In the early 1970s, neighborhood-based movements arose in Portland, Oregon, against freeways, while networks of individuals championed a revival of rail transit. At decade's end, regional leaders rejected two interstate freeways, repudiated a freeway-based regional transportation plan, and agreed to build the beginning of a regional rail system. In seeming contradiction to their anti-auto actions, they also lobbied Congress to change federal law so that they could spend money from deleted interstate highway projects on noninterstate roads rather than on transit. This article documents how planners and power brokers in Portland negotiated among themselves to channel the energy from what began as a citizen- and neighborhood-based revolution into the beginnings of a new consensus about transit, road, and land use development by the end of the decade, one that implicitly recognized personal preference for mass mobility but that explicitly championed designs of transportation facilities to reflect local objectives.
George W. Hilton and John F. Due, The Electric Interurban Railways in America (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1960), 395-97; and Herman Edwards, “13-Mile Highway Link Completed in 6 Years,” The Oregonian, January 25, 1958, 1, c.7.
2.
Martha J. Bianco , “Technological Innovation and the Rise and Fall of Urban Mass Transit,” Journal of Urban History25, no. 3 ( 1999): 348-78.
3.
Transcript of interview with Dick Feeney by phone to his office in Portland by Greg Thompson, February 28, 2006. Reminiscences of David Hupp dated March 2001, downloaded September 12, 2004, from Ernie Bonner's Web site: pdxplan.org. The document that Moses prepared is Robert Moses, Portland Improvement (Portland, OR, November 10, 1943). Document is addressed to City of Portland, Multnomah County, School District No. 1 of Multnomah County, Port of Portland, and Commission of Public Docks and is in the collection of Jeffrey Brown of Tallahassee. See also Jeffrey R. Brown, “Building Autopia: The Development of Urban Freeway Planning in the Pre-interstate Era” (working paper, Tallahassee, 2005).
4.
Carl Abbott, Greater Portland: Urban Life and Landscape in the Pacific Northwest (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), 109-10.
5.
All would be built by the Oregon Highway Commission, though the Highway Trust Fund would pay 90 percent of the construction cost for those freeways designated as urban interstates. See Design Concepts, Inc., The Cooperative Transportation Planning Process in the Portland Metropolitan Area: Final Report of the Governor's Task Force on Transportation (Portland, OR, January 1975) Retrieved from Portland Metro Library, November 2003. Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon, Regional Transit Development Alternatives: A Sketch Planning Analysis (Portland, OR, August 1977), 2-1. Report retrieved from Tri-County Metropolitan Transit District (TriMet) Library, November 2003. The formation of Portland Vancouver Metropolitan Area Transportation Study (PVMATS) and its relationship to other agencies is in Carl Abbott and Margery Post Abbott, “Historical Development of the Metropolitan Service District,” prepared for the Metro Home Rule Charter Commission, no date or place. On file with author.
6.
James A. Dunn, Driving Forces : The Automobile, Its Enemies, and the Politics of Mobility (Washington, DC: Brookings , 1998).
7.
Carl Abbott, “ The Oregon Planning Style,” in Planning the Oregon Way , ed. Carl Abbott, Deborah Howe, and Sy Adler ( Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press, 1994), 205-26.
8.
Abbott, Greater Portland, 138.
9.
Ibid, 150.
10.
Martha J. Bianco and Sy Adler, “The Politics of Implementation: The Corporatist Paradigm Applied to the Implementation of Oregon's Statewide Transportation Planning Rule,” Journal of Planning Education and Research21 (2001): 5-16.
11.
Raymond A. Mohl, “Stop the Road: Freeway Revolts in American Cities,” Journal of Urban History30 (July 2004): 674-706.
12.
Dunn, Driving Forces.
13.
Transcript of interview with Gerrard Drummond by phone to his home in Canby, Oregon, by Greg Thompson, April 4, 2006.
14.
J. Innes and J. Gruber, “ Planning Styles in Conflict at the San Francisco Bay Area's Metropolitan Planning Commission” (working paper 2001-09, University of California at Berkeley, Institute of Urban and Regional Development, 2001).
15.
Dunn, Driving Forces.
16.
S.B. Edner and G.B. Arrington Jr., Urban Decision Making for Transportation Investment: Portland's Light Rail Transit System, Report DOT-I_85_03 ( Washington, DC: Technology Sharing Program, Office of the Secretary of Transportation, March 1985).
17.
