More insanity from our planner overloads. Fees and fines will be the start, phase 2 will involve the installation of a electro-shock device into steering wheels that will "incentivize corrective behavior" if you drive during rush hour. The ideal Portland resident is a 25 year old childless barista who bikes and lives in an apartment bunker (no parking) on a Max line.

That linked site takes comments!

I left this:
Why don't you guys increase road capacity instead of wasting money on toy trains, speed bumps, bike paths, transit supportive extended curbs and other crackpot ideas?

Why do you guys push transit when cars are far cheaper than transit and faster and the new ones use less energy. Do you guys know how to read Federal data on this?

Thanks
JK

"Transit is bad" will never be accepted in Portland. You can be right, or you can get something done.

JK:
It's not about transit, it's about choice and how to take it away from individuals.

I was talking to Mr. Thanks, who blunts his own arguments by being too extreme.

The other thing that baffles me is how fees like this can be supported by self-styled "progressives"? These would have a proportionally worse (both in terms of finances and % of population subject)on lower income folks who, for example, work downtown but live in outer SE/Hillsboro/N Portland and have to drive to work. So aside from being social engineering on steroids, this is also the type of regressive tax you think would be repellent to the types of minds proposing it.

It is evidently Tri-Met's choice to force former mass transit riders back into their cars.

Thanks, Earl!

Go By Your Own Car!

Two-bit SF has rent controls which keep the low-or no-income folks in place, drives out the middle class because housing is too expensive (someone has to pay for what the rent-sontrolled people don't) and may not be well maintained. The future is a city of very low and very high income residents. Creepy.

I don't think a lot of progressive types live in the outer regions and thus, don't care. Those aren't "cool" neighborhoods.

What Grumpy said. The eco-Greeny's don't really care about suburbs and frankly disdain 'those types'.

Seems some of the eco-Green ones around here have a bit of selective sustainability.

Whether it's for public policy or parenting, it's the classic tactical dilemma: do you change behavior with the figurative carrot or stick?

I find this so offensive!
The metro/city policies created problems of congestion,
Now they are turning to "needing" to change our behavior!

Changing residents' behaviors...by failing to invest in anything but the Streetcar, so residents are moving to the suburbs where there is a healthy mix of options - good roads, bike lanes, sidewalks, bike paths, parks? Or Portland, which has a lot of narrow, two-lane roads without sidewalks, without bike lanes, and where bus riders have to stand on the road shoulder or drainage ditch to wait for a bus that may or may not show up?

Portland is absolutely hypocritical...I wonder if any of its planners actually live in the city they govern. I know one of Metro's chief managers actually lives OUTSIDE the UGB and Metro district in rural Clackamas County outside of Canby, in a McMansion.

Where did the picture used come from? Perhaps here?

Photo Credit: MetroDCLiving

http://www.metrodcliving.com/urbantrekker/WindowsLiveWriter/j0400472.jpg

The link opens and then the text goes blank. Apparently this is PBOT’s new form of transparency. The question that arises after reading what I could get in a few seconds is as follows: who is the elite “we” that PBOT is referring to? It sure isn’t the working middle class with families or anybody representing the average Portland homeowner. Without a doubt, that “we” must be a "gang" of freeloading slacker bicyclists thar want more dedicated bicycle infrastructure without themselves paying for it. Obviously this is more socialism from City Hall.