The Flanders Bike Bridge Imbroglio

For those of you who haven't heard, the big rage in the Planning Overlord world - transportation division has been the proposal to reuse the old Sauvie Island Bridge (being replaced by a new structure) as a "new" bicycle/pedestrian bridge over I-405 at Flanders Street. A good summary of the issues can be found in this Portland Tribune article.

This was a close call in the mind of this particular urban planning overlord, until I read in, of all places, here, an excellent additional complication. Jack Bog has just tipped the scales - the additional complications for freeway off-ramps and cars on 14th and 16th should kill this project off for good.

I know the bike/alternative modes proponents will just say "but the cars just won again!" Yes, they did. It's one thing to mess around with local circulation patterns for a block or two. I have no problem with that. It's another to mess around with freeway onramps and offramps.

And kudos to the original research from Jack Bog, just like he did with the newspaper racks a few months ago. Too bad his views are encrusted with such bitterness.

Gnashing of Teeth to Commence (Again)

If I remember correctly, a certain notorious blogger to remain un-named (but linked to here) was agog and outraged, along with his small but cranky contingent, that Metro would actually subsidize Transit Oriented Development (the horror! - but I can't find a specific link, perhaps the unnamed blogger can enlighten us all as to where, if anywhere, it is?). It turns out that not only the cranky blogger noticed, but so did the American Planning Association, which gave Metro one of its national awards for planning excellence.

And here are the photos to go along with the article:





But who would want monstrosities like these when we would have kept Portland the way it was in the 1970's and had "Newark of the Northwest" by now?

A Small Town Turns its Back on Immigrants - and Prosperity

FROM "PLANNING," THE MAGAZINE OF THE AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION, EXCERPTS FROM AN ARTICLE IN THE MARCH 2008 ISSUE ENTITLED "LA VIDA LOCAL." IT'S THE STORY OF A SMALL TOWN IN NEW JERSEY, AND THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF PASSING DRACONIAN ANTI-IMMIGRANT LAWS (THE MAGAZINE IS BEHIND A SUBSCRIPTION WALL)

"The law wasn't enforceable. All it did was scare people," says Ed Robins, a self-described "aging hippie." He's standing otuside the Riverside Arts Guild, his music story and recording studio in Riverside, New Jersey, across the Delaware River from suburban Philadelphia. "One of my musicians was Brazilian, and when his landlord threatened him with exposure, he went home."

Robins is talking about a series of events that began in the summer of 2006 in this old factory town of 8,000. That's when the Riverside Township became the first muncipality in the state to enact legislation penalizing those who knwoingly rented to or employed undocumented immigrants. In deciding to do so, it joined dozens of other communities that are addressing one of the nation's hottest issues: how to handle the more than 10 million immigrants (both legal and illegal) who have entered the country since 2000, a total that's the largest in any seven-year period in American history.

Ed Robins represents one point of view in Riverside. Mark Remsa has a different take on the matter. "It's a matter of ensuring proper population density - and not overcrowding," says Remsa, director of economic development and regional planning for Burlington County, New Jersey, which encompasses Riverside. "That means that building codes are paid attention to and violations are enforced."

Immigrants have been coming to Riverside since the 1960's. Many of the first wave came from Portugal, creating a comfort zone for the latest group of newcomers - the Brazilians - who share a language and culture. Between 2000 and 2006, local officials estimate, more than 3,000 immigrants (both legal and not) arrived. Residents grew used to seeing "Brazilian Cadillacs," their term for the white vans that waited curbside to transport construction crews to work sites, and businesses on the main street welcomed the yellow and green flags that flapped outside stores, knowing that they brought customers downtown.

Yet some residents said the clannish manner of the foreigners made them feel uneasy. "I felt like a minority myself," says Nicole Forssell, a crossing guard and mother of three. "I felt they were always staring at us, and I was uncomfortable that they spoke in their own language to each other."

