Here are my suggestions for the 6/20/2007 town hall on Portland transportation priorities and funding:

1. Ban studded tires. These destroy the road, bridge, and highway infrastructure which is a part of the public domain for the convenience of a few people who don't want to be bothered to learn how to put chains on their tires on those few occasions when the weather turns foul while they are on a ski outing on Mt. Hood. The destruction to our roadways caused by studded tires costs the public millions and millions of dollars. This cost is not being born fairly by those who use studs, but is being foisted onto the pocketbooks of everyone so that a select few can enjoy the tiniest bit of added convenience on their skiing jaunts. This is not only not fair, but it does not make sense. It is also entirely unnecessary. If the transportation commission could do only one thing to improve the funding situation and the quality of the infrastructure, this one should be at the top of the list. I grew up in an area of the Northeast (Upstate New York) that has infinitely more snow in a month of winter than Portland ever dreamed of seeing in a century, yet studs were illegal there and it never caused a problem. It is sheer insanity to continue pouring millions of transportation dollars down a rathole simply to allow a few people to not have to carry chains when they go to Timberline Lodge on the weekend.

2. Stop paving roads that don't need it and start paving the ones that do. Two or three years ago I observed a long stretch of NE 60th Ave. from Halsey St. at least to the I-84 on ramp and possibly beyond getting repaved, even though this entire stretch of roadway was in near-perfect condition. Why was this stretch repaved when it had nary a pothole in sight, when there are plenty of other roads within the city limits that have never been paved at all? Yes that stretch of roadway is high-traffic, but the road was not worn out yet! It did not need paving! Yet it got repaved anyway! Was that a good use of our limited transportation dollars?

3. Encourage public transportation, bicycling, walking, and other alternatives that reduce our dependence on the most expensive of all infrastructure addictions, that of roads for the private automobile. People gripe that these alternatives are "unfairly" taking money out of the budget for roads for cars, forgetting that the construction of roads for use by cars is the single most expensive transportation option ever devised by humans. It is subsidized in so many ways and by so many dollars that it makes all the rest look like chicken feed. Alternative transportation modes are not part of the problem, they are part of the solution.

4. Ponder whether free Tri-Met service would actually pay for itself in the long run through less need for more lanes, more roads, and more bridges.

5. Discourage sprawl. Encourage traditional neighborhood design where people at least have the option of walking to the places they need to get to for everyday living (e.g. schools, grocery stores, playgrounds, retail..). More lanes has been shown time and again to simply generate more traffic. No city yet has ever managed to widen its way out of traffic problems. Post-1950 suburban design (single-use pods connected only by massive high-speed collector roads) has proven an unlivable system that simply creates more car dependency. The east side of Portland largely got it right. The west side -- not so much.

6. Pavement and sidewalks for all city streets. This is a long-term project, but maybe some of the savings from points 1-5 above can be used to fund this over time. It is simply shameful that some areas of our city have nothing but dirt roads and drainage ditches. (Some of these roads are barely even passable in a compact car.) We can do better.