After winning the battle of Oak Grove, I wanted to help other neighborhoods in the Portland area that were facing similar densification plans. One of the first things I did was call a meeting of people who were fighting densification in their own neighborhoods. Quite a large number of people showed up, and the group decided to call itself Ortem, which was Metro spelled backwards. Ortem never became very powerful but it did help people throughout the region network together and get access to resources and expertise.
About this time, two students from the Maxwell School of Public Affairs at Syracuse University came to Portland to work for me as interns. I hadn’t looked closely at Portland’s light-rail system, so I asked them to study it. Their first response was, “We love light rail!” I told them to look at it with an open mind.
They came back a week or so later and announced, “It’s awful!” They had interviewed some critics who convinced them that it was a huge waste of money. It cost far more than buses and most of the people riding it were former bus riders. In fact, the share of Portland-area residents taking transit to work dramatically dropped after Portland’s transit agency, TriMet, built light rail because it had to cut bus service and raise bus fares to help pay for rail cost overruns. Continue reading
