Rex Burkholder Is Congested...And Likes It
In an April 27, interview in the Portland Daily Journal of Commerce (subscription required) Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder puts his urban planning wackery on full display.
Sooner or later, drivers will pay: A conversation with Rex Burkholder
by Libby Tucker 04/27/2007
Rex Burkholder has a new bike, and he’s not too shy to show it off. Neither is the Metro councilor too shy to call his agency’s 2035 Regional Transportation Plan “groundbreaking.”
Groundbreaking. Okayyyy. Well first of all Rex there is nothing "groundbreaking" about Metro being more interested in social engineering than transportation when it comes to... well... TRANSPORTATION. This has been the problem with Portland (and Seattle area?) transportation planning for oh so many years. You have had some wackjobs like Rex Burkholder who are going to spend millions of dollars on bicycle related projects, while only a fraction of the population will make extensive use of their bikes. You have wackjobs like Rex Burkholder who will spend BILLIONS of dollars on light rail trains while only 2% (on a good day) of the commuting public will use light rail.
Yet how many new roads have been built or expanded in the Portland area? Well if you ask Rex Burkholder.
DJC: How is this investment strategy different from those used in the past?
Burkholder: The real shift we see going on is that, traditionally, transportation planning has been, “Where’s the traffic? OK, let’s throw some money there.” And what we’ve found is that as you get bigger highways you create more traffic. ... We’ve spent trillions over the last 50 years building roads without thinking what the outcome is that we want. So what we have is a lot of roads but not necessarily well-built cities that provide those opportunities.
I would have really really liked Libby Tucker (of the DJC) to have asked Burkholder a follow up question: You say we have a lot of new roads? Can you name some of the new road building that those trillions of dollars have gone to in say the last two decades? Now THAT would have been really hot. Because anyone who has paid any attention to transportation planning over the last 20 years in the Portland area can tell you that folks like Rex Burkholder and Earl Blumenhour have been fighting tooth and nail against ANY road building, let alone NEW road building.
Burkholder does admit that drivers in the Portland area will be paying for driving on the roads (unlike bicyclists). Burkholder knows that the social engineering transportation communists do not have the money to build their social web and that folks will not willing pay for those plans. So they need to whack 'em someplace else. See if you can catch it in this statement.
Burkholder: We’re going to be looking at that in different ways as well. ... There’s only so much money available for these projects. So the freeway system we have today is what we’re going to have for a long time. ... It’s a limited resource. So we’re going to be talking a lot more about how to tweak that to help it work better and how to manage it.
And it may get to the point where we say we’re going to start charging for use of that very precious commodity and use market forces to determine how it’s used. Because right now, (when) you widen a highway, people say, “Now I can live further away from downtown.”
He may as well have said that people are to stupid to pay for the bike lanes, light rail, traffic circles and mixed use development.... Sooo.... We need to tax or fee them someplace else in order to have money to backfill OUR agenda.
I have peiced together parts of the DJC interview here so you can get a flavor of what the elected transplanners are talking about in the Portland area.
DJC: How are you deciding which transportation projects will best suit the region?
Rex Burkholder: There’s two areas we divided this into in terms of trying to understand what investments to make. One is the mobility area and that’s the longer-distance movement of freight and people; the TriMet system, the ODOT highway system and the regional trails (are) in there, too, because they connect various cities...
For the most part we’re looking at how you use these investments to leverage better development. ... And a key piece on the community-building piece is how you make it so you create communities where people don’t have to travel. And I think that’s the future....Seattle and Portland are two places in the country that are actually doing this outcomes-based decision-making on transportation investments because everybody’s facing this problem; everybody’s broke. And we’re saying, “How do you spend this money better?” It seems like a new, groundbreaking way of looking at transportation.
So you have transplanning that seriously takes into accound TRAILS? Oh and perhaps... Perhaps, one could make an argument for the TriMet system being included in the thinking to a small degree. However to be on par with actual capacity building? Oiy... Nutjobs.
This might be a good time to remind folks that the Metro 2040 plan that folks like Burkholder are using as a guide happens to recommend Los Angeles style congestion as a target for the Portland area. The point to that is that if they congest folks enough they might actually start using the trails.
In the DJC story there are but two sentences of sanity.
But, critic and economist Joe Cortright says, Metro’s plan is still too focused on traffic congestion. Few of the region’s proposed projects that would increase traffic capacity, he says, would show any real benefit to metropolitan Portland’s economy.Sorry Joe... I had been one of the few crying in the wilderness that is Portland transportation debate and like the tree falling in the forest. It is as if the sound does not even happen. Because the transplanners do not want capacity. They WANT congestion. The LIKE congestion.
