Will Portland ever build more freeway lanes? (Lake Oswego, Green: apartments, rent)

[pdxMIKEpdx]

What a dream world you live in.

[doity]

Yes I guess I was just ranting a bit but there is obviously a big problem that is not being addressed. Have you been to Vancouver, WA lately? They are actually doing something about it and building for the future, not denying the obvious.

There are many things that the Portland area could do to improve the current system without majorly widening or improving on the current infrastructure. They could build the Westside Bypass so that commuters going to Beaverton or Hillsboro would not have to go through the downtown area or if they HAD built the Mt. Hood Freeway, commuters going to Powell, Division, Clackamas, Oregon City, West Linn, etc. would not have to go North first and then get caught in the backup that is i-84 where it meets I-5 just to hit the 205.

And it is bad enough that people who use the surface streets that we do have to avoid the crowded/overused freeways are having to fear that their brainiac leaders are trying to put those same streets on 'road diets' or whatever crazy term they give it. And to the poster who was so against air pollution, there is nothing worse for air pollution than having cars idling. In other words, your utopian view of the world might sound good on paper or in the college classroom, but in real life it doesn't work. People like and need their cars.

[Leisesturm]

Originally Posted by doity

And to the poster who was so against air pollution, there is nothing worse for air pollution than having cars idling.

I'm in total agreement actuallly...

In other words, your utopian view of the world might sound good on paper or in the college classroom, but in real life it doesn't work. People like and need their cars.[/quote]

People like, but absolutely do not need their cars. That's where we disagree. What people need is practical alternatives to cars as they exist. Electric ones would be nice but... MAX trains and buses that ran every 5 minutes instead of every 20? You don't think that would get a lot more people on them? I do. Trimet security on each and every MAX train to sell tickets and supervise behavior. That would cost billions less than a new freeway.

H

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by doity

Yes I guess I was just ranting a bit but there is obviously a big problem that is not being addressed. Have you been to Vancouver, WA lately? They are actually doing something about it and building for the future, not denying the obvious.

There are many things that the Portland area could do to improve the current system without majorly widening or improving on the current infrastructure. They could build the Westside Bypass so that commuters going to Beaverton or Hillsboro would not have to go through the downtown area or if they HAD built the Mt. Hood Freeway, commuters going to Powell, Division, Clackamas, Oregon City, West Linn, etc. would not have to go North first and then get caught in the backup that is i-84 where it meets I-5 just to hit the 205.

And it is bad enough that people who use the surface streets that we do have to avoid the crowded/overused freeways are having to fear that their brainiac leaders are trying to put those same streets on 'road diets' or whatever crazy term they give it. And to the poster who was so against air pollution, there is nothing worse for air pollution than having cars idling. In other words, your utopian view of the world might sound good on paper or in the college classroom, but in real life it doesn't work. People like and need their cars.

Mt Hood Freeway would have destroyed the entire Clinton St neighborhood, it would have altered inner Division, it would have destroyed the entire southwest portion of the Richmond neighborhood, and it would have killed any chance the outer portion of Powell Blvd.



The drive time down Powell doesn't take that long to get out to Clackamas.

The Westside bypass is something that should happen, but the cost of constructing something like that would be extremely costly.

[ccjarider]

Originally Posted by Leisesturm

I know what you're going to say but... I've said for years that a city like NYC should have no cars in the city limits. No cars at all within the city limits. Emergency vehicles only. Even I thought I was off my meds for thinking likr this. Guess what... some European city aims to do just that, and as I understand it the entire EU aims to have cars gone. GONE from their cities by 2050. What a concept. Here we are agonizing about a future Portland with no accommodation for more cars while elsewhere on the same planet city planners prepare for the exact opposite.

Call me what you like, but I can't help but observe the fact that ALL the air pollution which has cause untold millions of deaths in cities like Portland is caused by cars. Not powerplants, not factories and not agriculture. Its billions of cars, trucks, buses, diesel locomotives and other internal combusted transportation devices... motorcycles, scooters and ATV's, to say nothing of internal combustion landscaping equipment. What good will cars do you if you are dying off at age 45. Life expectancy in the U.S. is no longer increasing, it has plateaued for two decades and is now actually going retrograde in the lower income white American socio-economic sector. A full five years in the last decade. That's huge.

There are no coincidences here. We have nuked our environment big time and about the only thing we might do at this point that might allow our children and grandchildren to live as long as we might, is get rid of ALL the cars and trucks and the gigatons of particulate and chemical pollution they put into our air, food and water.

H

Too much silliness in this post to even be able to address it all.

YOU want to decide how folks in NYC should live. Who made you King?

