Chris Smith mentioned this yesterday, but I just noticed an interesting story buried in the Metro Section of today’s Oregonian.
Here’s the gist.
Metro is in the midst of their Regional Transportation Plan update. According to Metro, this plan is,
“a blueprint to guide transportation investments in the Portland metropolitan region for the next 20 years.”
The plan must meet state and federal guidelines and so far the feds aren’t too impressed with what they see. From the Oregonian:
“The highway agency scolded Metro for not focusing more on highways, cars and parking…”The plan should acknowledge that automobiles are the preferred mode of transport by the citizens of Portland,” the agency said. “They vote with their cars every day.””
Three Bridges Dedication, 10/19/06]
Cars will always be the “preferred mode of transport,” as long as we continue to plan for them and encourage their use over everything else.
Metro’s Rex Burkholder is quoted as saying the feds reaction should be, “taken with a grain of salt.”
Metro getting scolded? Pay attention to cars and parking? Wow. This is surreal.
When is the U.S. going to take a serious look at how misguided our blind allegiance to the automobile has been for the last hundred years?
We don’t need to be anti-car, but we do need to be much more car-conscious.
You’d think with our current issues of obesity, global warming, wars over oil, skyrocketing highway costs, etc… that the feds might just be a bit more open to new ideas.
Metro may not be perfect, but seriously folks, the time for business as usual has passed.