Robert C. Post , “Urban Railway Redivivus: Image and Ideology in Los Angeles, California,” in Suburbanizing the Masses: Public Transport and Urban Development in Historical Perspective, ed. Colin Divall and Winston Bond (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2003), 187-210.
18.
Transcript of joint interview with Don Clark and Dick Feeney by phone by Greg Thompson, March 16, 2006.
19.
Ken David, “ Company Surprises Customers: Firm Abandons Passenger Run after Sundown,” The Oregonian, January 26, 1958, 1, c.8. See also Hilton and Due, The Electric Interurban Railways in America , 395, and John T. Labbe, Fares Please! Those Portland Trolley Years (Caldwell, ID : Caxton Printers, 1982), 149-50. For most of their history, Portland Traction Company interurban cars to Oregon City operated from downtown Portland. In 1956, the Multnomah County Board of Supervisors authorized road improvement to the Hawthorne Bridge, used by the interurbans to reach the east side of the Willamette River from downtown. The action forced the interurbans off the bridge and ended service to downtown, decimating patronage. Portland Traction could have protested the action but did not, because it wanted to abandon service. In the early 1950s it tried to abandon all of its passenger service but was prevented from doing so by the Oregon Public Utilities Commission.
20.
Transcript of interview with Robert Rynerson by phone to his office in Denver by Greg Thompson, June 23, 2005.
21.
G.L. Thompson , “Defining an Alternative Future: Birth of the Light Rail Movement in North America,” Transportation Research E-Circular No. E-C058 (Washington, DC: Transportation Research Board, 2003), 25-36, http://gulliver.trb.org/publications/circulars/ec058/ec058.pdf.
22.
Berlin's transport system did not go through this transformation, but Rynerson inspected cities that did.
23.
Rynerson interview, June 23, 2005.
24.
Feeney interview, February 28, 2006. Transcript of interview with Don Clark by phone to Portland by Greg Thompson, March 27, 2006.
25.
Transcript of interview of Betty Merten by Ernie Bonner at Bonner residence in Portland, December 9, 2001. Transcript downloaded from Web on September 12, 2004, from Bonner's Web site on planning in Portland: pdxplan.org.
26.
Feeney interview, February 28, 2006. Hupp reminiscences, March 2001. Clark and Feeney interview, March 16, 2003. Interview of Don Clark by Ernie Bonner in Clark's home, southwest Portland, March 8, 2002. Downloaded from Eric Bonner's Web site on planning in Portland on September 12, 2004, pdxplan.org.
27.
Feeney interview, February 28, 2006.
28.
Hupp reminiscences, March 2001. Hupp noted, “Meanwhile, an ad-hoc group of various citizens and public officials met periodically to discuss the politics of making transportation in Portland more effective, cost-efficient and environmentally friendly. Our agenda focused mainly on the Mt. Hood, TriMet reforms and the light rail idea. One of us, architect Ed Wagner, who was working as a planner for TriMet, had a large, organized collection of slides showing trolley systems all over Europe that he showed to any person or group that showed the slightest interest. I obtained a student intern, David Legg, whose sole responsibility was to collect solid information about light rail from any source, and to monitor developments like the system then being planned for Edmonton. David worked very hard to compile the area's first technical library on light rail.” Rick Gustafson refers to a similar group: “I do recall work that was done on the Topaz report, and Ed was in close communication with Lon Topaz. Lon was part of a group that would involve Buell, Ron Buell, and Lon and Ed Wagner and probably Alan Webber from the mayor's office that were advocating for this, you know, kind of high activity.” Transcript of interview with Rick Gustafson by phone to Palm Springs by Greg Thompson, March 27, 2006.
29.
The letter was noted both by David Hupp and by Robert Rynerson, who worked on the study for Lon Topaz. Hupp reminiscences, March 2001. Transcript of interview with Robert Rynerson in his office in Denver by phone by Thompson, April 16, 2004.
30.
Though he did not say how or when he got religion, Wright refers frequently and favorably to light rail in the context of his tenure in Portland with Goldschmidt. His transportation coworker, Ernie Munch, also refers to Wright's light rail advocacy. Transcript of interview of Douglas Wright by Thompson by phone to his office in San Francisco, February 8, 2006. Transcript of interview of with Ernie Munch by Thompson by phone to his home in Portland, April 6, 2004. Ernie Bonner's Web site provides his own biography: http://pdxplan.org. Hupp reminiscences, March 2001.
31.
Munch interview, April 6, 2004. Dates are from Goldschmidt Web site.
32.
Clark and Feeney interview, March 16, 2003.
33.
