Central Planners Love Portland

Yep, Transportation Secretary Foxx was out here, walking around on the new light rail bridge, and going on about how it's a model for other cities to follow. Portland leaders just eat that stuff up. Better yet, on the very same day:

The American Planning Association on Wednesday designated downtown Portland's Southwest Fifth and Sixth avenues as one of the 10 Great Streets for 2014, along with Broadway, Pennsylvania Avenue and seven other landmark streets in the country.

Apparently, they were accompanied on their visit by armed personnel, which enabled them to evade the winos, aggressive panhandlers, and street kids that infest the place. One of the things that the "planners" really loved is that all light rail lines have to creep through the downtown area, which means that you can connect from there to any point in the metro area (assuming you pack a lunch).
They also point two two new hotels as part of the "spurred development" attributable to light rail and the transit mall; conveniently overlooking the fact that "The Nines" hotel - taxpayer subsidized - has not only never turned a profit but has stopped paying their taxpayer-backed "loan". But it's all music to the local politicians (and their developer pals)
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Meanwhile, the new light rail line under construction from downtown Portland to nowhere is generating even more discord over in Clackamas County:

TriMet is spending more than $40 million on pedestrian and bicycle improvements as part of the project, but Clackamas County residents are complaining loudly about intersections near the planned Park and Ride at the line’s terminus.

“It’s just a total disaster now,” Gladstone resident Maryanne Moore told the Board of County Commissioners on Thursday, Sept. 25. Moore said more should be done to ensure safety on Southeast Oatfield Road, which has a steep S-curve before it intersects at Park Avenue, funneling drivers to Highway 99E/Southeast McLoughlin Boulevard.

Commissioner Paul Savas agreed: “It’s terrible to travel through there; I drive through it every day.”

Savas said he has even heard from residents who plan to move away and suggested Metro’s density requirements were to blame for the strife.

Well, yeah - we're going to have a million more residents here by 2035, so we've got to subsidize more developers to build more stack-and-pack lab-rat cages for these folks to live in. Oh, but wait: now they claim we'll get only 1/4 of that number - but we still need to subsidize developers to build more cages. Of course, as Metro's own study discovered (to their surprise), most people don't want to live like that:

Additional questions were raised about the emphasis on multifamily housing in early September, however. That was when Metro released a Housing Preference Study it conducted to help determine where and how residents want to live. Although the draft Urban Growth Report predicts a significant shift to multifamily housing over the next 20 years, the study found that an overwhelming 80 percent of residents want to live in a single-family detached house. A plurality, 34 percent, said they want to live in the suburbs.

Well, dang; looks like the "prediction" was wrong! Not that it matters, because you will be made to live like that. You will live in lab-rat cages and you'll darned well learn to like it. Or else.
Central Planners Love Portland-Max Redlilne