And they are going to make you pay for it.
UPDATE: Max has chimed in with some interesting thoughts HERE.
Yip Yip
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10 comments:
Rex Burkholder has a new bike, and he's not too shy to show it off.
After all, he doesn't have to pay anything to ride it.
I really hope Rex gets more spot light. Especially in news sources like the DJC where its readership is actual business people. This is a really good thing. I hope they keep him on the interview rotation.
Just to point it out. Notice that Rex like most liberals claim that all freeway construction does is create more traffic. They always forget to note that trips reduce, iddling reduces, and economic growth increases with new freeways.
Metro in particular seems clueless to the reality that intermodel transportation is a backbone to economic growth. They play it lipservice but when the subject is being talked about you can see they don't even consider real trasportation. Liberals like Burkholder all believe that the only real economic growth is in the "creative class" sectors which in reality contribute little beyond to the temporary worker pool. This of course being because liberals like Rex have never had to hold a real minial job or climb up any economic ladder.
With their economic model you get a few six figure positions, a few owner only creative businesses, and a whole bunch of creative class ghetto jobs that pay just a notch above minimum wage.
All while truckers, consultants, fabricators, mechanics, contractor, and sales people make living wages keeping the economy afloat. All from the seat of a vehicle traveling on a freeway.
Dare,
Nice point about Rex never holding a real job.
If I remember correctly when he first ran for Metro his occupation was listed as "house husband."
Which of course meant he did not have to actually compete in the real world.
Then he becomes a Metro councilman and suddenly he is this all-knowing svengali of the economy and transportation.
But that's Portland for ya.
Rex and his counterparts at Metro serve us best unintentionally. Interviews such as the one with DJC illustrate how utterly clueless they are in regard to issues that matter not only to the tri-county area, but to the states of Oregon and Washington.
Their elitist perspective should be allowed to be expressed on a much more regular basis.
This latest ploy of Rex and company is only limited by their collective and total lack of integrity.
This quote,,,,
Burkholder: The real shift we see going on is that, traditionally, transportation planning has been, “Where’s the traffic? OK, let’s throw some money there.”
,,,is the stuff of corrupted officials completely misrepresenting what they have been up to for decades while attempting to use any means possible to continue their schemes. I don't know what "transportation planning" he's talking about, but it must be pre-Metro because they have never thrown money at traffic. It's been all rail transit and all subsidized development patterning, "centers" without regard for traffic. For him to suggest they have been "throwing money at traffic" is as dishonest as it gets.
ANYONE paying attention at all knows that "traffic", region wide, has been wholly ignored by every planning bureaucracy, as directed and much to the delight of Rex and his Metro anti-car regime.
All the while Rex and company have lectured the public as to the wisdom of their so called "alternatives". Unfortunately the alternatives are no more than theories stuck in fantasy mode, as the irrational emphasis on rail transit and transit oriented development fails to provide the needs of growth.
Nearly every city in the Metro region is struggling to find some, any, solutions to the worsening traffic, affordable housing shortages and other fatal flaws long ignored by Rex.
Over and over again Rex and the delirious planning cabal have ignored every red flag resulting in outcomes which have been entirely predictable and repeatedly highlighted by their critics.
So here we are at a crossroads, and Rex ramps up the planner's rhetoric by blaming a system which focusses "too much" on traffic"?
This level of gall is astounding.
Next Rex will be blaming the shortage of affordable housing on throwing too much money at subdivisions in the suburbs. Something which, like his concocted story on money thrown at traffic, has never happened at all. In fact, many municipalities, in addition to requiring developers to pay all the on and off site improvements for their subdivisions, have added enormous fees further exacerbating the high cost of housing.
Every move Rex/Metro and these city "planners" have made over the past 20 years has deepened the imminent growth crisis.
It's too late to avoid the collision between the needs of growth and the dysfunctional and negligent bureaucracies Rex has created.
The group incompetence is fully entrenched, in complete control, propagandized by the press and hopelessly headed in the worst direction possible. More of the same.
A friend of mine once compared this "Smart Growth" Rex agenda to someone who says they are driving to San Francisco and while others point out that passing signs and cities indicate they are headed toward Seattle,,,, Rex assures them San Francisco is getting closer all the time.
It's 2007 and 08 approaches. Where are we headed?
Let's check what former Metro Executive Mike Burton had to say 7 years ago.