Drummond interview, April 4, 2006.
34.
Abbott, “ The Oregon Planning Style”; and Abbott, Greater Portland, 144. Dick Feeney also stressed the importance of these two developments in the unfolding of transportation decisions during this period. Feeney interview, February 28, 2006.
35.
Mohl, “Stop the Road .”
36.
Abbott, “The Oregon Planning Style.”
37.
Munch interview, April 6, 2004. Dates are from Goldschmidt Web site.
38.
Alan Lupo, Frank Colcord, and Edmund Fowler, Rites of Way: The Politics of Transportation in Boston and the U.S. City (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971). Phone conversation with Rick Gustafson by Greg Thompson to his office in Portland, March 4, 2006.
39.
Ronald A. Buell, Dead End: The Automobile in Mass Transportation (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1972).
40.
Munch stressed Goldschmidt's reaching out to the business community immediately after the election; Abbott commented that Goldschmidt achieved a remarkable alliance of downtown business interests and residents of older neighborhoods. Munch interview, April 6, 2004. Abbott, Greater Portland, 68, 142-44.
41.
Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon, Regional Transit Development Alternatives: A Sketch Planning Analysis ( Portland, OR, August 1977), 2-4.
42.
Merten interview, December 9, 2001.
43.
Clark and Feeney interview, March 16, 2003.
44.
Transcript of interview with Jim Howell by Greg Thompson at his home in Portland, November 24, 2003. Transcript of interview with Doug Allen by Greg Thompson by phone to his home in Portland, March 23, 2004. Abbott, Greater Portland, 136, 148.
45.
Howell interview, November 24, 2003.
46.
Ibid. According to this interview, Howell organized the Sensible Transportation Options for People (STOP) group. Howell's claim was corroborated by several other transcripts. Betty Merten cites Howell as one of the founders of STOP. Merten interview, December 9, 2001.
47.
Howell interview, November 24, 2003.
48.
Wright interview, February 8, 2006.
49.
Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet), Regional Transit Development Alternatives: A Sketch Planning Analysis (Portland, OR, August 1977), 2-6.
50.
A summary of provisions of the act is contained in Edward Weiner, Urban Transportation Planning in the United States: An Historical Overview , 5th ed., DOT-T-97-24 (Washington, DC, September 1997), 91-93; the then-contemporary Portland view is consistent and is contained in The Cooperative Transportation Planning Process in the Portland Region, 12. The relevant section of the law was Section 103 (e) (4). The reference that transit projects must be under contract no later than 1981 is contained in TriMet, Regional Transit Development Alternatives, 2-17. In his interview with Thompson, Ernie Munch emphasized the stress that Goldschmidt was under to reach a regional consensus on what to do with the interstate transfer money before the federal deadline ran out. Munch interview, April 6, 2004.
51.
The counties were Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington in Oregon and Clark in Washington. Other members included Commissioner Mildred Schwab, City of Portland; Commissioners James M. Gleason and Mel Gordon, Multnomah County; Commissioner Robert Schumacher, Clackamas County; Commissioner Rod Roth, Washington County; Commissioner Dick Granger, Clark County (Washington); Chairman Glenn Jackson, Oregon Transportation Commission; President Gerard Drummond, Tri-County Metropolitan Transit District; Chairman William Young, Columbia Region Association of Governments; Commissioner F. Glen Odell, Port of Portland. See System Design Concepts, The Cooperative Transportation Planning in the Portland Metropolitan Area (Portland, OR, 1975): “Foreword.” Retrieved from Portland Metro library.
52.
Clark interview, March 8, 2002. Clark and Feeney interview, March 16, 2003. Dates are from TriMet, Regional Transit Development Alternatives, 2-8 to 2-10. Obtained from TriMet library, November 2003. The November 1974 date also is contained in System Design Concepts, The Cooperative Transportation Planning in the Portland Metropolitan Area, 13.
53.
Columbia Regional Association of Governments (CRAG), Interim Transportation Plan for the Portland-Vancouver Metropolitan Area ( Portland, OR, June 18, 1975), ii. The $165 million figure in the Interim Transportation Plan (ITP) is considerably less than estimated costs for the Mt. Hood Freeway abstracted by a TriMet study from the Mt. Hood DEIS. The TriMet study presents the preferred eight-lane freeway/transit alternative as costing within the range of $301-439 million, displacing 1,679 homes and 203 businesses. The discrepancy with the $165 million figure may derive from the inclusion in the TriMet report of additional bridges or tunnels across the Willamette River which were not part of the Mt. Hood Interstate Freeway proposals but which would have been required to make them work. TriMet, Regional Transit Development Alternatives, 2-6 to 2-7.
