How Can Portland Brace for Its Population Boom?

[marmar]

from Bloomberg:


How Can Portland Brace for Its Population Boom?
What innovative light rail means for a thriving city

Mar 30, 2016 - 12:00 PM


The secret is out on Portland, Oregon. Drawn by its natural beauty and high quality of life, new residents are flocking to the City of Roses, leading to a 5.2 percent growth rate that makes it the 15th-fastest growing metro area among the country’s 50 largest, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. With another 400,000 people projected to join the population of 2.35 million over the next 20 years, Portland is feeling the pinch.

“Frankly, this puts an incredible burden on the transit system, and rail has been a key part of supporting that growth,” says Neil McFarlane, General Manager at TriMet, the agency that oversees the city’s popular mass transit system. “Finding the right partners, and working diligently with those partners, is crucial to managing that.”

It’s crucial to innovating, too. In 1996, TriMet and Siemens delivered the country’s first low-floor light rail car, easy-to-access rolling stock that eliminated the need for elevated platforms and saved cities countless infrastructure dollars in the process. Last fall, when TriMet added the 7.3-mile Orange Line to its Metropolitan Area Express (MAX) system, they partnered with Siemens to focus on user-friendly design improvements.

TriMet sought the input of its riders, and their crowd-sourced ideas can be found throughout Siemens’ redesign of the S70 light rail vehicle. These are highlighted by a roomier center car that maximizes legroom, additional wheelchair accessibility, larger windows and a smart HVAC system that automatically adjusts cooling based on the number of riders in the car. ..............(more)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/sponsors/siemens/a-green-solution-to-portlands-population-boom/?advertiser=7051&prx_t=HhMCA9wwGAT00NA

[KamaAina]

1. And Portland has an urban growth boundary

so it can't just sprawl outwards.

Vancouver and Clark County, Wash., across the Columbia, have no such boundary, so they can and are.

edit: Besides, Washington has no income tax and Oregon no sales tax, so if you live in or around Vancouver and do your shopping in Portland, you're golden!