91ÊÓƵ

Oregon has a reputation for effective planning. However, when it comes to transportation planning, efforts often appear to be moving in different directions and at speeds slower than melting glaciers.

In October 2013, the governors of California, Oregon and Washington, as well as a proxy for the premier of British Columbia, signed the Pacific Coast Action Plan on Climate and Energy. Among other things, the pact promises provincial or state-level action to further the usual panoply of clean transportation modes – including adoption of low-carbon fuel emission standards, expansion of the use of zero-emission vehicles, and support of high-speed rail.

In 2012, the Oregon Department of Transportation launched its Oregon Passenger Rail Project to study potential creation of a high-speed rail line from Eugene to Portland. The study, as opposed to construction, is due to finish sometime in 2016.

ODOT has also begun work on updating its Oregon State Rail Plan, initially adopted in 1997. This study follows ODOT’s update of its Highway Plan and its creation of design guidelines for its Pedestrian and Bicycle Plan in 2011.

As Oregon moves sluggishly toward planning a regional alternative transportation system, other counties such as Germany has not only built them, they are now integrating them. In a December 2013 article by Nicholas Oyler in the American Planning Association’s Planning magazine, he explains that the German government has made providing “safe and affordable mobility to people” a priority. The focus for the German system is Gesamtmobilität, or “full mobility” combining bike sharing, car sharing and transitional public transit into one coordinated system.

For example, a bicycle or the commuter rail may make sense for travel to an office, but a car may be better for reaching a lunch meeting during a rainstorm or running a quick errand. Some regions, such as the Ruhr Valley and its many rural areas, have created an office whose sole function is coordination of transportation services. In Dusseldorf, for about $100 per month, customers receive a ticket card that includes a monthly pass for local transit, 90 minutes of Car2Go usage and four hours of daily Nextbike usage.

Another example taken from the Oyler article tells the tale of a rural resident who drives his minivan from his rural village to a parking lot of a commuter rail station, where he loads his bicycle onto a commuter train into Frankfurt, where he cycles along greenways and under highway and railroad overpasses to his office building. Coordinating the various modes of transportation seems obvious from those who are commuting, but what are we doing on the planning end to connect and coordinate these multimodal approaches? Adopting separate state, county and city highway, pedestrian and bicycle and rail plans, with an entirely separate state-sponsored Passenger Rail Project – Eugene to Portland – does not seem to integrate any of these systems on the front end.

Further, the Portland-metro area served by TriMet, as the single public transportation provider, is distinguishable from the German system that includes a greater number of public and private transportation options including bus, trolley bus, streetcar, light rail, heavy rail and intercity rail. TriMet’s recent adoption of a flat fare system along with electronic ticketing may make it simpler for riders to get around; however, it does not go nearly far enough to suggest any partnering with bike-sharing and car-sharing companies, when car sharing appears to be gaining in popularity.

As an autonomous public entity, TriMet enjoys some degree of freedom from transportation planning obligations imposed by the statewide land use system regarding reliable service. It is not required to guarantee service, and cutbacks have left developments, already allegedly underserved by adequate off-street parking, without the 15-minute bus service they had expected.

It is conceivable that this could lead to other entities jumping into the public transportation game; imagine the DR Horton Express transporting its residents from new developments in Happy Valley or Oregon City to stops on TriMet’s Milwaukie Express line. After all, Portland’s development history is filed with developer-built and run ferries and trolley lines transporting people to and from new developments.

The upside is that decisions about how and where to enhance the public transportation system have yet to be made, in many respects, and can be accomplished using a more integrated approach that includes both public and private options. However, ODOT’s myopic-focus on separately planning for rail, passenger rail, highways, and infrastructure for bicyclists and pedestrians coupled with no certainty that TriMet will provide adequate service over the long term as required by the statewide planning goals, suggests that such glacial-speed planning efforts will likely continue to be anything but integrated.

Edward Sullivan is an owner in the Portland office of Garvey Schubert Barer. Contact him at 503-553-3106 or at [email protected].

Carrie Richter is an owner in the Portland office of Garvey Schubert Barer. Contact her at 503-553-3118 or at [email protected].