54.
Crag, Interim Transportation Plan, 14-24.
55.
Wright interview, February 8, 2006.
56.
Several of those interviewed for this research, as well as the transcripts of several of the interviewees posted by Ernie Bonner, referred to Jackson as the Robert Moses of Oregon. Gerard Drummond was referred to frequently as well, often in the context of working as part of a team with Jackson and Goldschmidt. See for example, tape of interview with Steve McCarthy, interviewed by Greg Thompson by phone to his office in Portland, April 23, 2004. Transcript of interview of Ray Polani by Greg Thompson at his home in Portland, November 21, 2003. Howell interview, November 24, 2003. Allen interview, March 23, 2004. Gustafson interview, March 27, 2006. Munch interview, April 6, 2004. Transcript of interview of Rick Gustafson by Ernie Bonner at Gustafson residence in Portland, February 8, 2003, downloaded from Web on September 12, 2004, from Bonner's Web site on planning in Portland: http://pdxplan.org. Although while not disputing Jackson's importance, TriMet lobbyist Dick Feeney said, “The Robert Moses of Portland was Robert Moses.” Feeney interview, February 28, 2006.
57.
Drummond interview, April 4, 2006.
58.
Ibid.
59.
Wright interview, February 8, 2006.
60.
Clark interview, March 16, 2006.
61.
Gustafson interview, March 27, 2006.
62.
Clark and Feeney interview, March 16, 2003.
63.
Gustafson interview, March 27, 2006.
64.
Clark interview, March 16, 2006.
65.
Wright interview, February 8, 2006.
66.
Ibid.
67.
Ibid.
68.
Ibid.
69.
Ibid.
70.
Clark interview, March 16, 2006. Dick Feeney said that Clark was put under tremendous pressure from the unions and others to approve the I-205, but he never did. Feeney interview, February 28, 2006. Rick Gustafson said that Munch and Conradt worked closely together in developing a new street classification system as well as on the downtown plan. The classification system strove to define arterial roads consistent with land use characteristics in different parts of the city, taking care to preserve the pedestrian character of the old streetcar suburbs and commercial strips. Gustafson interview, March 27, 2006.
71.
Letter from Wright to Thompson, May 30, 2006.
72.
I asked Clark if there was a quid pro quo of Goldschmidt supporting light rail in the Banfield Corridor in exchange for Clark dropping his opposition to I-205. Clark emphatically replied that there was not. Clark and Feeney interview, March 16, 2003. When he was interviewed by Ernie Bonner, Rick Gustafson said that nonetheless Clark enhanced his bargaining power by yielding to Jackson on I-205: “Then you had the fight over Multnomah County and I-205, see, because Don Clark and Mel Gordon were adamant to have rail, and their price ultimately to Jackson for approving the freeway construction, because it was not done, was a stronger voice in rail.” This comment could refer to the inclusion of a light rail right-of-way in the I-205 design, which was done, but it also could imply that Clark and Gordon had increased their bargaining power in a more general way. Gustafson interview, February 8, 2003. In his interview with me (March 27, 2006), Gustafson said that he was unaware of any quid pro quo related to Clark's I-205 stance.
73.
Although Drummond could not date this meeting, it had to have taken place between January 1975, when Straub became governor, and May 1976, when Baldwin retired as Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) director and was replaced by Bob Burco. Drummond interview, April 4, 2006.
74.
Wright interview, February 8, 2006.
75.
Edner and Arrington, Urban Decision Making for Transportation Investment, 19-20.
76.
Gustafson interview, March 27, 2006.
77.
Transcript of interview with Bill Lieberman at his home in San Diego by Greg Thompson, June 4, 2003.
78.
Bianco and Adler, “The Politics of Implementation,” 5-16.
79.
Howell interview, November 24, 2003.
80.
Gustafson interview, March 27, 2006.
81.
Oregon State Highway Division, Inter-Office Correspondence, from Don Adams, Transitways Project Engineer, to file. Subject: Banfield Transitway Project Light Rail Transit Alternative. Memo date June 28, 1976. In collection of Jim Howell.
82.
Clark and Feeney interview, March 16, 2003.
83.
Ibid.
84.
