Month: March 2021
-
How ODOT destroyed Albina: The I-5 Meat Axe
Interstate 5 “Meat Axe” slashed through the Albina Neighborhood in 1962 This was the second of three acts by ODOT that destroyed housing and isolated Albina Building the I-5 freeway led to the demolition of housing well-outside the freeway right of way, and flooded the neighborhood with car traffic, ending its residential character and turning into…
-
The Week Observed, March 26, 2021
What City Observatory this week 1. How ODOT destroyed Albina. Urban freeways have been lethal to neighborhoods, especially neighborhoods of color, in cities throughout the nation. While the construction of Interstate freeways gets much of the attention (as it should), the weaponization of highway construction in minority neighborhoods actually predates the Interstate system. In Portland,…
-
Greenwashing auto infrastructure: Natick’s diverging diamond
A proposed interchange in Natick, Mass. is a classic example of greenwashing The diverging diamond is an idea entirely given over to making things better for cars, and creates a disorienting, circuitous and dangerous world for pedestrians and cyclists. The intersection of highways 9 and 27 in Natick Massachusetts, just east of Boston, is no…
-
How ODOT destroyed Albina: The untold story
I-5 wasn’t the first highway that carved up Portland’s historically black Albina Neighborhood. Seventy years ago, ODOT spent the equivalent of more than $80 million in today’s dollars to cut the Albina neighborhood off from the Willamette River. ODOT’s highways destroyed housing and isolated Albina, lead to a two-thirds reduction in population between 1950 and…
-
The Week Observed, March 19, 2021
What City Observatory this week 1. An open letter to the Oregon Transportation Commission. For more than two years, City Observatory and others have been shining a bright light on the Oregon Department of Transportation’s proposed $800 million I-5 Rose Quarter Freeway widening project in Portland. All that time, ODOT has maintained its planning a…
-
An open letter to the Oregon Transportation Commission
For years, the Oregon Department of Transportation has concealed its plans to build a ten lane freeway through Portland’s Rose Quarter We’re calling on the state to do a full environmental impact statement that assesses the impact of the project they actually intend to build. An open letter to the Oregon Transportation Commission. Regular readers…
-
Is the pandemic driving rents down? Or up?
Since Covid started, rents are down in some cities, but up in most “Superstar” cities have experienced the most notable declines; the demographics of renters in these cities are different than elsewhere. Rent declines are also much more common in larger cities, with higher levels of rents. City Observatory is pleased to publish this guest…
-
Inclusionary Zoning: Portland’s Wile E. Coyote moment has arrived
Portland’s inclusionary zoning requirement is a slow-motion train-wreck; apartment completions are down by two-thirds, and the development pipeline is drying up This will lead to slower housing supply growth and increasing rents for everyone over the next two to three years Inclusionary Zoning (IZ) creates perverse incentives to under-utilize available land In December 2016, Portland’s…
-
Progress Zero: Lofty vision but increasing deaths and injuries
Vision Zero is a popular and widely embraced safety campaign, but the latest data shows Portland is not only not on track, it’s going in the wrong direction when it comes to road safety Multi-lane, car-dominated urban arterials are the big killers, and instead of fixing them, the Oregon DOT is wasting billions on widening…
-
The Week Observed, April 9, 2021
What City Observatory this week 1. How ODOT destroyed Albina: Part 3 the Phantom Freeway. Even a freeway that never got built played a key role in demolishing part of Portland’s Albina neighborhood. In parts 1 and 2 of this series, we showed how construction of state highway 99W in 1951 and Interstate 5 in…
-
The Week Observed, March 12, 2021
What City Observatory this week 1. The failure of Vision Zero. Like many regions, the Portland metropolitan area has embraced the idea of Vision Zero; a strategy of planning to take concrete steps over time to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries from road crashes to zero. A key step in Vision Zero…
-
The Week Observed, March 5, 2021
What City Observatory this week 1. The fundamental global law of traffic congestion. For years, urbanists have stressed the concept of induced demand, based on the nearly universal observation that widening urban roadways simply leads to more traffic and recurring congestion. Repeated studies in the United States have confirmed that any increase in urban roadway…
-
A new framework for equitable economic development
Editor’s Note: Darrene Hackler is a consultant and a senior advisor with Smart Incentives. Darrene brings economic development expertise in economic equity and inclusive growth, entrepreneurship and small business, and innovation. She helps policy makers, economic developers, and foundations build partnerships that can strengthen local economic development ecosystems through strategic plans, policy analysis, incentives analysis,…
-
The Fundamental, Global Law of Road Congestion
Studies from around the world have validated the existence of induced demand: each improvement to freeway capacity in urban areas generates more traffic. The best available science worldwide—in Europe, Japan and North America—shows a “unit-elasticity” of travel with respect to capacity: A 1 percent expansion of capacity tends to generate 1 percent more vehicle miles…