So when the ordinance passed, it didn't do so quietly Hundreds of demonstrators gathered - in protest and in support - causing enough of a ruckus that police cordoned off the town'a main streets. Within months, though, the streets took on a markedly different aspect. As Brazilians and Latin Americans fled Riverside, they left behind the dozen or so businesses - bodegas and restaurants, hair salons, and Western Union offices - that had catered to them. Today, Scott Street, the town's main drag, is deserted, the shops empty.

"People used to line up outside the supermarket before it even opened. Now nobody comes," says Enrique, a Brazilian behind the counter at a Mini-Market lined with shelves of coconut milk and "tostines" crackers. "Our city was beautiful; now it's sad," he sighs. "I look out the window and all I see is ghosts."

Mike Law, a landlord who says he counts many immigrants on his rent rolls, believes the Brazilians kept the streets hopping. "A lot of these stores were empty until the Brazilians came here," he says. "They opened businesses and they patronized businesses. To me, they were the Irish and the Italians of the 21st century. I think people were jealous of their success in a town that, frankly, had fallen behind the eight ball."

Robins echoes the sentiment. "There was a cold reality here after a whole: we saw that our economic base was ruined and that the ordiance was wrong. It created nothing but prejudice and separation."

It took about a year for the realization to sink in, but in September 2007 the town rescinded the ordinance. The rules were never enforced, anyway, as several human rights and business groups sued after the law was enacted in July 2006. "I don't think people knew there would be such an economic burden," says Mayor George Conard, who had voted for the legislation as a township commissioner.

IF THIS WILL HAPPEN IN A SMALL TOWN IN NEW JERSEY, WHAT IS THE FATE OF A STATE LIKE ARIZONA WHICH HAS JUST PASSED DRACONIAN ANTI-IMMIGRANT LEGISLATION AFFECTING THE STATE AND ITS SIX MILLION RESIDENTS?

WE HEAR JAMMERINGS ABOUT THE ECONOMIC DRAIN OF IMMIGRANTS, LEGAL AND ILLEGAL, BUT THEIR PRESENCE HERE IS, BY DEFINITION, AN ECONOMIC PLUS FOR OUR NATION - AND THOSE CITIES AND STATES THAT HAVE DECIDED TO SCAPEGOAT THEM ARE, I SUSPECT, GOING TO BE FINDING THAT OUT SOON.

1000 Friends of Oregon - the ACLU of Oregon Land Use

I'm glad the ACLU is around to represent its viewpoint, but I'm also glad that there aren't a lot of ACLU members in Congress because I don't agree with their 1st amendment extremism.

Similarly, I'm glad 1000 Friends of Oregon exists to be a watchdog for the extreme implementation of "good land use planning," but I don't think it's a good idea to elect former heads of the organization to seats on local governing bodies.

Case in point, Robert Liberty, who led the Metro torpedoing of poor Cornelius' attempts to get some industrial land into its city and shore up it's miserably puny tax base. Manipulating Oregon's land use laws, Liberty has choked off a community's needed economic development, all in the name of a purist ideal of land use planning in Oregon.

It's the reason Measure 37 passed. Liberty and the 1000 Friends still just don't get it. It's not 1973 any more.

Antiplanner hates proposed rail line

Sort of a "dog bites man" story, I know. The antiplanner is aghast that Portland may be spending over a billion dollars on a light rail line to Milwaukie, 8 miles south.

Never mind that it will serve Southeast Portland and Sellwood before it gets to Milwaukie.

Never mind that building a new freeway on the same route would cost how much exactly?

Never mind that bus rapid transit lines on their own right of way would cost just about as much.

Never mind that, as traffic gets more snarled, the antiplanner's sneer that he could ride his bike faster than the light rail trains will soon be matched by a sneer that he could ride his bike faster than automobile traffic along the same route.

Never mind that a light rail and bike only bridge across the Willamette will increase the antiplanner's and other bike riders' safety.

Never mind that the rail line will give transportation users CHOICE.

Never mind, antiplanner.

Jack Bog wants Rockwood to remain a slum

I guess he's so mistrustful of the work that Homer Williams has done to turn a junked-out portion of Northwest Portland into a hated icon of hipness that he's willing to flush the good and despairing citizens of Rockwood down the toilet so that his anti-Homer purity can be maintained.

