Urban Solution

At the corner of Southeast Belmont Street and Southeast 34th Avenue in Portland, a single parking space has been stretched into a bike corral where people park and lock their bicycles. On this sunny morning, I count 21 bikes waiting for their owners to return from nearby stores, restaurants and coffee houses.

Even in a city that has spent billions of dollars on one of the slickest transit systems in the country, little things still make a difference.

Andy Cotugno, planning director for the regional agency known as Portland Metro, told me that businesses lobby for bike corrals. "They know their market well," he said, "and recognize that parking 15 bikes is better than one car."

Seeing this gathering of bikes -- and bicycle riders -- I thought about how many times I have heard Santa Rosans complain that they can never find places to park and lock their bikes.

After a couple of days, it is easy to see why Portland is held up as the gold standard when it comes to smart growth. This is how cities are supposed to reinvent themselves, reducing the clog of automobiles and creating neighborhoods on a human scale.

The city routinely hosts official delegations from other states. In the era of global warming, $4 a gallon gasoline and endless traffic congestion, other towns are eager to emulate Portland's success -- even if other towns can't always summon the political will to make it happen.

Architects come to Portland, too. The city seems to have a special talent for fitting sleek mixed-used buildings into the old brick and stone neighborhoods (or adjacent to suburban train stations).

From Southeast Belmont Street to the South Waterfront to the Pearl District, once-gritty neighborhoods are alive with new businesses, new housing and people happy to get around on transit or on two wheels. What is now the stylish Pearl District was once a vast railroad yard.

The light-rail system carries people from the city center to major landmarks -- the baseball park, the arena that houses the NBA's Portland Trailblazers, Washington Park and Oregon Zoo -- in 10 minutes or less. The trip to suburban Beaverton, where Nike has its headquarters, takes 22 minutes. The light rail, otherwise known as the Max, goes to Portland International Airport in 35 minutes. The Tri-Met fare is $2.05.

Want to move around downtown shopping areas without a car? No problem. In the city center, you never have to wait more than a few minutes for the next rail, street car or bus. And transit is free -- yes, free -- downtown.

By creating these hip, transit-friendly neighborhoods, the city has managed to generate significant reductions in the number of car trips. In the entire region, cars are used for 87 percent of all trips. In new mixed-use neighborhoods, cars are used for just 57 percent of all trips. Portland, the 27th largest metropolitan region in the country, now ranks eighth in transit rides per capita, trailing only larger, eastern cities that grew up around rail lines.

North Bay officials have been talking about the importance of reducing the impacts of the automobile for more than a decade, but in Sonoma County the ratio of cars to people is about the same as it was eight years ago, according to data collected by the Sonoma County Transportation Authority. (Want to know why streets and highways are congested? Today, in Sonoma County, there is almost one vehicle per resident. In 1950, there was one vehicle for every two residents.)

Here's Portland's formula for success: (1) create a regional framework for major decisions, (2) invest in mass transit and public spaces, (3) promote and sponsor mixed-use developments near transit stops, and (4) make it easier to get around on bicycles.

Portland has made the decision to build inside the city, and it has elected politicians with the courage to make it work. And it has managed to avoid the illusion common to many Bay Area communities -- that if you don't maintain public facilities, growth won't occur.

Portland Metro even assigns an executive to work with developers on mixed-use developments near rail stations. His name is Phil Whitmore, and he told me, "I haven't had big-time (political) resistance in quite a few years."

"Our attitude is they're going to come," said Cotugno, "so you'd better get ready for them." The average annual growth rate is about 1.5 percent.

It should be said that Portland still has many of the same urban problems that confront California cities. Freeways are jammed with what look suspiciously like cars. On the outskirts of the city, there are the usual auto-centric subdivisions, strip malls and business parks. There are scruffy neighborhoods in the old city and a surprising number of old-style parking lots downtown.

Speaking of the city's transit-oriented developments, Steve Dotterer, principal planner in the Portland Bureau of Planning, was quick to say, "We've done it some places and not in others."

For Californians who have lived through decades of political turmoil, the political consensus that sustains Portland's development decisions is nothing less than other-worldly.

Oregon adopted a statewide growth management law -- something California still hasn't managed to do -- in 1971. The greater Portland area agreed to a directly elected regional planning agency in 1979.

In California, turf wars among rival communities and rival government agencies continue to be a fact of life. Consider the ups and down of efforts by Sonoma and Marin counties to play nice when it comes to all kind of transportation improvements.

What is it about the political culture of Portland?

"Once you figure out what works for everyone, you get a lot smarter," Cotugno said. "We've had a very strong commitment for many decades to working together as a region . . . In order to contain growth, it works better if it happens in centers adjacent to transit."

Cotugno said "an important starting point" was the establishment of a statewide land-use law during the administration of the progressive Republican governor, Tom McCall. With urban boundaries in place, he explained, "it's not possible for growth to just leapfrog into another jurisdiction."

Whitmore, manager of Metro's Transit Oriented Development Program, offered an historical perspective: "I think it goes back to the Oregon Trail, honestly, in that people who made the decision to come here did not come for gold, they came to create a better life." Take that, California.

He credited Oregon's history of maverick politicians including the late Gov. Tom McCall and former Portland mayor, Oregon governor and U.S. Transportation Secretary Neil Goldschmidt -- people who believed that "if the rest of the world thinks it's a good idea, maybe it's not."

"We were lucky that we were able to build our first light-rail system without going to a vote," Dotterer said. Once people witnessed the success, he said, it came became easy to convince them about the wisdom of building others.

Portland is not the perfect model for, say, Sonoma and Marin counties. More than 1.9 million people live in the greater Portland area, and many want to travel to and from the same city center. These population densities simplify the task of designing and sustaining bus, street car and rail services.

Still, every city and region can learn from the Portland experience. After all, if the choice is between the Portland model and another half-century of sprawling across the landscape, that's an easy decision. The old sprawl model not only devours resources, it's become unaffordable -- and unlivable.

The Wall Street Journal last week reported that the high price of gasoline is causing many Americans to reconsider the advantages of mass transit.

Owing to its foresight, Portland is now well positioned to go forward, while other regions struggle.