TI: A critique of the urban transportation planning process: the performance of Portland's 2000 regional transportation plan AU: Dueker,-Kenneth-J SO: Transportation Quarterly v 56 no2 Spring 2002. p. 15-21 PY: 2002 ABSTRACT: The writer comments on the performance of the Portland, Oregon, Regional Transportation Plan (RTP). The RTP for a forecast year of 2020 illustrates the tensions in the urban transportation planning process between powerful decentralizing trends and the efforts to reverse them. In Portland, this planning process is dominated by "new urbanist" stakeholders who are intent on curbing urban sprawl by changing urban development patterns and transportation behavior. However, they ignore the forecasts of transportation modeling. These show that compact urban development land use, transportation policies, and investment do not perform well. TEXT: The urban transportation planning process is buffeted by one of the paradoxes of American public opinion. The public decries urban sprawl, but craves the comfort and convenience of the auto and larger homes and lots. Typically, planners and policy makers are unwilling to confront the contradiction between what the public says and what it does. But "new urbanists" are intent on changing preferences and behavior, and they have captured the urban transportation planning process in places like Portland, OR. Portland's Year 2000 Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) for a forecast year of 2020 illustrates the tension in the urban transportation planning process of balancing accommodation of powerful decentralizing trends and the advocacy of programs to reverse those trends. David Hartgen, professor and coordinator of transportation studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, called for MPO-level (metropolitan planning organization) transportation performance measures.(FN1) Steve Heminger, executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the MPO for the nine -county San Francisco Bay Area, acknowledges criticism of MPOs in the areas of ineffective leadership, poor information provided the public on long-range transportation plans, and failure to set forth a regional vision.(FN2) Metro, the Metropolitan Transportation Organization in Portland, OR, is considered by many an exception to these criticisms and Portland is considered to be a well -performing area. However, as this article suggests, a more powerful and visionary metropolitan planning organization may not be producing better plans.Current trends in travel show a growth in personal transportation demand, continued dispersal of population and economic activity, and growing congestion. However, there is reluctance to accommodate this growth in personal auto travel and dispersal of activities, and many stakeholders in the urban transportation planning process, particularly new urbanists, call for plans and programs to arrest or even reverse these long-term and strong urban decentralization trends. New urbanists are particularly strident in calling for reduced reliance on the auto and increasing the use of alternative modes- -transit, ridesharing, walking, and cycling. New urbanism has evolved by influencing two current and larger movements in urban planning, sustainable planning, and smart growth, which increases the normative or doctrinaire character ofurban planning today.Many of those who directly contribute to the travel and dispersal trends decry "urban sprawl," but insist that they do not have an adequate choice of alternative modes of travel and location choices. They see a need to expand transit service to serve others and get them off the road, and see their own schedules as too tight or complex to be serviced by transit. When offered closer in, higher density housing options, most households opt for outlying locations where density and costs are lower.Meanwhile, others appear to be unconcerned about the cumulative effects of travel and development trends. Implicitly, they trust that technology and markets will allow these trends to continue with improved economic performance and quality of life. They perceive that most aspects of urban life have improved and that they are better off. They are reluctant to give up the freedom of the auto and low density living, and appear willing to travel "all over town" for a broader selection of jobs, goods, services, education, and recreation opportunities. To the extent they feel the effects of congestion and other urban ills, they, too, decry urban sprawl, but seek avoidance by purchasing bigger and more comfortable vehicles, second homes, telecommuting, or even moving farther out rather than changing their preferences for personal transportation and low-density living. Others adapt by relocating closer to workplaces or to more transit and pedestrian-friendly locations. This growing, but still small group constitutes the market for transit oriented developments (TODs) and infill housing projects. Yet it is this group that receives the most attention by planners and the media, with efforts to grow this market and to regulate and restrict the growth of the other markets. This group is doing more than lip service to combat urban sprawl. Many of the active "stakeholders" or decision makers in the urban transportation planning and programming process embrace "new urbanism," with calls for land use and transportation policies, regulations, and investments to promote compact urban development. The Metro 2040 Plan and the Coalition for Livable Futures are examples of processes and organizations dominated by new urbanist stakeholders.New urbanists support regulations to reduce conventional suburban scale development patterns, and support subsidies for higher-density, transit oriented developments. The new urbanists interpret "public involvement" in planning as a process of "educating" the public on the wastefulness of driving alone, low-density developments, and an opportunity to extol the virtues of compact development. This planning paradigm has strong political favor; supporters are activewhile opponents are largely silent. Few want to speak in favor of low-density living, while antisprawl rhetoric has more political appeal. The profession of urban planning is split between adhering to its traditional rational planning roots and advocating the more normative new urbanism concept. Interestingly, advocacy in planning originated from a movement to better represent underrepresented minorities, while advocacy