The Abe Lincoln mosaic bit was amusing at least. Land use planning is all about relationships you see, the big picture.

I randomly skipped to that part. I could only stomach the first 4 minutes or so.

The sound and video is atrocious. I could get better video just holding my iPhone.

I'm just stunned by how vapid the whole thing has become. Blood on the bike paths.

What is the point of walkability anyway?
Why is livability associated with walking instead of good schools, good jobs and low crime?

Just shows the misplaced priorities of the planners.

Why do planners think it is better to walk to a little, overpriced mixed use store with limited selection, than to drive to a low priced big store?

Why do planers think it is better to walk to a crappy job at a mixed use shop than to drive to a family wage job?

Why do planners want us to take mass transit that costs more, uses more energy and is slower than driving a car. (See: portlandfacts.com/top10bus.html)

Why do planners think the Europeans take mass transit everywhere while the reality is that 78% of motorized travel in the EU15 is by PRIVATE CAR! (portlandfacts.com/transit/eurotranistshareloss.htm)

Why do planners think that jamming more people in a small areas will reduce congestion when the fact is that density is a cause of congestion. (See: portlandfacts.com/smart/densitycongestion.htm)

For more planner idiocy see: portlandfacts.com/smart/smartgrowthlies.html

We will not recover until we fire all the city/urban planners. (The only government planners we NEED are to plan where to put roads and other public services based on actual demand, not social engineering.)

Thanks
JK

I think the point of walkability is that guys like Bicycle Rex and Mayor Creepy actually believe that people won't have motorized vehicles 50 years from now, and they want to make it look like the whole thing was their idea.

If we're going back to 19th Century modes of transportation eventually, why rush it?

If we're going back to 19th Century modes of transportation eventually, why rush it?
JK: those clowns don't just want us to go back to 19th century transport. They want to completely undo modern society and go back to 19th century standard of living. Complete with its disease, poverty, hunger, low standard of living, low farm productivity, pestilence and short life spans.

If they get their way, their death count will make Hitler and Stalin And Mao look like child's play.

Thanks
JK

Worth noting: The lawyers that often run government agencies don't want anybody with any brains. In fact the more mismanaged and incompetent the better as far as they're concerned. The result: More lawsuits that require lots of legal time.

If you don't believe me check out the top officers at some of these government agencies. Often many do not have post-secondary education while drawing huge salaries. Their only function is to kiss body parts, not to accomplish anything positive. Toadies are a dime a dozen so there are no shortage of replacements should one need to be removed.

Ever wonder why many of these worthless administrators leave with generous severance packages when they leave? It's called "hush money".

A friend of mine who used to work at the BDS, and was fired in the mammoth lay offs that happened last year, and who now does private work, told me only yesterday that he walked out of the 4th street offices just saying 'bs, bs, bs, bs!!!
And as for 19th century modes of transport, I think that amount of horse manure was probably a serious health hazard. The other issue these bike riding bureaucrats do not seem to consider is the 'aging demographic'. To put this in plain language, a good many of us are already too old and inform to ride bikes or walk very far, and this is not going to change.
We have melted the ice so the younger generation can no longer put us out on a berg to die.
Serves 'em right!

Walkability is not the enemy. High priced condos and mixed-use developments, served by high-priced toy trains, are.

For the money we spend on MAX, we could have a kick-ass bus system that runs every 10 minutes.

Hayek was right, central planners are the beginning of the end for democracy.

So let me get this straight cars are bad even if they are green and electric. This means personal mobility is bad since you need to have everything within 5 miles like someone born on the farm 200 years ago.

Oh yeah, we fix congestion by cramming more people in higher density rabbit huts.

These guys could at least come up with a new flavor some time.

Those "Portland Facts" are pretty bogus. The transit cost comparisons don't, for instance, take into account the cost of road building and maintenance. It costs a lot of money to condemn property and build highways. If you can move thirty people on a single 40' long bus instead of 30 individual 15' long cars, you've got one vehicle taking up a quarter of a block instead of a string of cars that's more than two blocks long even if they were touching bumpers.

