urban services in all the areas brought into the UGB. Those are all plans for growth. They are at various stages of completion. Moreover Metro has done a complete inventorty of industrial lands in the region and is considering how to assure there is a sufficient industrial land supply going into the future.

There is lots of planning for growth, maybe not enough planning for making sure current areas are as well-served.

One leader who is not running away from the energy situation is Congressman Blumenauer, who introduced James Howard Kunstler at last evening's Illahee Lecture. Earl praised Kunstler, whose predictions are, if anything, more alarming than what I have written here.

Tom, I asked you about energy. Apparently you were wanting to go there versus answer my questions about growth.

Ross, Do you live here?

Or are you reading from the Metro web site? You said""""There is a long list of very specific planning projects for urban services in all the areas brought into the UGB.""""""

Is there? Damascus a was a grab of as much acreage as possible to tally up enough for the whole region and minimize the expansion and development in other areas of need. Somehow Damascus is supposed to accommodate some of the needs in Beaverton. Is that growth planning? The Damascus "plan" is the creation of a new city and will not be accommodating the needs of regional growth. Moreover the tremendous lack of infrastructure out Damascus way, proportionate to the size of the endeavor makes it the highest cost choice. Which in turn will hinder the ability to plan and accommodate growth region wide.

As I said before there are large tracts of 2002 UGB expansions sitting idle because of the lack of planning. In Washington County large areas are awaiting someone to plan. The county doesn't want to plan unincorporated areas any longer and they don't have the money. Beaverton and Tigard don't have the money to plan and can't get the annexations they want prior to additional development. I have spoken to the planning departments at Wa. Co., Beaverton and Tigard. All of which said there is NO PLAN to make these 2002 UGB expansions developable. Not because they are awaiting urban services plans at "various stages of completion". But because no one has or is planning the areas period. Urban services, including schools, police, parks, sewer and water, in most cases are readily available.

Metro's "inventory of industrial lands in the region" is as cooked up as it gets. A piece meal collection of parcels here and there with a talley they can cast as "a sufficient industrial land supply going into the future". It's as phony and haphazardly put together as possible and will serve only to paint a picture of adequate supply while the real world shortages worsen. And Metro knows this. The State has criticized Metro for this shortcoming.

Your problem is you believe everything Metro puts in reports.

Do to their track record I believe none of it.

Back to Damascus. I can't wait to see how messed up the Sunrise Corridor highway plan will be. Probably a slug paced boulevard with streetscape obstructions versus free flowing lanes.

Inadequate land supplies, inadequate affordable housing, traffic congestion worsening and not the slightest idea or want to remedy them.

"Is that growth planning?"

Of course it is, you just don't like the plan.

Ross said

"""""Is that growth planning?"

Of course it is, you just don't like the plan.""""""""""""

Since it is not accommodating any needs of growth, no it is not growth planning.

<h2>My liking it or not liking it is entirely irrelevant.</h2>