Transportation Infrastructure Development

by Matthew Scott Allen, June 9th, 2009

Like our nomadic ancestors, modern humans still travel, but for different and less crucial reasons. People commute to work, school or wherever they perform their daily routine. As we have learned from the mistakes of urban and suburban planning in the 20th and early 21st centuries, we found that having car-centric, sprawling cities is not sustainable. However, only with the recent spike in oil prices has the general public in North America became aware that it takes many resources to travel long distances in personal automobiles. Places such as Europe, where gas has always been expensive, have taken better measures to keep cities compact and easy to navigate without a car while also having better public transportation options.

Now, with our more recent, sprawling cities, us North Americans must adapt our surroundings to better fit a lifestyle without personal cars. You can look at models of our earlier designed cities such as Manhattan to see a place where personal automobiles are the exception, and public transportation as well as walkability are more prevalent. You can also look at places like Houston or Los Angeles where priority was placed on freeways, a way to get into and out of the city as quickly as possible . Not having a car means immobility in these places. Portland is in transition between these examples.

In the post-war boom, Portland, like most other cities in the United States started this false prospect of a suburban utopia. Many businesses in the central downtown area shut down because of competition from suburban shopping malls and easier accessibility (via cars, freeways and huge parking lots). In response, many historic and well-planned areas of downtown were demolished to make way for parking lots and garages. A good example of this was the Portland Hotel, built in 1890 and torn down in 1951 to make way for a two-story parking structure. Luckily, in 1981, this blight was demolished to make way for Pioneer Courthouse Square.

This was around the beginning of a progressive era for Portland's land use policies and priorities. Urban Growth Boundaries were created in 1973. Harbor Drive was taken out to make way for Tom McCall Waterfront Park, and funds were allocated away from building more freeways and to constructing MAX light rail and expanding bus service.

Transit-oriented development thrived with the success of the MAX, which has since expanded to become the 5th most ridden light rail in the United States. This has inspired new lines as well as Portland Streetcar, which can be credited as a major enabler of the revival of the Pearl District and Northwest Portland. Many businesses found success from MAX and street car riders as the lines became leisure and shopping corridors. There is also much new, more sustainable and dense development along the MAX lines outside of downtown. Along Interstate Ave., E. Burnside and places in Washington County such as Orenco Station have seen town center-like developments with their own places to eat, shop, play and live with easy and quick access to downtown Portland as well via light rail . This type of development on transit lines can be compared to Curitiba, Brasil's model of high density corridors along arteries served by frequent public transportation service.

Curitiba relies on a different mode of public transportation, busses, which their system is much different than what Americans are used to. Their model of the Bus Rapid Transit System devotes lanes on streets to only large busses that arrive every couple of minutes. Their system makes it faster and more simple to ride the bus than to drive, which is why 85% of the city's population uses the service. The Trinary Road System in Curitiba has encouraged high density development along these corridors, to enable as many residents to have quick access to the bus system as possible. The system has also taken out traffic lanes, to make walkability easier and to discourage traffic.

Another method of discouraging traffic congestion is to use tolls. In London, newly elected Mayor Ken Livingston created a comprehensive traffic plan and enacted the 2003 Congestion Charge. Immediately after being enabled, traffic decreased by 15% and congestion decreased by 30%. Co2 decreased by 16% and other pollutants went down by between 8% and 13%. On top of reducing emissions, the Congestion Charge generates £123 million per year, which by law must fund London's public transport infrastructure. Mayor Livingston had also provided free bus service to school children, making public transportation a more realistic option when they become adults.

Many areas which have found wealth in recent decades hesitate to use methods of transportation that the poorer, sometimes war-torn generations of our grandparents had used. Cars have been considered models of freedom and wealth, so many people hesitate to give up a part of the “American dream.”

Riding bicycles is a relatively new (and old) concept in urban cities. As the cost of owning and driving a car has skyrocketed, many have taken interest in modes of transportation that are low-cost or free. Bicycles cost far less than automobiles, don't use expensive petroleum and don't need parking permits. These are good incentives for people who may not even be environmentally conscious but are budget conscious. Luckily, they are helping the environmental cause by ceasing emissions as well as improving their health.

The best way to encourage bicycle use is to improve bicycle infrastructure. Average, unexperienced bicycle riders are less likely to ride in heavy traffic on a large avenue than they are to ride in a separated bicycle path which can be perceived as safer. Restructuring streets to make cyclists safer and better recognized by drivers is essential.

Although Portland is North America's most bike-friendly city, we still have further to go. Granted the movement has been recent, Portland has excelled very rapidly and built an expansive bicycle infrastructure. Portland can look for examples in places like Amsterdam or Copenhagen for inspiration. Those cities have such a sustainable design that they are too compact to efficiently drive cars. Therefore, bicycles have been the main source of transportation for hundreds of years.

About half of commuters in both cities commute on bike, and there are more bicycles than cars on the road at any given time. In Portland the number is around 9% in central areas. In order to persuade more Americans to ride bikes we need to make doing so more “mainstream,” easy and accessible.

A good example of a city making cycling more common and mainstream is Paris. With some of the highest pollution in the E.U. coupled with €2/ litre ($10/ gal) gas, Paris decided to take some proactive measures. Vélib', the largest and most successful bike sharing program in the world was formed. On any given day there are between 50 and 100,000 riders using Vélib'. At the same time, the ridership of personal bicycles doubled. Investing money in bicycle riding eventually leads to bicycle riding investing money in the city.

The best ways to lessen our dependence on automobiles is to create incentives to create and use other forms of transport. Redistributing money away from highways and into more comprehensive public transportation, pedestrian and cycling corridors is the way we should start and continue doing in the United States, citing the success of examples that we have seen in Brasil, Holland, Denmark and Portland.