Traffic congestion is bad and getting worse.
It is a nightmare for commuters and it is choking freight mobility.
There is no more clear illustration of our inability to meet growth needs than our failure to address our transportation needs.
Within the transportation arena we are facing utter chaos."
from Metro head, Mike Burton's State of the Region Speech, 2000
Richard,
Nice catch. However it got me to thinking.
First of all we know that Rex is lying when he says that they have been "throwing" money at traffic. However let's pretend for a second that he was telling the truth. K?
So according to Rex's logic transportation planning has been looking for the traffic and throwing money at it. AND somehow that would be a bad thing.
IF that were the case Rex could we then say that in the case of worldwide hunger we have traditionally said "where's the hungry" and thrown money at them? Perhaps folks like Bono and those trying to feed starving African children should not be looking for the hungry but instead looking at the children in, say, Beaverton?
No no, Rex, you see the deal is that you have NOT been looking for the traffic and throwing any money at it. You have been throwing money elsewhere but now you are going to attempt to lie to everyone and say you have all along and now you are going to try something differe. Yet you are really doing the same 'ol - same 'ol.
But by spinning it as you are you can buy yourself another ten years of doing this "new" same old thing. Then hopefully ten years from now no one will remember what you said today.
yip yip
The reasons Rex has rolled out this new propaganda is because the region is at a crossroads.
Urban Renewal and other funding schemes are drying up due to maximized indebtedness and lack of revenue generation from previous plans. Rex has no choice but to raid the pockets of the driving public. Not to be used for the driving public but for more of the same dysfunction Rex supports.
What Rex and Metro don't talk about is the big pocket of money they just got to fund their new propaganda campaign. And it will be a blitz similar to the attack on M37.
The recent "open space" bond measure approved by the voters promises to not only take off the tax rolls 1000s of acres of property but it will fund Metro's agenda and activism wiht millions of dollars.
Right off the top Metro will be granting $15 million in grants to their various activist "community groups".
Millions more, likely around 10% of the $200 million will be siphoned off as land purchase "administration" costs and spent anyway Rex wants.
With this kind of hidden campaign cash, 100s of full time planners and public relations staff and a fully funded activists support network the snow job will be
enormous.
The press will eat it up and the
result will be much more nightmare land use and transportation policies with the misspending of billions fo tax dollars.
Sadly, resistance is clearly futile.
2% (on a good day) of the commuting public will use light rail.
Is that 2% of the people who could actually take it, because they commute along the same corridor, or is that 2% of the entire metro population, including people whose commutes take them no where near a line? Along the Banfield and the Sunset, MAX carries 26% of peak commuters in those corridors.
Yet how many new roads have been built or expanded in the Portland area?
Let's see, the Sunset was widened, the I-5/217 interchange was greatly improved... And guess what? These places are still congested! No, an improved road does not mean less actual congestion.
After all, he doesn't have to pay anything to ride [his bike].
Do motorists have to pay for their parking (except in downtown)? No. Do they have to pay for their pollution (think Big Pipe)? No. Oil defense? No.
Jason,
You've been inhaling Metro fumes.
What makes you think the I-5/217 interchange didn't help that interchange?
Of course that project didn't add capacity to either 217 or I-5 so of course there is still congestion in that quadrant,,,along with every other quadrant.
The added lane on part of 26 and the new sylvan interchange help immediate access and short flows but again no real capacity was included so of COURSE congestion would be worsening,,,as it is everywhere.
So guess what. Pull your head out of where every you have it and wake up.
Rex and company are opposed to ANY and ALL added capacity for cars period. They talk about it all the time as the worst possible thing with their ludicrous rhetoric about and traffic relief causing more traffic.
Sort of like building new schools for a rising student population would somehow spawn more students.
It the asinine and the dishonest in control of our planning and nothing but complete chaos will dislodge this regime's grip.
You citing the 217/I-5 interchange as an example of road building comes right out of the Metro cabal boiler room. You could have thrown in more ludicrous nonsense by citing Metro's contention that the new interchange was a form of subsidizing the highly successfull and privately built Kruse Way development.
There's no limit to what Metro et al will do or say to advance their perpetual rat race making mess.
And they have clowns like you to beat their moronic drums.
Umm, the last time I checked, the new lanes on the Sunset are being extended out to Cornell. Isn't that added "real capacity"?
http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/REGION1/cornell/index.shtml
Also, when you improve an interchange and remove a bottleneck, congestion should go down. Even if you are not creating much more space, vehicles should be able to get through the place quicker.
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