Complete and utter nonsense

The ever-entertaining Oregonian sets a new record for the heights of imagination reached in today’s editorial on Cascade Station (or CascadeStation as it was first pretentiously named). It’s the commercial area near the airport that makes the news today because Ikea is moving in. Apparently there are many people in Portland who care way more about home furnishings than I do… Chez Steve&Amanda still sporting many pieces of Early College era thrift store junk. But Cascade Station wasn’t supposed to have big-box retail stores, when first approved. So why the change?

In style reminiscent of Rudy Giuliani, the O asserts: “The Red light-rail line to Portland International Airport opened Sept. 10, 2001. And that’s really the best explanation of what has happened since at Cascade Station. Fun as it may be to speculate about what went wrong with the huge transit-oriented development the airport line was supposed to trigger, there’s no mystery involved. Six years ago, the development failed to take off because of circumstances beyond Portland’s control — and beyond America’s wildest imagining.”

Are you kidding me? Cascade Station failed because of 9/11? The notion that a commercial development near the airport didn’t take off because of decreased air traffic following the terrorist attacks, takes cause and effect correlation (or lack thereof) to a whole new level. Did it not occur to the O that perhaps air travel and shopping (that isn’t Duty Free) don’t automatically go hand in hand, in many folks’ minds? How many of us connecting through Chicago would think, “Hmm, a three hour layover at O’Hare, sure hope I can get a train to a nearby shopping center!”? Regardless of airport usage levels, the idea that travelers would take light rail from PDX to shop at cute little stores a short distance away at Cascade Station was never a realistic proposition.

I was on the Portland Planning Commission at the time the concept and layout of the project were approved. The deal with Bechtel to help pay for the MAX Red Line in return for Cascade Station was already done. The assignment for the Bureau of Planning and Planning Commission from Mayor Vera Katz was not whether to do the project, but how — very similar to how the package changing Civic Stadium to PGE Park was fast-tracked through the “public process”. I actually prefered that approach than others where the public (and the Planning Commission) thought there was a choice to be made when there wasn’t, as in the tram sham. At least, in Cascade Station and PGE Park, the Council was clear in its intent and didn’t waste citizens’ or the Planning Commission’s time in pretending we had a choice when the important decisions had already been made.

I don’t remember whether our mutterings were in public or private, given this directive from Council. But I do recall more than one Planning Commissioner agreeing with me when I expressed doubts. And when I say “doubts”, I mean complete conviction that it wouldn’t work. I didn’t believe that people traveling to the airport would be likely to either stop to shop on the way, or especially leave after checking in their luggage to grab those last souveniers or eat at a nice restaurant. Just didn’t seem likely to me. Likewise, travelers arriving at PDX generally want to get home or to their hotel as soon as possible. Nor could I imagine Portlanders hopping on the Red Line to go almost all the way to the airport to shop at Cascade Station, when they were already happy getting MAX to the Lloyd Center or even (yes, really) shopping downtown at that fancy new Pioneer Place place.

It never seemed likely to me that the premise on which Cascade Station was to be built was realistic. And I remember highlighting testimony from North Portland residents concerned about increased traffic on neighborhood streets should Portlanders choose to drive there. But I agreed entirely that finding a way to fund the light rail line to the airport was imperative. The Red Line is a great asset to the city, to residents wanting to avoid traffic on the Banfield and parking charges at the airport as well as to our tourist industry. I thought the Bechtel deal was good for Portland, even while I thought the private corporation was getting the short end of it.

As each change away from the transit-oriented, automobile unfriendly, tourist-attraction village has been approved since then, I’ve wondered whether big-box retail was really the end goal the developers had in mind all along. We’re talking about Bechtel, after all, known more for bridges, tunnels and smelters than artesan craft fairs. Larger stores more in context with PDX’s function as a huge shipping transfer point seem much more likely to be viable, and the area is nestled between Airport Way and I-205, neither especially pedestrian-friendly. Yet if it had been announced Portland’s famous land use planning system was planning to put big-box retail on a light rail line…. gasp, horror! Would that have affected federal funding? No, because the Red Line was paid for (pdf) by the City of Portland, Port of Portland, and Bechtel, with no additional federal or state appropriations. So perhaps planners and the Council actually thought their original plan was going to work, despite the common sense answer that it had no chance — even before 9/11/01? If they did, and perhaps we should honor their good intentions by believing it, that demonstates to me the problem when decision-makers listen only to other power-brokers and not to the citizens of Portland.

Hmm, this is interesting. From that link, which is to a TriMet page:

“Land around the new MAX Red Line will be developed under a single master plan. Cascade Station, a 120-acre transit-oriented development at the entrance to the airport, will be served by two light rail stations. The site will provide 10,000 jobs and $400 million worth of hotels, conference facilities, restaurants, retail, entertainment, and office space. Buildout is set to be complete by 2015.”

10,000 jobs, 10,000 jobs… where have I heard that number before? Oh yes, I know, in the original projections for South Waterfront. Before it turned out housing is so much more profitable there. I wonder if 10,000 jobs in South Waterfront and 10,000 jobs in Cascade Station were needed to allow Portland to claim it’s meeting some Metro or state-mandated jobs creation goal? How were such nice round numbers arrived at, anyway?

Hey, I don’t know. Both the conspiracy theory and the juggling-the-jobs-number idea are highly speculative… complete and utter nonsense, you might say. They have about as much credibility as the Oregonian‘s claim that Cascade Station needs big-box retail only because of 9/11, however.