Transportation! Mention the word and most people think of driving a car, which is how most of us get around. Thanks to the car we have been able to travel to places we were never able to reach before, and live in ways that were unimaginable before its invention. However, during the past 50 years, we became so enamored with the car that we built a transportation system devoted almost exclusively to it. As a result, we now have a system that is out of balance, and we’ve seriously limited the choices we have for traveling. Our ever-expanding waistlines are just one side effect of this lack of choice. Other signs of this imbalance include congestion, air pollution, deteriorating roads and bridges, rising gas prices, and parking headaches... And, we’ve accepted the extraordinarily high death and injury rates associated with cars as normal. For all of these reasons and more, it’s time to change the way we approach transportation issues and create a new regional transportation strategy that will serve our communities in the 21^st century.

Our regional government, Metro, is in the first stage of a process known as the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) Update that will determine how we spend at least $4.2 billion on transportation in the metro area over the next 20 years. This is a key opportunity to make a new transportation plan – the 21^st century plan we need. To get there, the new plan must Put People First, Do More with Less, and Empower the Economy.

These strategies will help us balance three important elements underlying our transportation decisions -- Community, Convenience, and Cost. By taking a balanced approach, we’ll shift the balance toward a more sustainable transportation system and a healthier, more prosperous region.

Community

Community can mean different things to different people, but at its roots it is a connection among a group of people and a feeling of belonging. It can be a safe place where people of all ages can assemble,providing opportunities to take part in a variety of activities from work to recreation. It’s what makes your neighborhood unique from another one. To build community, there should be places for people to come together, on purpose and by accident. There should be a diversity of people and households with various incomes and interests. There should be a building of trust over time from the interactions that occur. And, residents should be able to actively participate in the decisions that affect their community. The way these things happen depends, in part, on the way we design our urban landscape.

Land use affects transportation design and transportation design affects land use. In the first case, if, for example, a strip-mall is built, it will attract many trips by individual drivers, as well as trucks delivering goods to businesses. On the other hand, if an area is built with many types of uses, for example retail shopping at street level and business offices and homes above, there will be fewer individual auto trips and more transit and walking, and more opportunities for interaction. Thus, it fosters community. In the second case, when we build new roads, interchanges or light rail lines, development can occur where it previously could not. Depending on the type of land use it encourages – for example, mixed use development versus places only accessible by car – these investments may or may not contribute to a sense of community.

Convenience

For most of us, transportation is not an end in itself, so it’s frustrating when it doesn’t operate smoothly. We want access–to work, school, shopping, arts & culture, to visit friends, go to the doctor, visit parks, etc.—in the most convenient way possible. We want to quickly get the raw materials we need for the work we do, distribute goods to our stores, and move the goods we create within the community and beyond. This generates and supports economic activity, jobs and prosperity.

Costs

Transportation is expensive! This is the part of the balancing act that we least like to accommodate…and acknowledge! Transportation is expensive not just for everyday things that we normally think of – the price of a bus ticket or filling up the gas tank – but also the other very real costs that we don’t always consider: social, environmental, and health costs.

There are many hidden costs in a car-dominated transportation system

In addition to the millions of public dollars we spend in the region on new transportation investments and maintenance each year, personal spending on transportation is growing. In 2004, the average household in the Portland metro area spends $7,276 a year on transportation, second only to housing.[1] In our region, the average household spends $22,931 a year on housing and transportation together, which is roughly half of all spending.[1] So, moving to a distant location with cheaper housing may appear less expensive at first, but the savings may not be so great after factoring in that second car you’ll need because of poor transit and lack of shopping and other services in your neighborhood. Furthermore, with the price of oil projected to fluctuate wildly and rise substantially in the future, the portion of our income being spent on transportation will likely continue to rise. With incomes falling behind housing and transportation cost increases, more and more of us, not just low-income residents, could have to make difficult choices between paying rent, getting to work or buying food and medicine.

It’s difficult to quantify the costs drivers impose on society, but estimates range from $126 billion to over $1 trillion per year.[2] This includes the costs due to air pollution, climate change, imported oil security, road congestion, car crashes, noise, reduced land values, etc. For the three-county region in 2005, car crashes cost $577 million.[3] Car crashes are also the leading cause of death under 45 in the Northwest.[4]

As you can see, the way we’ve built our transportation system has burdened us with enormous costs.