Exclusive bike lanes on Salmon and Taylor in Downtown PDX

A while back, during the bicycle deaths controversies, I started contemplating how the city could create exclusive and safe bicycle lanes by retrofitting some streets. My first look was at the east-west street system.

And here's my plan (pardon the poor penmanship!):

Start with a central east-west couplet system that isn't used as a bridge approach to the east or a major artery approach to the west, and isn't used for light rail. There's one couplet that fits the bill - Taylor and Salmon.

Now take those two streets and create a central exclusive one-way bike lane on each - toward the river on Salmon, toward the hills on Taylor. It would be at least 12 feet wide. It would be separated from the vehicle lanes on either side of it by some sort of barrier or curb. The vehicle lanes on either side would be preserved mainly for local deliveries to the adjacent businesses and driveway access for any parking garage entrances and the like - but on-street parking would be gone and as you can see from my drawing, Salmon and Taylor would no longer be one-way - plus they would no longer function as through streets since traffic would be directed back onto a north-south street at each intersection.

At the river the bike couplet would connect to Waterfront Park and car-free bicycle routes there. I haven't figured out what would happen at the PGE Park end of things - that's for someone else to figure out!

Bicycles would have to obey the signal lights at all cross streets. Perhaps signals would be installed at the park blocks intersections and any west of I-405 that weren't already signalized.

A key point here is the physical separation between the bicycle lane and the service auto lanes on each side along Taylor and Salmon. Any vehicle drifting or veering into the common lane would have some sort of curb or barrier to contend with.

Next I'll contemplate exclusive bicycle lanes on the north-south streets.

I'm sure there's something wrong with this plan, please let me know!

Slow Down Just Ahead

I've been doing this blog for a year now. I've got some other things going on in my life (all good), so this blog will be going into slowdown mode. I will occasionally post something that catches my eye or piques my interest or allows me to make an important point, but that will be a much rarer occasion for now.

Thanks for reading, all five of you!

Why do valuable commercial properties sit unused for 15 years?

Because their owners are acting in an economically irrational manner. As is occurring on two sites in the strongest local commercial market in Portland, in the Northwest 21st-23rd area.

Sometimes property owners like these ones refuse to respond to lures and baits set by us urban planning overlords that are based upon a supposition that the property owners so lured will act in an economically rational manner.

And perhaps us urban planning overlords just need to accept that fact and move on to our next project.

What About New Orleans?

The Oregonian has an excellent couple of articles by Chris Beck on why New Orleans should be rebuilt and how it can be made better.

Admittedly, it is tempting to just chuck it all and say "adieu" to a city that is largely below sea level and in the path of hurricanes made stronger (perhaps) by global warming.

Beck's key punchline, "New Orleans is our Venice," has a lot of weight. And its a great argument for rebuilding that part of New Orleans that should be rebuilt, like the French Quarter and the older, historic parts of the City. But it's not an argument for bringing back neighborhoods that never should have been built in the first place.

New Orleans has an important place in our nation. But it should be a much smaller place (at least in terms of population) than it was before. After all, how many people still live in Venice?

Street Names

You'll notice that I did not compose a single post on the issue of Interstate Avenue vs. Cesar Chavez Boulevard, or Fourth Avenue vs. Cesar Chavez Boulevard. My only oblique contribution to the debate was a suggestion on Jack Bog's Blog that the City cajole some developer to name a new residential street "Cesar Chavez Court."

That's because the issue of how to honor Cesar Chavez is not an urban planning issue - it is an issue of perceptions, not reality. And, despite what Jack Bog or the Antiplanner might tell you, true urban planning overlords want to impose their will upon the populace in ways that will change our lives for the better in a concrete and substantive way. The big story on Interstate Avenue is its transformation by light rail from a run-down dead-end through street into a well-populated prosperous transit-based community - and how best to achieve or frustrate that transformation. The story remains the same whatever the street is named.

