OREGON TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH AND OTREC EDUCATION CONSORTIUM FINAL REPORT A Brief Portrait of Multimodal Transportation Planning in Oregon and the Path to Achieving It, 1890-1974 OTREC-TT-10-01 January 2010 A National University Transportation Center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration A BRIEF PORTRAIT OF MULTIMODAL TRANSPORTATION PLANNING IN OREGON AND THE PATH TO ACHIEVING IT, 1890-1974 Final Report OTREC-TT-10-01 by Sam Lowry, Co-principal Investigator Portland State University for The Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium (OTREC) P.O. Box 751 Portland, OR 97207 January 2010 Technical Report Documentation Page 1. Report No. 2. Government Accession No. 3. Recipient’s Catalog No. OTREC-TT-10-01 4. Title and Subtitle 5. Report Date January 2010 A Brief Portrait of Multimodal Transportation Planning in Oregon and the Path to Achieving It, 1890-1974 6. Performing Organization Code 7. Author(s) 8. Performing Organization Report No. Carl Abbot, Principal Investigator Sam Lowry, Co-principal Investigator 9. Performing Organization Name and Address 10. Work Unit No. (TRAIS) Sam Lowry, Co-principal Investigator 11. Contract or Grant No. Portland State University, PO Box 751, Portland, OR 97207-0751 2008-D-14 12. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address 13. Type of Report and Period Covered Final Report, 10/1/07-9/30/09 Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium (OTREC) 14. Sponsoring Agency Code P.O. Box 751, Portland, Oregon 97207 15. Supplementary Notes 16. Abstract Excerpts: “With its statewide land use program, urban growth boundaries, Transportation Planning Rule (TPR), active (often activist) citizenry, progressive- dominated government, and, in Portland, modern history of transit investment and self-consciously alternative urban self-concept, Oregon has gone further, for longer, and been more successful than most places in pushing back against automobiles’ dominance of environment, lifestyle, and landscape. “Two moments in time brought particular change. In shifting away from freeway-building in the 1970s, Portland-area and state planners decided that transportation decisions and infrastructure need no longer dictate land use but could serve it. And with the 1991 TPR, Oregon became a pioneer in managing what has been called the transportation land-use connection. “The story of Oregon’s ‘multimodal’ transportation planning must be written in such as way as to inform [the] commuter ... about the system he thinks just is, how it got there, and how and why he should appreciate its substance. As much as possible, the story, as it is begun here, relates complex subject matter to his life and times, delving into the big controversies that come from society’s deep disagreement over conservation and development, aesthetics and wealth. It dips into older history, then moves more or less chronologically. In order to do justice to the various practitioners and players, it includes four stages of action: the national, the metropolitan, the state governmental and the local.” “A full history to the present day would also attend to some of the less attended-to aspects of transportation planning, the ones that do not as often appear on newspapers’ front pages. These include freight planning and its relationship to the business and corporate communities; the specialized work of modelers, system-design technologists, economists, and intelligent-transportation engineers; and the visions, dreams, schemes and projections of futurists, whose imaginings in bygone eras truly led to the very infrastructures we see today. Some current visions - from hydrogen highways to cycle-towns, bullet trains to electric-car cities, biofueled states to right-priced thoroughfares - will become the daily environments of tomorrow, while other visions fade away.” 17. Key Words 18. Distribution Statement No restrictions. Copies available from OTREC: Transportation, planning, Oregon, history, multimodal, land use www.otrec.us 19. Security Classification (of this report) 20. Security Classification (of this page) 21. No. of Pages 22. Price Unclassified Unclassified 72 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author thanks OTREC for its support, OTREC staff for their help and patience, interviewees for their trust and stories, and reviewers unknown for helping create the opportunity. Special thanks to Carl Abbott, Mike Burton, Andy Cotugno, Craig Greenleaf and Ed Sullivan for confidence in the endeavor, and to Bob Cortright and Mark Greenfield for extra time and patience. Thanks to John Lynch and Dan Richardson for sharing enthusiasm. Above all thanks to Elaine Lowry for forbearance. DISCLAIMER The contents of this report reflect the views of the author, who is solely responsible for the facts and the accuracy of the material and information presented herein. This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of OTREC the U.S. Department of Transportation University Transportation Centers Program in the interest of information exchange. The U.S. Government assumes no liability for the contents or use thereof. The contents do not necessarily reflect the official views of OTREC or the U.S. Government, Portland State University. This report does not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................ 1 BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES .......................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 3 1.0 ANOTHER QUIET YEAR IN THE TRANSPORTATION NEWS ...................................... 7 2.0 THE TOP OF THE FERRIS WHEEL ................................................................................... 11 3.0 AUTOMOBILE NIGHTMARES .......................................................................................... 15 4.0 EARLY OREGON ROADS .................................................................................................. 19 5.0 PETROLEUM, THE VHS OF AUTO FUELS ..................................................................... 21 6.0 EARLY METRO-AREA MASS TRANSIT ......................................................................... 23 7.0 THE INTERSTATES ............................................................................................................ 27 8.0 OREGON’S INTERSTATES AND “GENERAL” GLENN JACKSON ............................. 31 9.0 1950S WORRIES & THE DAWN OF ENVIRONMENTALISM ....................................... 35 10.0 FEDERAL URBAN AND TRANSIT POLICY IN THE 1960S ........................................ 39 11.0 RCT, MPC, CRAG, PVMTS, Tri-Met, MSD, Metro, JPACT! ........................................... 41 12.0 THE ERNIE BONNER INTERVIEWS .............................................................................. 45 13.0 DOWNTOWN REVITALIZATION AND HARBOR DRIVE .......................................... 47 14.0 NEIL GOLDSCHMIDT, THE GOVERNOR’S TASK FORCE, AND THE MT. HOOD FREEWAY ................................................................................................................................... 49 15.0 SENATE BILL 100 AND GOAL 12................................................................................... 57 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................... 63 iii iv EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This project was designed to outline transportation chapters of a planned written history of Oregon land use planning, written in ways that would make the transportation planning profession relevant to a popular audience. The writing would focus on stories from the profession, and on historical facts and events in Oregon transportation planning history that would surprise or enlighten popular reading audiences. Technology transfer would occur through publication of one or more written pieces of work. The result is a topical and historical tale entitled “A Brief Portrait of Multimodal Transportation Planning in Oregon and the Path to Achieving It, 1890-1974.” Sources told stories with enthusiastic reference to past transportation events. The structure chosen was an interwoven collection of topical essays, arranged chronologically but skipping sideways, sometimes backward or forward, from stage to stage – national, metropolitan, state governmental, local – but always moving forward in time. The tale presented here takes the reader through tumultuous early years, up to the moment in 1974 when statewide planning goals, including Goal 12, the transportation goal, were adopted by the Oregon Legislature. BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The intent of this project, as presented to OTREC reviewers in early 2007, was to ensure attention to the transportation component of a planned popular history of land use planning in Oregon, and to tell stories from the transportation planning profession that would make the profession relevant to a popular audience. The scope was presented as a “modest historical-journalistic research and writing project,” with the following intended work products: • enumeration of interfaces between transportation and land use planning in Oregon • timeline of significant events in Oregon transportation planning • conversations with important past and present players • discovery and compilation of important information sources • discussion of current