That's the problem with people who try to drown you in the minutiae of small calculations. They focus on what they think is a flaw and hammer away at that one thing, and they may be correct when talking about an isolated case, but when you're working with a system rather than an individual, you need to plan for capacity, otherwise known as "traffic."

Not that I think it would be particularly cost-effective to build a road network for one person to drive around on, either.

Re: "guys like Bicycle Rex and Mayor Creepy actually believe"

It would be discouraging in the extreme if these two were not uniquely aberrant. To suggest that they "actually believe" in anything beyond themselves is to imagine a capacity that has never been exhibited.

Why do planners think the Europeans take mass transit everywhere while the reality is that 78% of motorized travel in the EU15 is by PRIVATE CAR!

Here's another bit of misdirection disguised as information. The chart doesn't say that "78% of motorized travel in the EU15 is by PRIVATE CAR!" It says passenger cars are used for 78% of "total passenger transport measured in passenger – kilometres". Which means that cars are used to cover the most mileage (or kilometrage).

If someone takes a bus 4 miles each way to work every day 50 weeks out of the year, that's 2,000 miles in 500 trips. If, on their 2 weeks of vacation they rent a car to drive to LA and back, that's 2,000 miles in 2 trips. Are they using a passenger car for half of their trips? Does the fact that they've used a passenger car for half their mileage in the year mean they're not using mass transit for the most part? What if they lived only 1 mile from downtown and the 500 trips came out to only 500 miles of transit? Then their passenger car mileage would be 80% of their annual mileage (2,000 of 2,500 total). Hey! That's just about what the EU figures were! And if you have a family of 4 in the car, you only have to make a 500-mile trip (250 each way) to rack up 2,000 passenger-miles. Isn't math fun?

That chart doesn't even show the people who walk or take bikes in Europe. I'm not going to stand up for the planners in this city -- I think there's been a fair amount of get-the-development-community-what-it-wants gussied up for the citizens under the rubric of "livability" - but arguments like the one above are just from developers who want complete freedom to do whatever they would. And it's an affront to basic mathematics.

Thanks Jack. no I wasn't nauseated, I just forever lost the time spent and was only 3/4 the way though before I fell asleep. What a load of drivel.
JK said it best: "We will not recover until we fire all the city/urban planners."

Metro's JPACT just voted to allocate a split of federal funding dollars 75%-25% in favor of "active transport" (we used to call them "bike paths and trails").

Portland city councilor Nick Fish, sitting in for Portland mayor Sam Adams, got behind Burpholder: "When we invest in trails, there's a huge return to the public."

Metro also published a perky video this week which demonstrates how to safely ride a bicycle across the I-5 bridges over the Columbia River, which is intended, among other things, to show riders that they can easily "run errands" by bicycle.

Must be fun in January.

As part of the aging demographic (aka baby boomers) who despite our efforts to stay young won't do that forever, I can only say that when we wake up, the coming of hell, in the form of voting bike loving bastards out of office, will be swift and final. It pisses me off how badly the bus system around here has been pillaged for toy trains and other nonsense. I have a car and I can drive so I do but I feel for the majority of folks who may not have my options and for whom bikes are not feasible. And for the bike morons who blow stop signs and red lights (this week I've seen so many it's staggering) and ride without helmets, I hope Karma (or is that Carma) serves you all so well.

Here is a long but interesting article regarding urban plight by Dr.Margaret Chan

http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2010/urban_health_20100407/en/

Darrelplant; since you like "facts" the way you like them, let me make a correction to your "facts" about "it costs a lot of money to condemn property and to build roadways".

Milwaukie Lightrail's condemning of property on just one parcel will cost over $28 Million and the total right-of-way cost will be over $275 Million. The cost of the proposed 7 mile MLR is over $1.5 Billion, and not including the debt cost which will bring it up to $2.2 Billion. The cost per mile at $1.5 Billion is over $200 Million per mile, higher than freeway cost, or much higher than a enhanced rapid bus transit line to Milwaukie. Let's get our facts straight.