Book Review: The Devil in the White City

A great book, with an urban planning angle, about the 1893 Columbian Exposition Worlds Fair in Chicago, the famous "White City," and the parallel machinations of America's first notorious serial killer, H.H. Holmes (among other aliases). A must read for life in America's "Second City" at the end of the Victorian Era.

Notice: Urban Planning Overlords Needed in Los Angeles

An interesting take on the ultimate urban planning challenge - Los Angeles, California. The writer, a planner, comes to the conclusion that the only thing that can save Los Angeles from choking on its own traffic is - PLANNING!

One additional thought of mine - much of Los Angeles is flat, and there are A LOT of wide surface streets. How about a dense network of bicycle-only routes?

As I have noted in earlier threads, at least downtown Los Angeles is drinking the Portland Kool-Aid!

Hope for the East Side

Maybe Portland's east side and east suburbs (beyond the I-205 freeway) aren't doomed after all. Gresham is trying to turn the tide in Rockwood. A shuttered big box, a light rail line nearby, and tax increment financing available - it sounds like something good could come of this. I hope my prediction about the far east side turns out to be wrong - here is a test, we can check back in a few years.

NIMBYs in Milwaukie

In Milwaukie, an attempt to frustrate the placement of a home for "the others" in the Ardenwald neighborhood has been stymied, because the City of Milwaukie has bought the property. I'm sure they paid a premium to steal it from under the nose of Clackamas County, but this will probably get all the existing Council re-elected, or at least not recalled (as has been known to happen i Milwaukie).

The reason Milwaukie had to buy the property? Federal law is very strict that local zoning can't be used to keep these kinds of facilities out of neighborhoods, for the very good reason that otherwise there would be no place that allowed them.

On a broad public policy level, the actions of the City of Milwaukie are, of course, demagogic and frustrating to the goal of bringing people like these criminals back into society - and this type of facility has a much greater rate of success than fenced institutions deep in industrial areas do. On the other hand, would I want such a facility in my neighborhood? Of course not.

Book Review - On Trial

By Gerald Dickler. An episodic book of "great" trials throughout history, the first being Socrates in 399 BC, then on through Jesus, Joan of Arc, Dreyfus, the Scopes Trial, the Moscow Purge Trials, the Nuremburg Trials, and a few others. The actual transcripts of proceedings are skippable, but the book gives a good synopsis of these famous proceedings and their surroundings. Written in 1961, so expect it to be out of print.

Book Review - Mutiny on the Bounty

And oldie, but definitely not moldy. A ripping good sea adventure yarn, if not great literature, then at least Captain Bligh and Fletcher Christian became a pretty important part of 20th century popular culture. I recommend it. Written in 1932, and followed by two sequels, Men at Sea (which I read many years ago), a great account of Captain Bligh's brilliant voyage from near Tahiti to Indonesia with the cast-offs from the Bounty, and Pitcairn Island (which I haven't read), an account of Fletcher Christian and the fate of the main mutineers.

Ay Caramba! More Portland in LA

It's continuing to happen. The Portland Kool-aid comes to the center of car culture and sprawl development (albeit that's been changing for many years now, as mountains and oceans that can't be built on have limited sprawl). And the new champion buildings in the south part of downtown Los Angeles are being built by Portlanders. It's not just New York that thinks Portland is a grand place now. And it's unclear from the article whether the dreaded Homer Williams (cue spooky music) is involved in "South Group," the developers.

For those of us who last saw downtown Los Angeles almost 20 years ago the transformations occurring there must be amazing.

Green? Sure, as long as my view isn't spoiled!

A recent disgusting occurrence along the Columbia River in Vancouver (U.S.) is not unique. Trees in a city park along the river are being surreptitiously felled, and the prime suspects are luxury homeowners wanting a view of the river.

The same thing happened a few years back at the edge of Portland's Rose City Golf Course, except in that case the trees were girdled and left to slowly die.

All sort of imprecations involving the term "selfish elitist suburban mindset" come to mind, but I think the best way to respond is thus: "Instead of enjoying the view of the river, why don't you enjoy the view of the trees?"

