Portland Ranks Well in Urban Mobility Study

Texas Transportation Institute report on Urban Mobility ranks the major US cities in terms of rush hour problems, measuring lost time, lost money, and excess pollution generated.

I thought it would be interesting to contrast Indianapolis vs. Portland, two cities which have vastly different transportation strategies. A typical complaint in Indianapolis is the lack of a public transportation system. A typical complaint (or at least based on comments from internet forums) is that Portland's strategies focusing on alternative transportation methods only work because the highways are so underdeveloped that people have no choice but to get out of their car.

Admittedly, the cities are not very similar. But looking at urban population, the comparison is not unjustified. Portland's policies on urban growth boundaries increase the density of the city, but this comparison is just for fun so I'm not going to look too closely at how to adjust the numbers to account for differences in the two cities.So let us consult the ultimate arbiter, statistics. The cities have the following breakdown:

Portland (2007 report here)
urban population: 1,800,000 (24th)
density: 3333 /sq.mi.
metro population: 2,159,000
lost time rank: 20
lost money rank: 24
excess pollution rank: 24

Indianapolis (2007 report here)
urban population: 1,070,000 (38th)
density: 2098 /sq.mi.
metro population: 1,715,000
lost time rank: 34
lost money rank: 29
excess pollution rank: 30

Looking at the lost time ranking, you can see that both Indianapolis and Portland have slightly worse congestion than their city sizes would suggest. But obviously, both Portland and Indianapolis have been equally successful in their attempts to limit the effect of traffic congestion. Portland has invested heavily in alternative transportation infrastructure, while Indianapolis has expanded their highway system.

However, when you look at lost money and excess pollution generated, Portland seems to fare better than Indianapolis. Portland's ranking is on par with its size, whereas Indianapolis is generating much more pollution than its size should allow.

As we move closer to putting a price on CO2 emissions, I think the costs incurred by gasoline will continue to rise. Indianapolis' rankings will fall even further, meaning the city is becoming less efficient and less competitive for future jobs and employers.