Also, contrary to your chastising comparing vehicle miles to mass transit based on a mileage basis, it is still fair way make comparisons on a mileage basis. It wasn't a hidden comparison. But then you probably think it is fair that TriMet counts the typical 3 transfers that one makes going from the airport to one's home in Beaverton as 3 trips, while in actuality it is one trip from airport to home. That increases their "ridership" numbers, etc. to make mass transit look good. You seem to like it both ways.

*darrelplant :* Those "Portland Facts" are pretty bogus. The transit cost comparisons don't, for instance, take into account the cost of road building and maintenance.
*JK:* Do you ever get anything right? Those car costs include gas tax, license fees etc. That covers the cost of roads building and maintenance. However a recent study did find that there is about a 1.1 cents/passenger-mile general tax subsidy to roads. (Compare this to a 60 cents, or so, subsidy to transit.) See: http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=2199

*darrelplant :* It costs a lot of money to condemn property and build highways.
*JK:* that’s why most road building on cheap, un-built land. Also note that a light rail track takes the same space a traffic lane and carries less people.

*darrelplant :* If you can move thirty people on a single 40' long bus
*JK:* Only in a planner’s dream. The average Trimet bus carries 9.9 passengers per federal data. See portlandfacts.com/top10bus.html

*darrelplant :* instead of 30 individual 15' long cars, you've got one vehicle taking up a quarter of a block instead of a string of cars that's more than two blocks long even if they were touching bumpers.
*JK:* So to save a little space we should spend about four times as much money and take twice as long on the bus as compared to driving?

*darrelplant :* That's the problem with people who try to drown you in the minutiae of small calculations.
*JK:* Yeah, they look at the real world, instead of the fantasy world that planners live in. That’s why planners are wrong about most everything.

Thanks
JK

*darrelplant :* (quoting JK) Why do planners think the Europeans take mass transit everywhere while the reality is that 78% of motorized travel in the EU15 is by PRIVATE CAR!

Here's another bit of misdirection disguised as information. The chart doesn't say that "78% of motorized travel in the EU15 is by PRIVATE CAR!" It says passenger cars are used for 78% of "total passenger transport measured in passenger – kilometres". Which means that cars are used to cover the most mileage (or kilometrage).
*JK:* Huh? Of course cars cover the most mileage since 78% of motorized milage is by private car. You are nit picking or not understanding.

*darrelplant :* If someone takes a bus 4 miles each way to work every day 50 weeks out of the year, that's 2,000 miles in 500 trips. If, on their 2 weeks of vacation they rent a car to drive to LA and back, that's 2,000 miles in 2 trips. Are they using a passenger car for half of their trips? Does the fact that they've used a passenger car for half their mileage in the year mean they're not using mass transit for the most part?
*JK:* yes.

*darrelplant :* What if they lived only 1 mile from downtown and the 500 trips came out to only 500 miles of transit?
*JK:* But most people don’t live within a mile of downtown. And if they did, most people would NOT be closer to their jobs , since most (close to 80%) of the area jobs are NOT downtown. You are living in the 1920s if you believe most jobs are downtown. (You must be a planner!)

*darrelplant :* That chart doesn't even show the people who walk or take bikes in Europe.
*JK:* Because it is a chart of travel.

*darrelplant :* I'm not going to stand up for the planners in this city -- I think there's been a fair amount of get-the-development-community-what-it-wants gussied up for the citizens under the rubric of "livability"
*JK:* That is how planning works. They respond to government which is run by the developers. They simply latch on to any BS excuse that the gullible public will suck up.

*darrelplant :* - but arguments like the one above are just from developers who want complete freedom to do whatever they would. And it's an affront to basic mathematics.
*JK:* Wrong again. My agreements are show reality and how planners beliefs deviate from it.

