Shocking News: Improving Freeways Helps Traffic Flow
In what could only be described as “news” in Portland, a new study has analyzed the freeways and commuting routes throughout the city, and discovered that when you upgrade a freeway notorious for bad commutes… get ready for this… things improve! After years of Highway 26 being the worst road for commuting, improvements and widening of the highway have increased the traffic flow and brought another road to the top of the “worst” list…. I-5 north to Vancouver.
Portland seems reluctant to do anything about I-5 north out of downtown. Why? My suspicion is that it’s because most of the folks on that road aren’t Portlanders… it’s folks who live in Vancouver and commute across the river. The fact that these folks give 9% of their paychecks to Oregon in the form of income tax is irrelevant… they don’t live here, so let’s not bother improving the road they use. Vera Katz was quite vocal in her opposition to improving I-5, and I can’t see where very much has changed since then. When the offramps have more lanes than the freeway, that’s indicative of a problem…
Yes, mass transit is lovely when it’s realistic or convenient. Props to the folks in Washington County who are looking at commuter rail. However, refusal to expand freeways to accomodate population growth is absurd. If you look at the population growth in the Portland metro area over the past 20 years, then count the number of additional freeway lanes constructed by the city of Portland and state of Oregon, the statistics are embarrassing.
ha ha vancouver suckers! enjoy your FREEWAY.
oh, as an aside, the conventional wisdom about highway widening is that the results are “dynamic”. sometimes adding lanes adds to traffic woes, sometimes it aleviates them.
commuting, working, and living habits create a very complicated system. no easy answers.
Of course the commuting improved with a better road. However, more people will now move along 26 because the commute is better. That will lead to more congestion along 26, and people complaining that 26 needs improvement. The cycle will start again.
Whether or not this a good thing depends on your point of view I guess.
Make I-5 north three lanes (with an HOV lane restriction on one of the lanes) from the Marquam Bridge to the Interstate bridge and that’s it. Anything more is just going to encourage more bridge crossings. They already built a 2nd bridge and they’re about to get a brand new replacement bridge - what more do they want? (Probably a third bridge right over Sauvie Island)
I’d be more inclined to want to fix the highway if Clark County hadn’t rejected funding the MAX yellow line to Vancouver. Apparently better transit is not a concern to them unless it involves bigger freeways. Sorry, that’s not how we do it in Portland. Fuck ‘em.
(Local) Income tax does not go to roads. Fuel taxes and some property taxes or development fees go to roads.
But improving I5 is as much a federal problem as it is a state problem as it is a city problem. It will be a big job and needs Vancouver to put in as much as Portland does, and Oregon and Washington to chip in their share and the Feds to keep the west coast corridor alive.
But to all the people who live in the Couve and are stuck on I5? Shoulda voted Yes on the MAX line. Then you could have parked in the Couve and played your GameBoy DS the rest of the way to work…
Washington also voted to lower their vehicle registration fees a few years back - which took a bite out of highway and transit development in WA.
But yeah, if you increase capacity - volume will expand to fill the available capacity. Traffic imporvements are only ever temporary. The big thing they need is to implement a FULL TIME HOV lane. And Washington and Oregon need to legalize lane splitting by motorcycles.
I love everyone talking about MAX. Because, you know, once MAX was created, I-84 and Highway 26 were just blazing right along at 60mph during rush hour…
MAX is useful if it goes where you’re going. When I lived in Vancouver and worked in downtown Portland, I looked at using transit to get to work. It would’ve taken me between 2 and 2.5 hours each way, each day. Extending MAX into Vancouver might have cut half an hour from those numbers, but that’s it.
Sorry, but no. That’s not realistic.
Yeah, dude, MAX totally doesn’t alleviate any traffic on 26 or 84. All those people riding (during rush hour, you can barely even cram on the thing) are people that would be otherwise sitting at home.
No way would MAX take 2.5 hours to get to Vancouver. It takes less than 30 minutes to get from downtown to the Expo center, so it would be like 35 to get to Vancouver. Drop your car at a park and ride and hop on.
Regardless, that’s how we do things in Portland, and if Vancouver doesn’t want to play along, then I’m fine with you sitting there in your crappy highway traffic.
