[Publisher’s note: Hi everyone. I’m back after being out of town since Friday. Sorry for the lack of posts! – Jonathan]
The City of Portland has launched an update to their Transportation System Plan. Known as “the TSP,” this plan is the bedrock of policies and projects that move our local transportation system forward. It reflects our city’s values and goals and it provides a roadmap for the next 20 years of decisions about how to manage our roads and paths.
But how does the Portland Bureau of Transportation even know what our values and goals are? We have to tell them.
PBOT has just released a new survey to garner feedback from individuals and organizations. Instead of fixating solely on what’s wrong with transportation in Portland, they want to hear what works for you. Here’s more from PBOT:
“We invite you to start by thinking about some of the best times you’ve had getting around Portland or related to our transportation system. Then consider what that positive experience might mean about what you deeply value. Finally, consider what it makes you wish for the future of Portland’s transportation system.”
The TSP’s 30 Citizen Advisory Committee members already did this exercise, but the plan isn’t there’s alone. To make it a Portland TSP for the people, we need more folks like you to share your experiences and wishes. PBOT staff will then take all the input from CAC members, mix it with input from the greater public, and then craft a draft vision and set of goals that will eventually be adopted into the 2045 TSP.
To help guide your input, PBOT offers these three tips:
- Think high-level. If you tell us a project you want to see prioritized, we may need to infer the reason why you want to see it. We aren’t asking about specific projects in this survey, we’re asking about the impact you want to see our cumulative efforts having on the transportation system.
- Tell us what you want to see, not what you don’t want to see. If you tell us what you don’t want to see, we’ll need to infer what the opposite is/your intentionality. Don’t make us have to guess, just tell us what you want.
- Think “why” to get to the heart. Why do you want to make this wish for the transportation system? Feel free to mention your why or make your wish clearer by starting with your why. Try to be brief and clear so we can most easily code and summarize collective results.
Now with that in your head, go spend 5-10 minutes with the online survey. You have until October 1st to get your answers in.
Thanks for reading.
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My first wish is: invest/build/maintain a system that prioritizes walking, bicycling, and transit over driving
My second wish is: car free streets, super blocks, ring road, all bridges up on weekends, drivers use only I-5 & I-405 freeways from Friday 7pm to Monday 5am to cross Willamette
my third wish is: Sunday Parkways every Sunday, except for special events, Bridge Pedal, Rose Parade, Marathon, etc.
I like your ideas but I don’t get what “bridges up on weekends” would accomplish. Wouldn’t that mean bikes and peds also can’t cross the river?
Or at least we’d be limited to the Sellwood Bridge and Tillicum crossing, which don’t raise.
ok, good point, bridges down, but cars/trucks not allowed on Broadway, Steel, Burnside, Morrison, or Hawthorne
Call me jaded but my first wish is that PBOT would stop wasting taxpayer dollars on this sort of time-wasting window-dressing when we know –from extensive experience– that it’s BS. Hey, the world is on fire and we’re (shhh) currently supporting freeway-expansion projects, but let us treat you like children in the meantime… blow a wish with your pals at PBOT.
I’m with you here. There’s a lot of irony in PBOT laying off the people who fill the potholes while they retain the people who do this sort of public-involvement work. “Sorry about your flat tires but come put these sitcky dots on a poster!”
This work is required by state law, as part of state-required periodic review and update of the state-required Transportation System Plan (TSP). Info here
1. Roadway reconfiguration that PRIORITIZES people who walk and use transit.
2. Widespread use of raised crosswalks and speed bumps on all roads, and especially on arterials and collectors.
3. Hundreds of traffic cameras with a 20 mph speed limit as the default
The walking part of #1 is so important and overlooked. As a very frequent pedestrian, I often feel like I’m at the bottom of the priority list – moreso than when I bike.
Like, take PBOT’s slavish devotion to extraneous beggar buttons. Guess what, guys, there’s no reason to put them on Division going E/W (for example ). The traffic light will always turn green. Just tie the crosswalk signals to it. Don’t make me unnecessarily wait to cross the street. And, hey, think of the money you’d save on equipment and installation!
Is there an intersection that’s dangerous for pedestrians? Don’t put up a ‘Do not cross’ sign. Instead, make the intersection safe for pedestrians.