Thanks
JK

Perhaps land use planners believe that we will be getting our food from here:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090630-farm-towers-locally-grown.html

Walkability not a factor -- try elevators instead. And no one needs a car anymore -- live and eat where you live! Quality of life issues? Well, maybe if you are a planner....

jim, if you seriously think that someone who uses a bus to commute four miles to work and back 250 days a year and drives a car for the other two weeks isn't primarily a user of public transit, then you're just being dishonest. That person would use public transit 96% of the year, almost every day but your interpretation is that they're not primarily a public transit user.

Frankly, I hope you keep up with that kind of assertion because it cuts through the bulls*** of the faux statistics you throw up. Any reasonable person who might have been swayed by the bogus numbers is going to look at that kind of statement and know that they're dealing with people for whom reality just isn't an issue.

LIkewise, your opinions about where people live and how they get there and comparisons to Europe are just goofy. Sure, people in the US don't live and/or work a mile from downtown but that was simply any example in my explanation of how your math was screwed up. Again, you focus on minutiae and lose track of the larger picture.

For one thing, the figures cited have nothing to do with American living and work habits, they're European figures. So whatever you have to say about American cities has bupkis to do with the chart.

Second, it doesn't matter where exactly someone works when computing daily commuting figures. What's important is the travel distance from home to work. They could live in central London and work in a suburb. They could live on one side of Berlin and work on the other. They could live in an Athens suburb and work in a different Athens suburb. Downtown doesn't matter in my example. What's important is how far away from work they live and how they get there and back.

Third, a "chart of travel"? Did you bother to actually read the text above the slide?

It [the EU] is also backing local authorities in their efforts to promote and improve public transport, especially in Europe’s crowded cities.

One of the modes of transport mentioned is "Tram and metro". That's intra-city transport, and non-motorized modes of intra-city transport include walking and bicycling. There's a lot of walking going on in big cities, even American cities like NYC. You should check it out sometime.

"Walkable and Livable Communities Institute, Inc."

People make money this way. The more they sell it to public officials who have public dollars, the longer they keep the game going. People who eat up these ideas need to understand it's a business, and someone is selling something.

While its good to care for the environment, we also have to realize that "green" has become the biggest racket to come along in decades. A lot of this planning crud is the same way. Businessmen taking advantage of good intentions.

darrelplant: jim, if you seriously think that someone who uses a bus to commute four miles to work and back 250 days a year and drives a car for the other two weeks isn't primarily a user of public transit, then you're just being dishonest. That person would use public transit 96% of the year, almost every day but your interpretation is that they're not primarily a public transit user.
JK: You set up a straw man then shoot it down. Get real. Total miles per mode is what counts, not days or trips.

darrelplant: Frankly, I hope you keep up with that kind of assertion because it cuts through the bullshit of the faux statistics you throw up.
JK: You are the one grasping at straws and not directly countering my arguments.

darrelplant: LIkewise, your opinions about where people live and how they get there and comparisons to Europe are just goofy.
JK: Show us some real world data, not your speculations.

darrelplant: Sure, people in the US don't live and/or work a mile from downtown but that was simply any example in my explanation of how your math was screwed up. Again, you focus on minutiae and lose track of the larger picture.
JK: You are the one who brought up a totally unrealistic example. Try realism next time.

darrelplant: For one thing, the figures cited have nothing to do with American living and work habits, they're European figures.
JK It was presented as an example of the planners’ idiocy. You are trying to make more out of it. What about all the other planner’s idiocies - is your silence on them, your acceptance that they are idiots.

darrelplant: Second, it doesn't matter where exactly someone works when computing daily commuting figures. What's important is the travel distance from home to work. ... Downtown doesn't matter in my example. What's important is how far away from work they live and how they get there and back.
JK Then why didn’t you say that.

darrelplant: Third, a "chart of travel"? Did you bother to actually read the text above the slide?

It [the EU] is also backing local authorities in their efforts to promote and improve public transport, especially in Europe’s crowded cities.

