Eighty percent of Metro area residents support "building more neighborhoods where people can get where they need to go by walking, biking or taking public transit," according to a recent scientific survey.
The State Mandate
Just who is mandating this cutback in greenhouse gas emissions?
The credit goes to Salem. House Bill 3543, passed in 2007, made it state policy to curb Oregon's greenhouse gas emissions. Using 1990 emission levels as a benchmark, the bill said Oregon's per capita greenhouse gas emissions must be at 10 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2020. By 2050, per capita emissions must be at 75 percent below 1990 levels.
The Jobs and Transportation Act, a 2009 bill that raised the gas tax to pay for several key statewide highway projects, included a provision that required Metro to both plan for population growth and reduce emissions from motor vehicles. It mandated cities to change their comprehensive plans to accommodate the reduction in emissions.
The state Department of Land Conservation and Development, which oversees the planning statewide, is drafting its own requirements for the Metro region.
Those rules use 2005 emissions as a benchmark, and say Metro must see those drop by 21 percent by 2035. To be in compliance with the state laws, Metro has to draft plans to address those goals. Cities, ultimately, will be the ones figuring out how to make the goals translate into their own planning.
Thirty-six percent of people in that same survey support "building more compact neighborhoods."
The difference in outcomes might be indistinguishable. But it's the difference in support that's been the topic of conversation among policymakers for the past two weeks, as Metro and its constituent cities and counties come to grips with a state mandate to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
A volley of laws and planning rules from Salem (see sidebar) has put Portland-area drivers under a microscope. While only 25 percent of the region's greenhouse gas emissions come from commuting, policymakers are focusing their carbon reduction efforts on cars, pickups and sport utility vehicles.
But how do policymakers get the public to buy in to what might seem like mandated lifestyle changes?
Pollster Adam Davis has been making the rounds the last few weeks with data from a phone survey his company, DHM Research, conducted in March. It questioned 600 Metro-area residents, with a margin of error of 4 percent. DHM also conducted several focus group sessions to supplement the survey.
Davis has been preaching to elected officials and planners a simple message – the public believes in this, if you frame it the right way. Just as people support or oppose the ideals of New Urbanism depending on what questions are asked, Portland-area residents are lukewarm in their belief that global warming is a reason to change the way we live.
"Quite frankly, I would not lead with climate change, or global warming for that matter," Davis told the Metro Policy Advisory Committee on Wednesday. "Talk about these other values which Portlanders hold dear."
The region's residents support keeping a tight urban growth boundary. They want to prevent urban sprawl and protect farm and forest land, Davis said. They like developments like Orenco Station in Hillsboro and The Crossings in Gresham. They like Portland's neighborhoods.
To back up the numbers, Davis pointed to a recent national survey that found that 58 percent of Americans prefer to live in a neighborhood that has a mix of houses, stores and other businesses that are easy to walk to. Sixty-six percent think it's important to be within easy walking distance of a mix of places near their homes.
Back to the Portland-region survey – 67 percent of those in Davis' survey said they think addressing climate change should be a priority for local government. That number seemed to resonate with Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder at a Tuesday worksession.
"They're looking for leadership," Burkholder said. "They need to know someone is taking care of this."
Councilor Carlotta Collette, just back from a business recruitment trip to Spain, compared the American response to climate change to that of other countries.
"We're the last part of the planet that's responding to this," she said.
"There's power in this message – we're behind, we're playing catch up," said Councilor Kathryn Harrington. "China's eating our lunch."