Portland the very model of modern urban transit
Well-planned system spurs downtown growth, offers $2 airport trips
Mike Sadava
The Edmonton Journal
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Here's a piece of trivia that could get you thinking.
How much does it cost to get from the airport to Portland, Ore.'s lively downtown?
The answer stunned me during a recent visit to that city: $2.05.
That's right, $2.05, and that was during rush hour. It was only $1.75 going back to the airport during off-peak hours.
Compare that to a cab to the Edmonton International Airport -- at least $40. The Sky Shuttle to downtown, the west end or the university area is more reasonable at $25 return, or you can park for about $10 a day and then enjoy the pleasure of scraping the ice off your car when you return.
The lack of public transit to the airport is just a small piece of the sorry story that Edmonton is the most automobile-dependent major city in Canada.
There's nothing like going to another city to become aware of some of the shortcomings of your own, and Portland has made a concerted effort to wean itself off the automobile.
Portland's LRT carries 104,000 passengers per weekday, compared to Edmonton's 46,000.
With nearly 70 kilometres of line in operation compared to Edmonton's 12.9 kilometres, and a new line under construction and two more in the planning phase, it's no wonder.
While LRT to the Edmonton International Airport is little more than a pipe dream, 1.1 million people took the LRT to get to or from Portland International Airport in 2007, and the number grows by at least 10 per cent every year.
The Metro Portland area, with a population of two million, started its LRT, called the Max, nearly a decade after Edmonton did, but it built the system with a vision, actively using land-use planning to make it a success.
The Max, which started running its first leg in 1986, was to be the backbone of what had been a large, fragmented region around Portland, tying it all together and promoting economic growth while reducing reliance on the automobile, says Rex Burkholder, a regional councillor with Metro Portland.
"This was a typical western city with no boundaries for years and years, but now we're running up against not only physical but also financial boundaries," Burkholder says.
Developing around LRT
Development itself in many of these suburban communities has been oriented around LRT, and many of the towns and cities along the line have experienced significant revitalization because of it.
Jillian Detweiler, a senior planner with Tri Met, which runs the transit system, says Gresham, a small city at the east end of the line, didn't want the LRT when it was first planned in the early 1980s, and it didn't go right to its downtown area.
But once it was there, the development of the downtown moved towards the LRT station, and the line turned out to be extremely successful.
While she doesn't like to suggest a causal relationship, Detweiler notes there has been a total of $3 billion of residential and commercial development around the LRT lines.
The system also has 22 free park-and-ride lots and garages, mostly in the suburbs, but Detweiler says they prefer people get to the LRT by bus, foot and bike, because once many people get into their cars, they don't want to get out.
Downtown Portland has a carrot-and-stick approach to encourage LRT use. Parking is relatively scarce and expensive, while a big loop through downtown is free of charge.
But even with fares lower than Edmonton and the free-fare area, LRT comes close to meeting its operating costs through fares, in contrast to many of the bus routes which reap a
much smaller percentage of the costs, she says.
Burkholder says the beauty of having numerous lines is that every time a new line is built, ridership increases on the existing lines.
There was little thought given to running the Portland system underground, which marked the start of Edmonton's slowly expanding LRT.
They didn't really need to: The LRT was given precedence over cars. In fact, two lanes of traffic were even removed from a major arterial to make way for the Gresham line, which would be unheard of in many cities, she says.
"It says a lot about the system that it is a surface system that gets signal priority and goes to people's front doors," Det-
weiler says. "It is an indicator that it does not play second fiddle to the automobile."
Paradoxically, what has turned out to be rational urban planning was originally sparked by a strong anti-
urban movement among farmers who wanted to limit the development of Portland.
That led to a strong state law, unique in North America, that put boundaries on urban development.
Citizen activism
The seeds of the LRT were planted in the late '70s when a strong citizens' movement arose to fight a freeway that would have destroyed some cherished older neighbourhoods.
They won, and it took a few years, but the money that had been allocated for the freeway went instead to LRT.
There were bumps along the way: The state passed legislation that would have discouraged planning by giving over-generous compensation to landowners affected by rezoning which was later scrapped, and events the day after the airport line opened on Sept. 10, 2001. (The LRT was a big help in evacuating the airport.)
There are finally signs that Edmonton is headed in the right direction. Transit ridership into the downtown area is up, the south line is proceeding apace and council is starting to talk about lines to NAIT, eventually to St. Albert, Fort Saskatchewan, the new suburbs in the deep southwest and, some day, even to the airport.
I'll be ready with my two bucks, or whatever it costs, to be on that first train to the airport.
Contact Mike Sadava via phone, 429-5334; fax, 429-5500; or e-mail,
[email protected]
© The Edmonton Journal 2008
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