JK Even with $8-10/gal gas people still drive for most of their travel. Why? Because it saves time and is more convenience. Things that planners do not understand. Even the EU is trying to persuade people to waste their time and be inconvenienced. (But Europe has always been a paradise for government dictates.)

darrelplant: There's a lot of walking going on in big cities, even American cities like NYC. You should check it out sometime.
JK So, show us the numbers. Other wise you are just blowing hot air. Passenger-miles please not trips which planners favor because it hides that fact than cars are so effective.

Thanks
JK

someone who uses a bus to commute four miles to work and back 250 days a year

Gosh, my workplace is less than four miles away. By TriMet, that's two hours each way.

Ten minutes by car.

Do the math.

I can spend two hours getting to work (and not on time), 8.5 at work, and another two getting home. Thirteen hours a day. Add eight for sleep.

Now, I'm no mathemetician, but in my world, that doesn't leave a lot of time for living. And as my time on this world is limited, I prefer to make the best use of what is available.

Portland loves to cite how "it" (the City of Portland, not the metro region) is urban, hip, walkable - everyone rides a bike, walks everywhere... And the suburbs are a bastion to your automobile.

I lived in Southwest Portland for two years on a street with no sidewalks, dangerous curves, and I had to walk in the ditch when walking to/from my bus stop. The outbound bus stop was located on the opposite side of a major five lane highway with average traffic speeds in excess of 45 MPH, with absolutely no safe way to cross the street - the nearest traffic signal had no pedestrian signal; the nearest "safe and legal" crossing was well over a half-mile away - and even that wasn't "safe" as I would backtrack on the same highway, in the ditch sans sidewalks.

Today, I live in Tigard. I have sidewalks on both sides of my street. I can walk a very short distance to my son's daycare center and his school. I have a dozen restaurants - within walking distance. I have several convenience stores that are walkable, two doctor's clinics, and various other businesses available by foot. I have a playground and running track. I have close access to a regional bike trail that connects Beaverton with Tualatin through Tigard and Durham, and includes a path that eventually will lead me into Portland. My bus stop is now located at a traffic signal with full pedestrian signaling. And when I do have to use the automobile, I can easily make multiple stops in one trip; as opposed to living in Portland where businesses were so spread out, I would drive further distances to get stuff done.

That Portland is "well-planned" is a myth; most of Portland in fact was not planned at all (or not planned any better than most suburban subdivisions) - and was eventually annexed into the City between the 1950s and 1990s. Yes, Portland has a grid system - so do most U.S. cities. Ironically, Portland loves to cite its grid system as making it easy to get around; yet the grid system is extremely rare in Europe. Yes, Portland has smaller block faces - downtown. Go out east and you have missing streets and very long "blocks". And who in their right mind planned the Brooklyn neighborhood - an industrial island in an otherwise residential neighborhood?

I'm working on my Master of City and Regional Planning. Not at PSU (an important distinction -- keep reading). After being outside the Portland Planning Bubble for a while, it's clear to me that Portland's reputation as planning mecca clearly doesn't live up to what actually goes on here.

I don't think that anyone would argue that Portland Planners are overwhelmingly biased toward higher-density residential/commercial mixed use development and accessibility via pedestrian, bicycle, and rail (note: NOT *transit*) networks. I doubt that even the planners themselves would raise an eyebrow to my guess here.

These planning prejudices easily haul along many others with them, however, including:
* exclusion of larger families from most planning considerations;
* the single-family home as a bad habit to be controlled, like smoking;
* the car as public enemy number one;
* the total absence of any effort to accomodate citizens that are somehow not in Richard Florida's holy-grail "creative class";

In sum: a city built for the "ideal user" to be attracted here, not the current users who live here already. The "Portland Freeze" codified.

I've learned, and Portland has clearly shown me, that urban planners have to consciously choose and act to avoid these other biases. Other cities have done it: in many other cities -- some that I've read about, others that I've directly observed, and one in particular (NOT PORTLAND) where I'm working -- the role of planner is less of architect and more of moderator. Our job, again IMHO, isn't to tell the public what their future is, but to try to figure out a way that most people can get most of the future that they want, without causing problems for everyone else.