Why are so many walk signals green for a much shorter time than the car signal they’re paired with?
Stuff like that really illustrates PBOT’s priorities.
It’s fairly common to see new traffic signals with dedicate right turn signals that conflict with pedestrian crossings. My experience is that no one obeys “No Turn on Red”, so the net result is just a shorter pedestrian signal.
“The walking part of #1 is so important and overlooked. As a very frequent pedestrian, I often feel like I’m at the bottom of the priority list.”
Yes, me too. Even more so in a power chair than I did with a walker.
Only if the speed bumps are easily visible.
They must be visible for the safety of vulnerable traffic and as a reminder to drivers that their responsibility to not hit, seriously injure, or kill their neighbor greatly outweighs their interest in driving a 4-7 ton SUV as fast as possible.
my #1 wish: vision zero is realized. no fatalities over a year’s time
Vision Zero Chance of that Happening
Isn’t this what a Comprehensive Plan is for? Or has Portland stopped doing them?
Meanwhile, ban onstreet parking on all arterial and collector streets, price parking everywhere else (meters, pay stations, permit parking citywide), add bus-only lanes on all streets with bus service, and add barrier-protected bike lanes and intersections wherever possible.
The TSP effectively becomes the transportation chapter in the Comp Plan. And the effort might feel like window-dressing, but it’s required by Oregon law to demonstrate coordinated planning that accommodates growth. Interestingly, there’s a ton of leeway in how cities address system improvements. Many, if not most, cities and their consultants simply use a cookie-cutter intersection and roadway capacity x planned land use analysis that virtually always results in the ‘need’ for bigger intersections and wider, multi-lane roads. The worst offender? Probably Hillsboro, a city with [former] transportation leadership hellbent on making it as easy as possible to drive.
My wish is for PBOT to commit to only building protected bike and ped infrastructure from now on. Full stop. ZERO EXCEPTIONS. Less will get built, but in a decade it would transform our city substantially.
max tunnel, rip out I-5
max tunnel is my #1 wish.
I wonder how many bus lines and drivers could be added for the same price as the un-needed train tunnel?
It reminds me of the failed “better” Red project, a solution in search of a problem that only ended up causing more problems than it solved..
Could you elaborate on the problems that the Better Red project created?
From my understanding, Better Red (1) double-tracked the full portion of the Red Line between Gateway and PDX, allowing for improved reliability and enabling TriMet to operate more frequently than every 15 min when/if that scenario is realized, (2) created a direct dedicated track connection for WB Red Line trains at Gateway to get onto the Banfield section, which now avoids any conflicting track crossings between Red/Blue/Green at Gateway, allowing for improved reliability and avoid unnecessary delays, and (3) upgraded signaling on the Westside and installed end-of-line operator facilities at the Wash Co Fairgrounds station which allowed for doubling of MAX service between Beaverton TC and Fairgrounds to 8 trains per hour in each direction all day, which allowed for evening out of passenger loads between Blue and Red Line trains [Blue Line trains were always much busier because they went further]. These are all changes that directly benefit passengers and make our transit system more robust and useful.
I can see one downside being that instead of 12 westbound trains per hour directly from Gateway TC (4 trains per hour each on Blue/Red/Green), there are now only 8 trains per hour because the westbound Red Line trains pick up at a different platform (Gateway North). As one of the busiest stations on the entire MAX system, I can see how this likely led to more difficulty for passengers here, and I know this station has a lot of passengers who make MAX-bus transfers. This is definitely an inconvenience, but it seems to be outweighed by the wider MAX system efficiencies and improved frequency.
Enforce fare skipping laws. Remove fare skippers and ban them.
I wish you could get on a bus/max that doesn’t test 100% positive for meth/fentanyl residue. I wish you could ride the 14 and not have 90% of the conversations overheard include “rehab” and/or “my parole officer” blah blah blah…
When was the last time you rode on a bus/MAX? I take the 48 bus all the time and never hear these conversations.
Without the untimely death of Uncle Elon and his unexpectedly leaving his legacy to PBOT, this “what if” exercise is a folly into fantasy. My wish is that streets be lined with gumdrop trees, that pavement is replaced with verdant grass and that rather than cars, travelers rode gleaming white unicorns under rainbow hue skies.