Looking to the dieing EU for quality examples of how to structure city/society is not too smart.
Aggressive nanny state mentality in the EU has killed off initiative and now those people don't even want to have enough children to replace themselves. 50-70 yrs from now the EU will be a basket case of muslim dominated cities filled with violence and filth. I have to travel to EU (primarily Germany) several times/ yr and see it changing first hand.

Millions of deaths in cities like Portland?? Where does that come from?

The invention of the auto has INCREASED both wealth and quality of life for millions of people. We live in great times dominated by unbelievable advances in technology/knowledge and yet there always seems to be those among us want to go back to cave man days in the name of protecting "mother earth."

We have not "Nuked the environment." You loose all credibility with statements like that.

[doity]

I just checked Trimet trip planner. I live in Lake Oswego within walking distance to at least 3 bus lines. I work next to the airport. The fastest trip by bus and MAX clocks in at just a hair under 2 hours. Is that practical for the average person? I can drive to work in under 25 minutes if traffic is clear. Who in their right mind would choose the former??

[bler144]

Originally Posted by doity

. Have you been to Vancouver, WA lately?

I have. The challenges Portland faces has are much greater than Vancouver's, on the whole. I don't say that to diss Vancouver by any stretch - but it's a population of 165k and about 1/3 less dense, land is cheaper if you did need to do eminent domain, and it's got some room to work with. And other than the area right at the interstate bridge, the load is, for now, much lighter.

Portland is both a pass-through and a commuting destination, and the existing road network is much more serpentine. It has the problems now Vancouver might have in 30 years.

They could build the Westside Bypass so that commuters going to Beaverton or Hillsboro would not have to go through the downtown area

I'd agree it's desirable, but I think you are vastly underestimating the cost, as urbanlife touches on. We've had that discussion in other threads so I won't belabor it here. It would be a major undertaking in terms of cost and effort (even if you didn't need another bridge to make it work), though involving fewer closures of existing roads akin to Leis' post. So politically it might be easier to make happen.

or if they HAD built the Mt. Hood Freeway, commuters going to Powell, Division, Clackamas, Oregon City, West Linn, etc. would not have to go North first and then get caught in the backup that is i-84 where it meets I-5 just to hit the 205.

Perhaps I'm not understanding, but that seems a misrepresentation of the layout. The backup problems at the I-5/205 interchange are in many ways a function of local congestion, not the I-84 design. Heading north past 205 and then 217 it tends to thin out for a bit before congesting again farther north. Where specifically depends on the time of day, but in general you'd have congestion at 205 regardless of the I-84 design. I'm not sure the Mt. Hood Freeway would've radically changed the picture for that traffic. And in the current design traffic heading east of town on 84 should be taking 205 anyway - the issue is 205 is an inefficient route for swaths east of the river but west of 205.

[Deezus]

Originally Posted by doity

Yes I guess I was just ranting a bit but there is obviously a big problem that is not being addressed. Have you been to Vancouver, WA lately? They are actually doing something about it and building for the future, not denying the obvious.

Except that the State of Washington didn't want to spend any money for the new Interstate Bridge since their budget is tied up in the Big Bertha quagmire(though someone should've just proposed a third bridge and make it a toll bridge). But the people in Vancouver didn't want tolls either--nor did they want MAX(because light rail would supposedly bring "bad people" though plenty of Clark County is already a sketchy mess).

And no one on the other side of the river cares about building a new bridge or rebuilding the old bridge, but it's now necessary because everywhere from 205 and 84 to side streets in North Portland are now crowded with Vancouver commuters.

On the other hand though, places like Washington County could've built more freeways as they developed--comparatively Clark County did a better job with building 500 and 14 than in newer suburbs around Portland where spur highways could've been built.

[rzzz]

Originally Posted by ccjarider

The invention of the auto has INCREASED both wealth and quality of life for millions of people. We live in great times dominated by unbelievable advances in technology/knowledge and yet there always seems to be those among us want to go back to cave man days in the name of protecting "mother earth."

We have not "Nuked the environment." You loose all credibility with statements like that.

I guess we'll find out how that all pans out in 50 years after 1 billion cars in China are adding to the mix.

[skiffrace]

Originally Posted by Deezus

Except that the State of Washington didn't want to spend any money for the new Interstate Bridge since their budget is tied up in the Big Bertha quagmire... But the people in Vancouver didn't want tolls either--nor did they want MAX(because light rail would supposedly bring "bad people" though plenty of Clark County is already a sketchy mess)

right on ^^^^^

(though someone should've just proposed a third bridge and make it a toll bridge).

Let's make it even simpler. Institute tolls on existing I-5 bridges. Make it substantial enough ($8 to $10)
All commercial traffic/interstate trade, buses and 3+ carpools exempt.
It would solve current problem in matter of weeks, at next-to-nothing cost.
But we know what are the chances of that happening.
The howling ("un-american" "un-constitutional" "communism" "bloody murder") would be heard across Columbia river all the way in Salem.