PBS documentary points to Portland transportation planning
National PBS documentary points to Portland transportation planning
by Dylan Rivera, The Oregonian
Tuesday May 19, 2009, 9:50 AM
PBS Detroit; Wednesday, May 20th at 8:00 PM, Channel 56, Cable Cogeco 67
PBS reporter Miles O’Brien rides Portland’s MAX light rail trains in a PBS documentary airing Wednesday night.A national PBS documentary (click here to watch it online) will point to Portland as one of three cities that exemplify how the nation can use transportation infrastructure to fight sprawl, preserve the environment and promote mass transit.
“Blueprint America: Road to the Future” airs Wednesday at 8 p.m. on public broadcasting stations nationwide and on Oregon Public Broadcasting in the Portland area.
It uses Denver, New York and Portland - and their nearby suburbs - as examples of how national policies on transportation can shape cities.
Producers hope the show and related segments other PBS programs will influence upcoming debates on a new multi-year federal transportation bill and stimulus spending.
“How we build ultimately will determine how we live and the quality of life we enjoy,” said Neal Shapiro, chief executive officer of WNET.ORG. “For many years, cities have been neglected, and in many cases harmed, by government policies that favored sprawl over density.”
The show makes a pitch for more federal money for mass transit and bicycling and less for new highways, quoting well-known Portlanders – U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Metro Council President David Bragdon, Portland Mayor Sam Adams, urban planning professor Ethan Seltzer and bike blogger Jonathan Maus – at length on big policy questions. In a copy of the film distributed to The Oregonian, car commuters’ desires for more lanes, more speed and less traffic are treated as antiquated ideals, exemplified in snippets of video from the 1950s and 60s.
But reporter Miles O’Brien also features landowners frustrated by Portland-area growth restrictions and a Denver-area family that seems content with a suburban lifestyle. And he explains the continued popularity of car-friendly policies, citing as an example the defeat of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposal to charge tolls on cars entering the city to boost mass transit funding.
The show comes after a May 10 documentary, “Making Sense of Place,”examined Portland’s growth management policies.
– Dylan Rivera; [email protected]
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HEY COUNCIL!!!!
Please watch this program!!!!!!
You were to polite Chris! Please doesn’t work with them! I say we capture them when in camera and duct tape them to their chairs and force them to watch it!!!!!!
The only light rail they know is the foot rail at their favorite watering hole!
this is a fantastic documentary! whenver i get back to work we’re doing a “film at lunch” and this is one of the documentaries on my list
Looks like a huge step was made today with Obama’s Cafe standards that will add $1300 to the price of a vehicle (I’m assuming Canada will be equally affected)
I’d bet money that within 12 months Obama will also put forth a tax on the price of gas while its price is still low. Couple that with the following rise in gas price and you’ll have a population who will finally scaledown whether they want to or not.
I wish scaledown was the Paul Revere of the Blogosphere. Too bad we’re more of a Cassandra’
Here’s hoping we start changing Windsor before its too late. Seems like this federal and provincial funding is our last opportunity
N. America is going to have a helluva time scaling down. The density doesn’t exist in most cities. Even with mass transit it is going to be a tough go.
Nonetheless, I would love to see the day when Windsor has streetcars again and/or LRT throughout the county.
Dear Friends,
Now that Riverside Drive is closed at Drouillard for construction, the traffic has gone somewhere? and the Drive provides a beautiful cycling opportunity. It would be nice if you all acted on your many words about how wonderful it would be to cycle on the Drive. Actions speak louder than words…..don’t waste this opportunity to prove that you all meant those things about active transportation and transportation alternatives. With this beautiful weather, there is no reason not to stand up and be counted.
Otherwise, your words are just empty rhetoric and will be seen as such by those who don’t share your enthusiasm.
First, let’s compare apples with apples and oranges with oranges.
Portland has a City population of just under 600,000 and a metro area population of just under 2.2 million. The City of Windsor has a population of over 215,000 and a metro area population of over 320,000.
If you want to cite light transit in Portland as an example of getting people out of their vehicles, fine. But keep in mind those population figures. Besides, doesn’t the extenstion of the MAX to Hillsboro promote sprawl? Or is transit-based sprawl acceptable?
Second, the Portland Urban Growth Boundary has hardly been a success.
The majority of population growth has occured outside the core. In fact, the Urban Growth Boundaries were expanded after 1995 because state law requires municipalities to maintain a 20-year supply of land within the boundary. Vancouver, Washington, obviously outside the UGB, has been one of the biggest receipents of growth in the Portland metro area.