Downtown Projects

Lots of development going on downtown, despite the supposed condo "bust." Here's a map.

And now throw in a grand plan to move Lincoln High School to Northwest Portland and use the 11 acre existing campus for intensive development. The map stops at 405. Homer Williams is involved, so Jack Bog and his chorus are frothing and seething. It's an audacious plan, but let's see what's in it for the City and the School District before condemning it out of hand.

UPDATE: Jack Bog in the comments has his usual pithy and to-the-point positive attitude about things. Well, it appears that more than a few actual parents of Lincoln High School students think it's an exciting idea. But what do they know, compared to a cranky parent of pre-schoolers on the "genuine" side of the river?

Wallowa County Follies

An interesting article appeared in last weekend's Oregonian about a land trust in Wallowa County. It is interesting not just because of the activities of the land trust, which is trying, through voluntary private sector donations based largely on federal tax subsidies, to protect this little slice of Colorado (or perhaps Switzerland?) in Oregon.

What's interesting is the problem Wallowa County is facing. Increasing numbers of very rich folks from around the U.S. are buying up ranch land, building monster "second homes," ending working ranch activities, and cutting off access to public lands. Meanwhile, there's no housing being built for the lower paid service workers needed to sustain the tourist and service economy that's growing.

Some comments:

First, Wallowa County has to realize that it has a good problem. What's going on now is better than the fate being faced by less scenic portions of the West or the western Great Plains, where rural poverty is endemic and communities are dying off. What Wallowa County needs to do is alleviate the negative side effects, not solve the problem by destroying economic growth.

Second, affordable housing should be accommodated within the two cities of Wallowa County, Joseph and Enterprise, which should look at their urban growth boundaries and comprehensive plans and come up with the land and public services for affordable housing. Land zoned for mobile home parks or apartments is not going to be bought up by rich Californians for ranches - it will be developed with affordable housing if the demand for it is there - and it appears that the demand is there.

Third, other than preserving the truly unique lands such as the moraines around Wallowa Lake, the land trust should be tackling the problem of public access by buying access rights to public lands from the neighboring ranchers before they sell out the exclusivist rich outsiders. Recent controversies surrounding slimeball Mark Hemstreet (of Shilo Inn fame) and his attempts to erase long time public access rights through his land come to mind.

Finally, I have advocated the selling off of surplus public land by the National Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management in past threads. The scenic Wallowa Mountains are an example of land which should NOT be sold off and should be turned over to the national park service for management as recreation lands, including the recreation of hunting.

Private Sector Convention Center Hotel - YES! Subsidized hotel - NO!

In the midst of this article, on the dreary prospects of additional public subsidies to support a convention center hotel, there came a shimmer of light. The private sector might just be able to build a hotel without massive public subsidies and write-downs. And if that's possible, that means someone with some financial acumen thinks that a convention center hotel is at least operationally viable as a profitable business entity.

If true, I change my mind about it - I have no objection from a physical planning standpoint to a large convention center hotel next to a large convention center. Just not with a lot of public money subsidizing the whole thing.

Measure 49

Yes, it passed (cue Mandel's Hessiah Challelujah Horus). A couple of cautionary comments:

1. I hope rogue local governments (are you listening, Multnomah County?) and zealous advocacy groups (hello, 1000 Friends?) and ideological bureaucrats (DLCD, anyone?) don't try to make the dire predictions of the anti-49 forces come true by exploiting language ambiguities to frustrate the clear intent of the measure - rural landowners get three homes, no questions asked.

2. The task for the legislature (and the Big Look, if it is revived) is to equalize the rules for all landowners. This means giving all current rural property owners the right to three houses. I don't believe that our State should be discriminating in favor of long-time property owners, and since their gains are now locked in stone, perhaps it is time to give the rest of our state's rural property owners, who may not have had the foresight to buy property in 1964, the same rights and privileges. Salem's Judge James may not have been right in making this a constitutional issue, but as a matter of public policy it's where I stand.