Bill Lieberman was TriMet's representative on the Banfield Transitway Study. He later did most of the TriMet staff work associated with the Smith Brothers study under the direction of Bob Post. He said that TriMet staff members were dismayed that a high level meeting at CRAG to which they were not invited removed light rail from consideration. Then suddenly they were directed to do a sketch planning study on the side to examine the impact of light rail in the Banfield Corridor on the entire transit system. Lieberman said that they did not know who ultimately asked for the study. Lieberman interview, June 4, 2003.
85.
Gustafson interview, March 27, 2006.
86.
Ibid. Clark and Feeney interview, March 16, 2003.
87.
McCarthy interview, April 23, 2004. Gerard Drummond also said that McCarthy was a member of the old board, was fired along with it, and then was reappointed to the new board. Drummond interview, April 4, 2006. Drummond does not remember Ron Buell being on the board, but both Dick Feeney and Doug Allen place him there. Feeney said that the new board had people “right out of city hall,” including Buell. Allen interview, March 23, 2004. Feeney interview, February 28, 2006. The February 1974 date comes from The Cooperative Transportation Planning Process in the Portland Metropolitan Area, 13. The expansion of the planning staff comes from the February 8, 2003, Gustafson interview by Ernie Bonner. That there was a reorganization about a year later comes from the Gustafson interview, March 27, 2006. The date of Tom King's departure come from a phone conversation with TriMet's librarian, Darreth Murray, June 18, 2006. (A Sunday; she returned my call.)
88.
Lieberman interview, June 4, 2003.
89.
Allen interview, March 23, 2004. Allen said that the SRG report was not published but that he and other members of the Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) were aware of it, and furthermore, that he found it persuasive. He said that Bob Burco participated in the study. The Interim Transportation Plan on p. 5 lists five reports that informed its preparation. One listing is SRG Partnership, Summary Report, Transit Resources: Rail Rights-of-Way Use, prepared for TriMet, May 1974. The author was a subconsultant to the SRG study. He does not have a copy of the report, but he does have about sixty pages of handwritten analysis that was submitted to SRG and that contained the revised light rail proposal. Bob Burco and Steve Dotterer also participated in the study.
90.
Lieberman interview, June 4, 2003.
91.
Rick Gustafson recounted that ODOT wanted transit alternatives, be they light rail or busways, in the center of the freeway rather than on the north side so as not to interfere with exit ramps. This made the construction of stations difficult to impossible. Rick Gustafson said that he worked with Ernie Mucnch behind the scenes to get ODOT to change its position so that a stopping light rail line could be considered. In his interview with me, Ernie Munch could not recount this episode or the change in the concept of the Banfield light rail alternative. Gustafson interview, February 8, 2003. Munch interview, April 6, 2004.
92.
Clark interview, March 16, 2006.
93.
Clark and Feeney interview, March 16, 2003.
94.
McCarthy interview, April 23, 2004. McCarthy said that he actively began promoting light rail about six months after light rail was dropped from the set of alternatives in the Banfield corridor. The Wilbur Smith study persuaded him, he said.
95.
Drummond interview, April 4, 2006.
96.
Oregon State Highway Division, Inter-Office Correspondence, from Gary L. Ross, Assistant Transitways Project Engineer, to file. Subject: Banfield Transitway Citizens Advisory Committee, November 18, 1976. Memo date November 26, 1976. In collection of Jim Howell.
97.
Allen said that in the early days of the CAC, he and other members were aware of the SRG Partnership's conception of light rail and found it persuasive, but he also said they never saw an SRG report. Allen interview, March 23, 2004.
98.
Jim Howell stated that the citizen's advisory committee was disbanded after the light rail alternative had been dropped, but ODOT's minutes of meetings showed that it still was meeting through November 1976. Howell interview, November 24, 2003. These points were also made by Doug Allen, another member of the committee. Allen interview, March 23, 2004.
99.
The dates come from an excellent chronology of transportation planning studies contained in TriMet, Regional Transit Development Alternatives. The author's name is not on the report, but from my interview with him, it was Bill Lieberman. On p. 2-20 the report states, “Based on TriMet's preliminary sketch planning evaluations, light rail to Gresham via the Banfield, I-205, Burnside, and the PTC rail alignment was added as a full alternative in February 1966 [this is an obvious typo; it must be February 1977].” Also on p. 2-20, “In August 1977, the CRAG Board, on the basis of the ITP, further sketch planning evaluations, and a request from UMTA and FHWA, broadened the Draft EIS to cover two additional alternatives: the Banfield/Lents LRT, and the Banfield/Division (to Gresham) LRT.”
100.
Edner and Arrington, Urban Decision Making for Transportation Investment, 10.
