Raising Sights

Insights worth sharing from a ULI event earlier this year

Earlier this year, I attended an event hosted by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) titled Follow the Money: Stimulating Better Communities (original page is offline, here is a link to Google's cached version). As I was cleaning out some files at the end of the year, I came across my notes from that session and a few stood out as worth sharing here:

For those interested, here is a link to the presentation by Maureen McAvey (PDF), an executive vice president with the Urban Land Institute (bio). Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder also presented, but did so without a slide deck.

Maureen:

• Transit - national; land-use - local.
• The idea of an Infrastructure Bank: China, Japan and the EU each use this approach with the EU providing $52 billion annually to focus on major linkages (via 50 year loans). The US does not currently use this approach. 
• Crisis often accelerates change, but doesn't change its basic direction.
  
• Just 22-23% of households have kids under age 18 in US.
• Only 1/4 of trips are commute-related.
  

Rex:

• Transportation: has gone from 9% to 20% of household budget (note: I did not get source or dates for these stats so am citing here more for the trend than the absolute values).
  
• Top 50 MSAs are responsible for 60% of US economic activity yet contain less than half of population.
• $660 million is spent annually on transit in metro Portland (again, not source cited).
  
• High speed rail - we should fund but we're not.
  

What this means:

1. Our current system of significant transportation decisions being made on a national level and land-use decisions being made on a local level doesn't help us to make livable connected communities. We need to coordinate strategy at the local, regional and national levels to achieve better outcomes.
   
2. We desperately need to invest in our crumbling and overstretched infrastructure. My sense is that this country invested heavily in its interstate highway system and other initiatives decades ago and has largely rested on its laurels while demand has continued to increase and infrastructure has continued to age. The Sellwood bridge is but one small example.
   
3. While we need to preserve a range of housing options (including new single-family detached residences), a significant number of households are apparently are not the stereotypical family with kids anymore. This has significant implications for how we plan our communities.
   
4. Households are spending both more time and more money commuting and the majority of those trips are not related to work. Yet, most of our local strategy has been focused on the 25% of trips that are work-related (Trimet MAX, WES, etc.). We need to think more holistically and recognize that the odds of anyone living at one MAX station and working at another aren't that high. Encouraging local first-and-last-mile connectivity (i.e. from home to store or work to store or frankly, from transit stop to destination) is critical. 
5. High speed rail. WSDOT has a long-range strategic plan for Amtrak Cascades (PDF). I've read it. ODOT does not. Rail isn't the holy grail, but we do need to get serious about it. Look at what California is proposing: San Francisco to Los Angeles (432 miles) in 2 hours 38 minutes. Or China: Beijing to Shanghai (819 miles) in under four hours. Remind me why it takes 6 hours 30 minutes to go 310 miles from Eugene to Seattle on Amtrak Cascades?
   

Infrastructure: $10 billion is needed, let's get working...

Friday's Oregonian notes in the fifth paragraph of a story titled "Sewage backup: Would you like one?" that, "According to an analysis by Metro, the regional government, meeting the population and job growth in Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties will require infrastructure improvements of $27 billion to $41 billion. Even if that growth doesn't occur, the region's infrastructure needs $10 billion worth of repair..."

Malu Wilkinson, a Metro planner, is quoted as saying, "We're trying to emphasize that this is not just a problem of growth. It's also a problem of living off investments made 30, 40, 50, or 100 years ago--without reinvesting (emphasis added)."

We need to aggressively re-evaluate our collective priorities. Infrastructure isn't exciting, but it is essential. Much like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I would argue that having sound infrastructure with sufficient capacity is foundational and a prerequisite to more exciting projects (arts and culture funding, parks, social and community programs, etc.). For too long, we have lived off the courageous leadership and ambitious infrastructure investments of previous generations. It's time to start thinking big again.

At the ULI Central City symposium on Thursday, someone mentioned the 200+ mph MagLev trains that China now has in some of its cities. I'm sorry, the Portland Streetcar and MAX are nice, but not in the same league at all. We need to invest in (among other things) high-speed, high-capacity transit along the I-5 corridor as soon as possible. While we continue to drink the Kool-Aid about how cool Portland is (most recently from the NYTimes), we have lost our edge. Together, we can do this, but the time is now.