Wildfires, Nedonna Beach, and Moratoria

An interesting article about some problems in Rockaway Beach - the Nedonna Beach neighborhood, where homeowners want all development stopped until a new emergency access to the community is available - and it appears that such access at a point where it would be truly useful is very expensive.

The problem for the residents of Nedonna Beach is Oregon's moratorium laws. Unlike many other states, Oregon moratoria cannot be open-ended no-growth devices. "No new development until we build that sewer plant upgrade, which we'll get to in a few decades or so." Once an Oregon municipality declares a moratorium, it must actually set forth a program to fix the problem within about two years. So in Nedonna Beach a moratorium would just result in the residents being forced to pay for that alternative emergency access to their community through new taxes or assessments. And if they refused, the moratorium would go away and the development would go ahead.

There is another alternative of course - buy the property from the subdivider. But that would be a lot of money too, and neighbors tend to want to stop development on the cheap - property rights tend to stop at their own doorsteps.

So if I were representing the City of Rockaway Beach I would tell them to suck it up and approve the subdivision with a requirement that the subdivider provide the alternative emergency access to US 101 that will at least somewhat ameliorate the emergency evacuation problem. Alternatively, I would talk to the subdivider about a fair price for the property and then try to form a Local Improvement District in Nedonna Beach to pay for the purchase.

Bicycle Prescriptions

The Willamette Week has a thorough article about how Portland could be made more bike-friendly. I agree with most of its suggestions (the "bicycle only on Sunday" roads is not one of them). #1, Separated bicycle lanes, especially interests me - the problem that the author doesn't mention is that on-street parking would appear to bite the dust. The article provides immediate and sensible policy prescriptions, and not particularly expensive ones (except for a new Sellwood Bridge, which is needed for a LOT of reasons).

Pining for Days Past

Local government officials have this thing about "employment" areas. They will tolerate terrible housing shortages and sky-high prices so as to protect underutilized industrial lands from the evil hordes of residential builders. Even when, because of the sky-high housing prices, the workers in those underutilized lands must commute to San Jose or Oakland or Berkeley from Tracy and Modesto.

Here in Portland, we see the same short-sighted thinking in areas such as the Eastside "Industrial Sanctuary," and the Northwest "Industrial Sanctuary," (the latter was used as an excuse to shield Northwest merchants from competition from Costco a few years back). Yes, industrial land is still needed, but it is not an intensive use, and trying to keep it shoehorned in otherwise densely-packed central city areas is just not wise policy.

Sometimes us urban planning overlords need to interfere with market forces. But not always.

Paul Weyrich Sees the Truth

Paul Weyrich and I don't agree about much - he is a prominent conservative political operator, with views on "social" issues such as abortion, stem cell research, homosexuality, etc., that I strongly disagree with.

Which is why his position on urban mass transit, which I first discovered several years ago, continues to astound and delight me. His views, and a critique of the Antiplanner's trashing of Portland, are presented on the conservative Town Hall website. The most gratifying statement he makes comes in the midst of the article:

The great thing about Portland is that residents are offered a choice.

It's something I have been saying on this blog for almost a year now, both to those like the antiplanner, who would deny residents any choice but the automobile, and those on the other extreme, who want to abolish or greatly restrict private automobile usage.

I don't share Mr. Weyrich's enthusiasm for the Portland streetcar, not because it is a train, but because it has not been given a separated right of way, and is thus at the mercy of traffic - it is basically a glamorous, immobile bus. I don't doubt that the glamour behind the streetcar is behind some of the new development that has occurred along its path, as Mr. Weyrich notes, but I have my doubts as to the staying power of that glamour over the decades.

The Antiplanner answers the criticism on his weblog. I'm unconvinced by most of the Antiplanner's counter-arguments. But you can judge for yourself.

Survey Says: Give Us Mass Transit, Not More Roads!

Read it and weep, Antiplanner and Karlock.

The bad news? Americans are opposed to any new toll roads, 2 to 1. So where the Antiplanner and I agree, we are both going against the tide of public opinion. Maybe DeFazio the demagogue is on to something ...