Don’t point fingers on transportation

The Times, May 22, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

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Tough problems are best addressed — and solved — with a sense of history, an accurate understanding of the complexity of issues and creative problem solving are also needed.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case a week ago when the region’s very difficult transportation problems were incorrectly simplified to baseless finger-pointing in an editorial in The Oregonian.

For more than 15 years, the Portland region and its local communities have struggled to address mounting transportation problems made worse by increased population and state and federal leaders who have been unwilling or unable to increase gasoline taxes since 1993.

Left on its own, the region has achieved some success. Washington County and its cities have implemented many local road improvements. And the region has made brilliant progress in expanding transit in the form of express bus service, light rail, the Portland Streetcar and this fall Washington County commuter rail.

While the region’s transportation problems are great, they are also diverse.

In the city of Portland, street maintenance needs are primary. In Multnomah County, the issue has for decades been the county’s limited ability to fund the maintenance of its Willamette River bridges.

In Washington County, the problem has been a fast-growing population served by mostly rural roads. In Clackamas County, the ability to improve inadequate roads to deal with population growth has been impeded by an electorate that is often cranky with government and largely adverse to new taxes.

But given all of these issues, elected and business leaders over the years have repeatedly espoused regional transportation strategies. Such regional efforts occurred in 1996, 2000 and 2002-2004 before percolating anew this year.

So it was more than a bit perplexing that The Oregonian decided to herald regional strategies now being espoused by Multnomah County Chair Ted Wheeler and Clackamas County Commissioner Lynn Peterson as new visionary leadership. And at the same time, the editorial called out Washington County Chairman Tom Brian and suggested that he “better be careful. He risks looking like the sorriest kind of politician — one who fails to notice that the world has shifted beneath him.”

Such criticism and overall analysis was, in fact, sorry and ill informed.

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