It's all about making soup: the important part isn't choosing your favorite ingredients... it's the amount of each ingredient that you toss in. Portland, however, has decided that only the trendy, flashy, Richard Florida-approved ingredients are worth throwing in. As a result, the soup really sucks.

I'm writing this in defense of planning practitioners because I've seen a lot more cases of planners trying to do the right thing than planners who view themselves as social engineers. I honestly believe that urban land use planning can be and is successful in a lot of places in the U.S. and around the world...

Just not in Portland.

Here is some advise to aspiring planner

1. Most important: take an economics class or two or three.

2. Don't accept dogma without checking the facts &numbers. You can see a lot of checking at http://www.portlandfacts.com/

3. Feel sympathy for the people who loose their retirement savings because some planning department zoned their land to build their retirement home on as useless. (Some planners even choose another profession over this issue.)

(I didn't now that any government employed planners actually cared about what people want as opposed to what the planners want to dictate.)

Thanks
JK

Aspiring planner, as someone who went through the PSU planning system, I think it's great that you understand all that already. You summed it up very well.

"In sum: a city built for the 'ideal user' to be attracted here, not the current users who live here already."

That's the crux of the issue. The planning regime in Pdx isn't working for the current taxpayer. They're working for the much-bally-hooed "one million" who are coming.

There are definitely many practical roles for Planners if they focus on figuring out what the public actually wants and needs, and not what "the future" wants.

aspiring planner: . . After being outside the Portland Planning Bubble for a while, it's clear to me that Portland's reputation as planning mecca clearly doesn't live up to what actually goes on here. . .

Thank you for your comments.

Curtain Open: Planning mecca. We show the glitzy density and in words only talk the green and sustainable, etc.

Curtain Closed: The horrendous density and negative effects only in "some" neighborhoods that will not be shown to the "millions" they plan to lure into our area.

Apparently those who live here and think we are such a planning mecca, are fine with the "ugly" planning as long as it is not shoved into their neighborhood. Not only will it not be shown, but also not really "talked" about. . except as a method to fulfill the UGB which we must do at all costs.

So many things wrong with this UGB, however, also not a subject to bring up or one will be characterized as a "sprawl" person.

That is for another discussion.

The grid system in most cities was to maximize the profit for real-estate developers squeezing in as many lots as possible along the streetcar lines they themselves financed. That this design had some happy follow-on effects decades in the future in terms of pedestrian-friendliness is great, but it certainly was not the main intention at the time. (You do have to laud their foresight, though, in setting aside so much acreage for the great parks we now enjoy.)

The ideal city as conceived by Portland-based planners would be wonderful for a city being built from scratch. The problem is when they try to retrofit the design back onto a city that's been around for 160 years. I'm sure they're all nice, well-intentioned folks, but their plans are manipulated by vested interests for personal gain, and end up promoting social engineering whether intended or not. As one example, they preach affordability and the benefits of mixing different classes, but in practice the changes they championed (in combination with the real-estate bubble) forced the urban poor out of the city.

Agreed, Eric. Our popular "20-minute neighborhoods" were not created by modern planning in any way. Sellwood, Hawthorne, Belmont, NW 23rd, Mississippi, Alberta, St. Johns, and many others I'm forgetting ALL predate the modern planning orthodoxy.

The Pearl District is the only one arguably created largely "from scratch". South Watefront too, and how is that working out?

JK wrote: (I didn't now that any government employed planners actually cared about what people want as opposed to what the planners want to dictate.)

Some do: I'm working for one right now, in a small Willamette Valley town that's not obsessed with being trendy or insane growth or that sort of crap. Maybe if Portland wasn't so insecure about its size and growth rates (vis-a-vis Seattle), the planners could relax and enjoy the ride a lot more... :)