As of 2007, Salt Lake City had a 181,000 and a Metropolitan population of 1 million.
Windsor’s population exceeds SLC’s population and, including Detroit which should be included, our area has well above 1 million.
SLC’s LRT has well exceeded expectations and has actually expanded ahead of schedule.
My opinion to make the LRT a smash hit in Windsor is to eventually link it with Detroit, who are currently working on an LRT program of their own. You will avoid all traffic in the tunnel as the train will be taking its own dedicated route.
There is your apples to apples comparison, Vincent. A city with a population smaller than Windsor.
Aye carumba! So now we are talking about an international LRT. What route would your international LRT take? Would it be a new tunnel or use an existing tunnel? Where would the custom’s facilities be located? How much would it cost to travel to Detroit? Where would it go in Detroit?
Last I looked, a resident of Sandy does not have to cross an international border to commute. While there are many connections between Metro Detroit and Metro Windsor, we are two separate cities. Salt Lake City metro has three times the Windsor metro area. So, no your example is not an apples to apples comparison.
Vincent,
When you factor in our elongated development pattern I’m sure that there is more than sufficient population for an east-west light rail line. This elongated development is ideal for a main line and hubs public transit system with bike-to-transit, feeder-bus and park-and-ride multi-modal.
UGB does not prevent growth it limits unsustainable growth. It limits the California disaster. It limits this:
http://www.greaterfool.ca/2009/04/28/extreme-makeover-depression-edition/
I never said the UGB prevents growth. What evidence do you have that the Portland UGB limits unsustainable growth?
The whole idea of UBGs is too encourage intensification, smaller houses, more efficient land use, and so on. If Oregon was interested in sustainable growth, the requirement for a 20-year supply of land should be decreasing over time. But that is not how the law is written. Basically the UGB must expand over time.
Foreclosures are up in the Portland area.
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2009/04/unemployment_pushes_rise_in_fo.html
So much for sustainable growth?
Vincent,
I can fill your inbox with studies about the waste and unsustainablity of sprawl. Encouraging intensification, smallar houses, more efficient land use and so on is limiting sprawl ergo limiting unsustainablility.
There are limits to intensification and there are also trade-offs to smart growth policies. Studies show that clustering is the best form of intensification. And that rising property values (i.e. less affordability) is a trade-off to smart growth policies. So places like Portland and Vancouver have real issues with affordability especially after the mother of all housing bubbles. But hey, if a little property value appreciation is the trade-off for building a more sustainable Windsor, I think, I’m not alone in saying bring it on.
hi Marg, thanks for the biking tip, will pass it on to as many as I can
And get my son out there within the next few days.
Unfortunately, I missed the doc on PBS but was just recently in Portland, Oregon two weeks ago on vacation. My jaw nearly dropped when the clerk at the front desk of our hotel told us that public transit in the downtown core was free!
PBS doc: Blueprint America unfairly presents Denver as the land of sprawl
An opinion from Denver.
http://tiny.cc/d788J
All in all, Blueprint America: Road to the Future, a PBS show about the future of transportation infrastructure that debuted last night (it can be viewed online by clicking here), was spot-on about the crisis our nation has built itself into by following policies that mandate automobile use and continuous urban sprawl.
But the thing that left a slightly bad taste in my mouth about the program, previewed in a blog yesterday, was the way it used Denver as the primary example of backward-thinking, highway-based transportation planning in the U.S. without acknowledging the significant and groundbreaking strides this metro area has made in smart growth and mass-transit efforts. …
..Here’s the rub: Denver is actually a leader in some aspects of so-called smart planning.
The show fails to note that, in 2004, Metro Denver voters passed FasTracks, the biggest and fastest expansion of any transit system in the country. Denver is regularly recognized as a national forerunner when it comes to large-scale urban infill and transit-oriented development projects. This summer, the Congress for New Urbanism is holding a convention in Denver for the second time, largely so attendees can tour projects like Stapleton, the Central Platte Valley, the Gates redevelopment and Belmar, to name a few. In addition, the city is initiating the country’s largest bike-sharing program. Sure, Denver has ugly sprawl and traffic, but it doesn’t even rank in the top ten of cities with the worst sprawl…..
Windsor was the first city in North America to have street cars with a population of less than 20,000. If we are willing to think big and into the future, we should be moving towards light rail as a real viable option for moving Windsor into the 21st century.
Hamilton is getting ligh rail, how about Windsor! I think it would be a better investment than a moat around the downtown - a ‘green’ zone so to speak.