San Francisco Bike Blog

We introduced the e2 PBS series a couple of day ago. Now, the Portland (visitor) (wiki) episode is online. It’s great. We’ve talked a bit about placemaking here and here - so yes, we like the title of the episode.

Below are some very short video clips from the episode - one of which is web-exclusive - they’re all great.

Trailer for Portland episode:

Land-use - California now has its own law, but I’ve heard it doesn’t have teeth:

Streetcars, not bendy buses:

Here are some notes from the main show, which you can now see online:

Hollowing-out of the downtown / middle class flight to the suburbs / suburban sprawl / motorization of American cities / sacrificed downtown for suburbs to let people get in / out of the city as quickly as possible.

In the 60s, Portland was dying…sprawl…congestion….was a wake-up call to us in Oregon. Revivifying the downtown…Portland did it ‘better than most’…1973 state law to curb urban sprawl by 1000 Friends of Oregon was really designed to protect rural lands - including farmlands. Governor Tom McCall…visionary….defend rural landscape….Saving urban cities was only an afterthought, but everyone realized later that protecting the rural landscape went hand in hand with creating great urban environments….Comprehensive statewide land use planning process…..each and every city had to identify an ‘urban growth boundary’…inside the line, urbanization is allowed and permitted by right — outside of that line, though, it’s farm and forest uses only.

Portland halted freeway construction and re-appropriated federal money to build light-rail instead. Portland chose ‘accessibility’ rather than ‘mobility’.

Pedestrian is first-class passenger in downtown….they have enough time to cross the street….no big, wide streets that are hostile to pedestrians by being difficult to cross….you don’t have to push any buttons to get a signal to cross the street…..everything is organized around the ‘pedestrians first’ principle.

Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) was the objective….when decision made to revive city’s abandoned railyards….Pearl District (wiki)….used to be empty, railyard was dead, brownfield land just 10 years ago…whole new neighborhood where there was essentially a blank slate… Portlanders live much-more sustainably than other parts of the country…..Less than 1 parking space per residential unit….Ground-level retail has *no* parking.

Pearl District owes much to its transformation to the modern streetcar line in 2001…unlike the bumpy, clanging trolleys favored by tourists visiting San Francisco, Portland’s modern streetcar carries 10,000 passengers a day….7,000 more than planners estimated.

Charlie Hale….saw potential for streetcar…made it happen. Certainty of the investment for builders…people would build and buy along the rail line. Rail is different than cars and buses, which can change routes. Interview with Powell’s Books (wiki) owner Michael Powel… developers like rail/track…it’s a ’statement of commitment’…..2nd goal is to move people out of cars….streetcar also met environmental goals…it became a development tool.

All transportation systems have significant input from private sector that made them better. There was some initial resistance to streetcars…Are you gonna destroy the parking…? Will my business go under during construction? Michael Powell went to business owners and said, ‘Our engineers are promising us a block a week, so you can go to the beach for a week, and when you come back there will be a streetcar line in front of your building, and your property will be worth twice what it was when you left to go to the beach’ — that quieted a lot of concerns… Property values probably went up by factor of four.

$3 Billion worth of development along the streetcar lines… Development along line is at twice the level of density of the rest of the city….Powell’s Books used to be only retail outlet in that area of downtown. No parking minimums for developers, but there was a requirement for ground-level retail.

Some lady said she moved to downtown Portland because of the streetcar. She said, “It’s getting crowded down here. Good problem (to have).”

South Waterfront project…sprawled out along the river, but also walled off by presence of interstate highway….aerial tram to top of hill…needed solution to connect two areas… something clean, easy to do, something that would not inflame the neighborhood with noise and emissions. DOT - development-oriented transit? — said in an interview with (Mayor Elect) Sam Adams.

Portland had 4% population growth last year. World is beating a path to Portland’s door. One mother said they knew they’d live in an urban area, but in lots of other urban areas it’s just too difficult to do with kids - not so in Portland.

‘Lifestyle Migrants’ choose to come to portland. Cost of housing is going up, some real issues about affordability….etc. “I don’t recognize the city any more.” Is it progress? Maybe or maybe not, but it is change. Powell’s wife regrets loss of old-time, small city/culture, but loves new art/diversity/liveliness.

30% of urban development funding will go towards affordable housing. Portland is coming to the ‘affordable housing’ table late.

Stats on transportation are kind of astounding.

Nothing much on bikes.

I recently heard of 1000 Friends Of Wisconsin, too.

It looks like that 1973 land use state law was actually at two bills. Governor McCall was a Republican.

Not sure I understand the ‘accessibility vs. mobility’ statement. What’s the difference, exactly?

I think there may be something to that DOT concept - Development-Oriented Transit (pdf), as opposed to TOD, Transit-Oriented Development. From the earlier link to the Christian Science Monitor article that included some quotes from Charles Hales - the main pusher behind Portland’s streetcar:

Mr. Hales, who was instrumental in developing Portland’s system, says the city wanted to create “development-oriented transit” as opposed to the traditional “transit-oriented development.” The former aims to encourage developers to build high-density areas, where driving a car becomes an inconvenience. Couldn’t buses, which are cheaper, do the same? They might, advocates say, but “have you seen developers write checks for buses?” Tracks, Hales says, show the city’s commitment.

That’s a strong pro-rail statement.

I’d like to study the top cycling cities and see what their bus vs. rail mix is. My guess is that there is a strong correlation between cycling and rail — more of one naturally leads to more of the other.

It doesn’t look like the episode is playing on TV anywhere in the Bay Area in the near future, but I could be wrong about that - those PBS schedule things always confuse me. Plus, I don’t have a TV, and I know you’re a good person, so you either don’t own a TV or don’t bother watching it much - we all make exceptions only for high quality public broadcasts like the e2 series, right?

All in all, another great episode. I don’t think we’ll have to worry about Portland or any other world-class city attempting to insert BRT into their transportation mix - it seems like they’re serious about success. But we’ll see.

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