That’s a good start, but you forgot the free cookies, gotta have those too
Bike lanes and side walks are unnessasary if we PHASE OUT ON-STREET PARKING and open our residential streets to pedestrian and bicycle traffic ROUTING AUTO MOBILES to
Organized public transit on the parameter of neighborhood blocks. And
Organized automobile traffic on outer bands of that parameter; for the motorist, no more stop signs, traffic signals and public transit on those roads! And get rid of the army of commputer engineers that start at $180.000 with huge severance packages we are ill to afford and the time wasting and expensive electronic traffic control nonsence. Please I implore you.
Why? I trust myself to cross the street.
I wrote:
Great list Kristin!
Prioritizing connection to existing separated network (downtown), as opposed to building disconnected segments throughout the city, would have a compounding effect on accessibility.
Maybe a measurable threshold of <500 ADT with a requirement of diversion written into the TSP for an operational definition of low-traffic streets and/or greenways? The current greenway definition,
is mostly just nominal/fluff at this point.
It’s clear to me that most or all Portlanders share the same set of wishes, some variant of “safer”, “faster”, and “cheaper”.
It’s the next level down, the how to achieve those wishes level (which is what most folks here have been commenting on), where things get tricky.
So, as is typical for these types of “surveys” , it’s pretty much pointless. Just recycle the last TSPs high level goals through Chat GPT and move on to the interesting part.
The only part I disagree with is filling the TSP with AI slop.
You’re right about the “how to achieve those wishes” part. Lots of Portlanders are pro-bike or pro-transit until improving those involves removing car lanes or street parking.
For a large number of Portlanders, removing car lanes is antithetical to achieving those wishes.
Probably my biggest wish would be “lots of somebody else’s money to spend on my priorities.”
I gave them my ‘vision” but to be extremely specific…
PBOT: streetcar should be replacing bus lines on NE MLK, NE Broadway, and SE Hawthorne.
TriMet: MAX should be off of downtown surface streets, connected to Rose Quarter via the Kirk Reeves bridge/tunnel, and replacing streetcar to make a complete Central City loop.
I got into bike commuting after the second or third time my direct route to work got slashed without a viable replacement, so this is just me preferring a directional system that doesn’t try to guess where I’m going.
YES on Kirk Reeves Champs. He is sorely missed.
Mine were:
A lot of folks are talking about a MAX tunnel or more Streetcar lines, but I don’t think either of those will happen in our lifetimes, short of an actual miracle in 2026/2028 that results in a federal government that is interested in investing in transit. I’m not holding my breath though.
1) Public Safety
2) Public Safety
3) Public Safety
Until people feel safe walking, biking and using public transit, Portland will continue to flounder.
Enforced ticketing & towing of unregistered/incorrectly parked/derelict vehicles.
Making things better for pedestrians is my #1.
One idea: Allow pedestrians to cross against red lights if its clear, especially downtown.
Some people will like that. Others will say it’s crazily dangerous. But for those people, consider that it’s already legal for drivers to do exactly that, at least when they turn right on red. That’s even though the driver is driving a multi-ton vehicle that can cause massive damage to any other person or vehicle, and their turning not only puts them into the path of oncoming vehicles (as would my idea) but it also could injure or kill any pedestrian crossing on green in their path (my idea does not).
Yet the law thinks highly enough of drivers that it believes drivers are able to judge when proceeding against a red light is safe, and allows them to then do that. Yet it remains illegal for a pedestrian to cross against a red, even if there are no vehicles anywhere near.
The fact that the law treats drivers so differently than pedestrians–especially when it’s the drivers that are much more likely to hurt someone else if they misjudge–says a lot about how low pedestrians rank legally versus vehicles when it comes to moving around the city.
1. That PBOT would actually listen to our input.
2.Transit as efficient as driving, walking, or biking.
3. Level boarding- no ramps required.
1. Fix potholes in streets citywide.
2. Add sidewalks to Cully and outer east Portland where sidewalks don’t currently exist, starting first on busier side streets and busy streets.
3. Prioritize all basic maintenance of existing infrastructure; start no new projects of any kind until maintenance backlog of existing infrastructure has been dealt with.