We can’t build our way out

Transportation resources are shrinking

During the post-1950 freeway expansion era, the federal government bore most of the cost of building roads. In Oregon, for every dollar spent on roads, the state only spent 8 cents. That situation no longer exists. Some experts predict that the Federal Highway Trust Fund will be broke by 2010, leaving us with even less money for roads. In addition, state and federal gas taxes haven’t changed since 1993, while the cost of living has increased by 35%. But transportation funding isn’t just about building roads for cars. Other modes went through decades underfunded. Even today, walking and cycling only receive 2% of state transportation dollars. We are entering a new era on how we pay for new transportation investments, thus we need to begin thinking differently about how we get the most out of the dollars we realistically have to spend.

An Opportunity to Rebalance the System

How do we shift the balance?

We offer these ideas on how we could get there:

Put People First!

What does this mean? It means that people, rather than cars, trains, buses or trucks, would be the primary focus for the decisions we make about our transportation investments. It means we would develop our communities in ways that would give residents real choices in how they travel. Health and safety would become a top priority so that walking and biking could become an easy choice for short trips to school, nearby parks and neighborhood shopping. Our transportation investment strategy would help reduce the high number of traffic fatalities and car crashes in our communities. Transportation and housing expenses would remain affordable for residents, especially those of modest means, and transportation costs for business would be manageable. Peoples’ travel environment would be healthy, safe and accessible including street trees, public art, well-lit, comfortable bus shelters, wide sidewalks, bikeways and trails with connections to local business districts and public spaces. These kinds of amenities also attract and support talent fostering a robust, socially and environmentally sustainable economy.

Do More with Less

In other words, be fiscally responsible. To do this, we must optimize the current system to make it more efficient and sustainable. This strategy acknowledges that our current system is operating far from what it could be. It also acknowledges that it is much more cost-effective in the long run to manage transportation demand, rather than increase capacity. Doing more with less keeps freight moving by designating freight priority facilities, which could be shared with transit. It would focus on making riding the bus as pleasant and convenient as possible, and it would do so for all transit users, especially those most dependent upon it. Increasing connectedness of streets and sidewalks and investing in maintenance would be prioritized over building new road facilities. If we did more with less, drivers would pay directly for the full costs imposed on our community from vehicle use. This could include road pricing such as tolls and congestion pricing of freeways during peak periods, changing parking pricing, and changing fees such as insurance and registration so that they reward people for driving less. Surface parking would be minimized or even prohibited in certain pedestrian zones to free up land for other uses. And we would prioritize making transportation work better inside the urban growth boundary instead of expanding the boundary without adequate resources to pay for the infrastructure needed to serve new areas.

Empower the Economy

A strong economy for the 21^st century does not require expensive highway projects that will simply create more demand on the highway system. This was the supply side thinking of the 20^th century. Today’s financial and business climate depends upon a strategy that focuses on decreasing demand and integrating transportation and land use more fully. These have the value-added benefit of enhancing our region’s livability, which is a key economic asset that attracts business and talent to our region. The way we do transportation will either enhance livability or detract from it. So, we must focus our transportation investments on those that create desirable places for individuals and families to live, work, and play – places that are vibrant and have a broad array of local retailers, great schools, attractive, green and affordable housing and where there are great recreational and cultural opportunities nearby.

Strategies to Shift the Balance

Read some of our Strategies to help Shift the Balance!

How you can get involved!

• For additional information please contact Jill Fuglister - 503-294-2889 or jill@clfuture.org.
  
• Download an electronic version of the Shift the Balance Handout (1.1MB file). You can save it for later use, forward it to friends, or print your own copies.
• Download Shift the Balance Survey Results.
  
• Help Shift the Balance in the biggest public works project in our region's history: Make a Climate Smart Columbia River Crossing.
  

---

References

[1] Bureau of Labor Statistics. Consumer Expenditure Survey, 2003-2004. (http://www.bls.gov/cex/).

[2] VTPI. Transportation costs and benefits. Victoria Transportation Policy Institute (http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm82.htm), 2005.

[3] National Safety Council. Estimating the costs of unintentional injuries, 2004. (http://www.nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/estcost.htm), 2005.

[4] Sightline Institute. Cascadia Scorecard 2006. (http://www.sightline.org/research/cascadia_scorecard).