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For some people who last week attended a meeting about transportation planning in Portland’s Southeast Quadrant, the discussion raised more questions than it answered.

Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability staffers at the Thursday meeting presented proposed strategies for managing transportation system needs over the next 10 years. Main points included preserving and enhancing freight routes, improving traffic flow and signage, developing priority streets for pedestrians and bicyclists, and establishing parks and open spaces in the close-in Central Eastside.

Troy Doss, senior planner for the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, said he and staffers were 鈥渟till trying to wrap our (heads) around what happened at that meeting.鈥�

The BPS team has been working on a plan for the district that will improve circulation for everyone who works or lives there. The Central Eastside presents a unique situation for users, Doss said, because of the large amount of industrially zoned land. In the next 20 years the district is expected to gain 9,000 jobs, though city planners project that proposed land use changes during the same time will add just 2,180 peak-hour vehicle trips.

鈥淚f you take a look at somewhere like Marquam Hill, where there is a constrained parking environment, there have been a lot of new jobs introduced in the area, but traffic hasn’t increased at the same rate,鈥� Doss said. 鈥淭en years ago, 80 percent of people working at the hospital were using cars. That number has dropped to 50 percent because of improved access to public transportation.鈥�

Doss said the city believes a similar situation will occur over the next decade in the Central Eastside as TriMet bus routes are added and the MAX orange line begins operating.

Debbie Kitchin, president of the Central Eastside Industrial Council, on Thursday questioned the numbers presented by Doss and his team.

鈥淚t’s hard for me to get those numbers to make sense,鈥� she said. 鈥淧ublic transportation works when you go to a job and don’t leave during the day. We have a lot of distribution jobs in this area, and my sense is people are still going to need to drive for a lot of them.鈥�

Kitchin said she also was concerned about some of the city’s plans to change roads to create more space for bicyclists.

The Central City 2035 Concept Plan, approved in 2012 by Portland City Council, included a pedestrian/bicyclist loop called the 鈥済reen loop.鈥� It would connect both sides of the river with a continuous pathway establishing rights-of-way throughout the city.

The city is looking at Grand, Sixth, Seventh and Ninth avenues as possible eastside green loop streets that would be reconfigured to ease travel for pedestrians and bicyclists. These changes would lessen the amount of room afforded to vehicles, and Kitchin is wary of such a plan.

鈥淪ome of us are advocating for more options that don’t take from the right-of-way for freight traffic,鈥� she said. 鈥淔reight is very important in that area, and we’re concerned about how to balance the needs of the trucks that need a larger turning radius with the needs of the bicycle and pedestrian traffic.鈥�

One option shown to attendees at Thursday’s meeting was for a street that currently has parking on both sides, two travel lanes, a center turn lane and one bike lane for each direction. The street would be reconfigured to have a single parking lane, two travel lanes, a center turn lane and a 鈥渂ikeway鈥� on which bicyclists would travel in both directions and be separated from motor traffic by a median.

Kitchin, however, said she doesn’t think it’s necessary to bring the green loop all the way into the Central Eastside.

鈥淲e could count the Eastbank Esplanade as part of the green loop,鈥� she said. 鈥淪ome of us are concerned about having the right-of-way constrained more.鈥�

City staffers were hoping that Kitchin and other meeting attendees would agree to the principles set forth at the meeting, but that didn’t happen.

鈥淭he devil is in the details and we’re nervous about agreeing to the principles without knowing those details,鈥� Kitchin said. 鈥淚t’s hard to stop a ball that’s rolling, and we felt discomfort approving their plan when we still have so many questions.鈥�

So many unanswered questions remain that the group on Thursday didn’t move forward, Doss said. The plan is to meet again in early December for further discussion of ways to fix transportation-related problems in the Central Eastside.

鈥淚 think we were starting from a place of distrust,鈥� Doss said. 鈥淲e came in saying, 鈥楬ere are the best strategies,’ but they’re very concerned about change in the district and how we’re going to manage that change.鈥