With memories of the mass transit battles of Clackamas County still fresh in many minds, advocates for reducing congestion in the southwest part of the region kicked off a new strategy for building community support.
The ID Southwest group held its first meeting in Multnomah Village on Thursday, with about 15 members of the nascent committee meeting to discuss their hopes for the corridor.
The Southwest Corridor project is studying transportation and planning in the wedge of the region from downtown Portland out to Tigard, Sherwood and Tualatin.
Partners working on that project – mostly local governments – helped assemble the ID Southwest group, which has members ranging from freight advocates to health care representatives to state senators.
The hope for the group, said Metro Councilor Bob Stacey, is to add another level of community outreach as the plan is developed. A years-long, in-depth study on mass transit from Portland to Tigard and Tualatin is likely to start this summer.
"I felt very strongly that we could do more to make sure this is truly community-based," Stacey said, "and not something that government manages by itself."
Some committee members had questions about the projects, and the process, answered by Metro staff and councilors Stacey and Craig Dirksen, ID Southwest's co-facilitators.
Oregon Trucking Associations representative Debra Dunn wanted to know how the communities and Metro have looked at freight movement in the early Southwest Corridor studies.
"One of our roles is to look at how we can move freight efficiently through communities without going into neighborhoods," Dunn said. "Are there any priorities established?"
Dirksen said most of the freight aspects of the Southwest Corridor plans were adopted through cities' transportation plans. But, he added, one key freight corridor is likely to be untouched by mass transit.
"One of the things that came out of this … was the idea early on that there was no interest in running high capacity transit in Washington County within the right-of-way of Pacific Highway, because it would reduce the capacity for commuters and probably increase congestion problems for freight movements," Dirksen said.
Portland City Commissioner Steve Novick pointed out that all that work could be for naught if Tigard residents approve a ballot measure establishing a city policy of opposing rapid transit.
"We know for a fact from polling that most people in Tigard like the idea of high capacity transit, but in the March election, with really small turnout, some of us around the table are making sure we have a get out the vote campaign," Novick said.
He also called on support from Salem.
"When the Portland City Council was endorsing the Southwest Corridor plan, one of the things we talked about was the worry that high capacity transit translated into gentrification, and only rich people live along the transit line," Novick said. "It would be a lot easier for us to address that problem if the Legislature lifted the pre-emption on inclusionary zoning."
For the last half hour of the meeting, small groups discussed their interest in the corridor, and came up with movie titles that could apply to the Southwest Corridor.
One came from OHSU representative Brian Newman's "No Country for Old Men" – "When I think about the corridor, I think about how difficult it is for pedestrians," Newman said.
In closing, Dirksen reminded the group that they're in for the long haul.
"This is not something we're going to be doing for six months," he said. "Achieving the goals of the Southwest Corridor Plan is going to take decades."
Note: An earlier version of this story misquoted Commissioner Steve Novick regarding the Southwest Corridor Plan. He was referring to the Portland City Council's endorsement of the plan. This version has been corrected.