Oregon voters did pass a while back a ballot measure which purported to require compensation for any regulatory act which “reduced the value of property”, but the law was so poorly written it was modified by the Legislature, and then subsequently scaled back by a later ballot measure. (The original proposal was positioned as a way to protect landowners from being able to make any effective use of property due to environmental laws, but the real effect of the law was an attempt by the development lobby to gut the state’s land use laws. Once that became apparent, the law was modified; and the current laws on the books no longer pose an existential threat to land use laws in Oregon).

Yes, it’s a great network. Keep in mind that this is a regional rapid transit network useful for organizing outer-suburban development, but as you note, there’s been a lot of difficulty getting genuine urban density to happen around light rail. Even Gateway, a major cross-roads in the network that will soon have rail in four directions, hasn’t seen much development energy above the big-box retail scale. This despite rail service that can be faster than driving at peak commute times.

As you note both Powell and Barbur have potential as boulevards, but this will be challenging because the last 20 years of urban growth has focused on other parallel corridors, leaving these as almost designated “car streets” where car-oriented uses such as gas stations and car repair have tended to gather.

Note, too, the increased emphasis on Metro’s effort to tie transit investment to land use decisions by local government. Decisions about densification led by suburban cities will really determine whether these corridors get built, especially the corridors further down the list. That’s as it should be in my view.

Portlander here.

OMG, yes, it would greatly increase the number of neighborhoods within walking distance. Depending, of course, on what you consider walking distance and the density of the stops. I’m currently 1/3 mile off the existing I-84 LRT route – I often choose to take the bus that’s a block a way instead of walking up to the train if I’m only going downtown. But what makes Portland amazing is the plethora of choices. And the huge emphasis on effective networks and connections is a big part of it, too – there’s a bus outside my door that will take me north to the LRT or south to the proposed LRT.

The densest part of Portland not currently served by LRT is the area around Powell Blvd. I’m not sure if the scale is clear, but the I-205 line getting ready to open this fall is 5 miles from the river (the major delineation through Portland). So a large number of people in that area (about 26%) call themselves regular bike commuters. Past that line, the percentage drops to 6%. Making transit options more plentiful out there (the current bus line along Powell past that point comes every 30 minutes and traffic along it during peak times is abysmal on bus or in a car).

Part of what’s cool about Portland and our LTR choices is that we often pick lower density routes – the Westside LTR goes from Hillsboro to Downtown Portland more northerly than the existing development did – which meant we had transit oriented development more than 15 miles from the city center. The LRT still served several major employers – Intel has three campuses out there (something like 10k employees) and it allowed people to live in dense housing downtown and commute 15-20 miles to work without their cars or to live within 5 miles of work (and still not commute with their cars) with lower housing costs.

But…it has meant that if you’re in one of those existing areas of development, your reliance on your car hasn’t diminished. This would ameliorate a great deal of that – most will still need a car but can replace many car trips with transit trips. My mother lives 2 miles from the existing LRT – she parks and a park and ride. An LRT along Powell would allow her to leave her car at home entirely.

I’m looking at this network and the word “Utopia” comes to mind. I would never have to drive to the mall again. Any mall. I love Portland (I’m moving to Seattle in a few months, that might increase my sentimentality) but this…this! I’m only afraid that it’ll make it so desirable that we won’t be able to afford a house when we come back.

And although it’s still highway ROW, the parts of MAX built along I-205 and I-84 seem better though out than say the VTA highway lines; the rails aren’t in the center of the highway lanes, but alongside the highway, usually allowing access to development from one side, and in several places there were pedestrian bridges to allow for crossing the interstates.

I have never lived in a city with combined highway and transit lines. I visited Chicago last year and took the blue line in from the airport. Seeing the huge elevated walkways that connected the stations to the neighborhoods, it was hard to imagine anyone doing that everyday. You couldn’t usually see any buildings from the station. The notion that the station served a real neighborhood seemed very abstract. Whether it’s the MAX, BART or CTA, I don’t think the cost savings of constructing transit in highway ROW will ever offset the long term disadvantage of being in a highway.

Maybe the way they built MAX is better than the way they built the blue line in Chicago. The only way I could imagine a transit line successfully combined with a highway is if a transit line were installed on an elevated urban highway like the BQE in Brooklyn. That way, the lines would be much more like every other elevated trains, and potentially very close to actual buildings.

I thought Portland voters repealed the growth boundary a few years ago. Was it reinstated?

Could someone who has lived in Portland tell me, would these lines provide light rail service to a large majority of the city’s population? Or would many neighborhoods still be out of walking distance to the system?

It’d be nice to see some of the routes that Metro is thinking about in the south built, so that there could be a light rail loop around the city, and so there could be light rail travel from suburb to suburb. And seeing as Portland has had no problem getting funding before, it doesn’t seem like BRT is too high on their list these days.