Random thought: there wouldn’t be so much damn traffic from Vancouver if Oregonians weren’t moving to the Couve in droves because we fund our schools.
And is it true that the Oregon income tax doesn’t fund roads at all? Because I was under the impression that roads were the one service that WA residents got in exchange for their tax dollars. If not… wow, WA commuters really ARE getting bent over without lube.
Sorry Portlanders. As long as you’re taking Vancouver folks’ tax dollars, those folks get to have a say in your city.
Hmm look, someone’s building new freeway: http://portland.metblogs.com/archives/2006/09/freeway_improve.phtml
Sorry Portlanders. As long as you’re taking Vancouver folks’ tax dollars, those folks get to have a say in your city.
Really? Seems like this whole post is about the opposite. Have fun with your voteless “say” into our city!
Actually, No One, it looks like he’s having a lot of fun with his voteless say. Look at the lather he’s got YOU in, for example…
Aaron: Oregon’s tax dollar includes 4 cents on the dollar for “Other Services” which are Transportation, Forestry Services, Library Services, Agriculture, and Environmental Quality according to the department of revenue:
http://www.oregon.gov/DOR/PERTAX/income-dollars.shtml
I can’t find anything official, but a couple of sources say that something like 80% of our road funding comes from the gas tax.
I don’t understand why people don’t talk about the real problem - PEOPLE. Over on BoJack’s blog right now, they’re having a discussion about what they like about Portland and predictably, it’s devolved into a discussion about what they USED to like about Portland. Most of what they used to like about Portland is thus - FEWER PEOPLE.
But I don’t see anyone offering any specific proposals of how to prevent people from moving here. Obviously, the weather discourages its share of folks. And the UGB obviously limits land available for housing, but that raises housing prices.
So, other than people leaving of their own accord because they’re sick of the crowdedness (as I’m sure is happening), what can be done?
JimBob - I just think you’re trying to stir up trouble - there were a total of 3 (maybe 3.5 people ) out of 10 comments on the other blog that would agree with your assesment of “what they like”
I don’t think so.
Quoting directly from the other blog:
“I will not miss the traffic congestion” (someone who moved out of Portland)
“What was once a less crowded…city”
“Traffic congestion is bad and getting worse.”
“I value what Portland used to be. It used to have lots of open spaces, relatively low housing prices, manageable traffic”
“Easy commutes, great public schools, dirt cheap housing, uncrowded outdoor attractions” (speaking of what he used to like)
Notice a theme running through those comments? People and traffic, people and traffic, people and traffic…
But I like your comment over there ;)
anyone who thinks portland is crowded and/or filled with traffic congestion needs to get a grip on reality– move to chicago, los angeles, new york, detroit or even seattle and you’ll see real traffic, real congestion, hell, maybe even a real city. comparatively, portland is FULL of open spaces, is still reasonably affordable for a coastal-state city, traffic follows a predictable pattern, etc. now, something does need to be done about the public school system, but that’s a nationwide issue as well. there’s a whole lot of whinging going on about a place that i feel pretty lucky to live in.
I actually totally agree with you, JonasH. I just want people who use code words like “traffic,” “crowded,” “open spaces” etc to say what they really mean. When they moved here, they want to close the door behind them.
To me, planning is assuming that people are going to come eventually, so you might as well design good systems for it. I never hear solutions out of the “too much traffic!” crowd besides those which would be politically unpalatable (bigger and more freeways, busting the UGB). They really don’t want to accept that people who like Portland are going to move here.
And we are TOTALLY less crowded compared to plenty of other metros in the US…
Just because other cities have things worse doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to prevent Portland from becoming that bad…
I spoke too soon, DiveBarWife…your comment was deleted! ;)
aaron: note that i didn’t say anything in the other cities was “worse” just that there was MORE (though i agree with controlling some aspects of “worse” like crime, bad schools, etc). part of living in/near a city is living WITH the “city” part of it. if you (and i don’t specifically mean “you”, just the royal you) have that big a problem with what goes along with city life, don’t live/work/commute in/near/to cities.