Portland and anti-carism

Doug Beghtel/The Oregonian

Randal O'Toole (Choking Portland with light rail):

...The last new highway built in Portland opened in 1975. Since then, the city’s population has grown by nearly 60 percent, and the region’s population has more than doubled. Rather than build the transportation infrastructure needed to accommodate these people, Portland has built five light-rail lines and two streetcar lines. As of 2014, these rail lines carried just 8,500 of the city’s 301,000 commuters to work...

Duin closes his article (Congestion has chokehold on the city) quoting Portland State University multimodal transportation researcher Chris Monsere, who says, “A single person in a single vehicle is the least effective transportation system we have.” In other words, it’s not Portland planners’ fault that their plans aren’t working; it’s those stupid commuters, truckers, and other travelers who should be riding bikes and transit instead of driving.

Contrary to Monsere’s subjective judgment, a 23-mph car that goes where I want to go is a lot more effective than a 15-mph light-rail train that doesn’t...