Walkable Communities Work

The Oregonian makes it sound negative: “Residents of transit-oriented Orenco Station still driving cars to work.” The Orenco Station development in Hillsboro, just outside Portland, Oregon, was planned around the MAX light rail line as it was being built. Yet a recent survey shows that most people are still using cars to get to work. At first glance, that might seem to say that transit-oriented development doesn’t work.

Fortunately, there’s more:

Offsetting that car-reliance, however, is a finding that Orenco residents also walk to shopping and use mass transit for nonwork trips – to the zoo or symphony, for example – at rates that beat other suburban communities.

This says to me that despite the car-commuting to jobs, the walkable community itself does work. Put people in a community where they can walk to shops and amusements, and they will do it.

One remaining issue, however, is that jobs for most people are still not walkable. Some people may be able to work at the local retail establishments, or perhaps local schools and services, but most still have to leave the neighborhood to work. The article does note that many Orenco Station residents work for nearby Intel.

It is surrounded by Intel campuses, and a fair number of its residents work for Intel. It’s worth noting that while these folks tend not to use MAX to commute to work, they do show relatively high rates of bicycle ridership and carpooling to work – by some measures the better environmental approach.

So why aren’t people using the nearby light rail and buses to get to work?  The survey didn’t ask this question, and the article doesn’t address it either.  I don’t know anyone who lives in Orenco Station, but I have heard reasons from other people from time to time. One common reason for driving to and from work is time. If transit takes significantly longer, people are less likely to use it. Also, transit doesn’t provide the flexibility of a car. If a busy working parent, for instance, needs to be able to get from work to a soccer game, he or she may not have time for transit. And if transit doesn’t go where people need to go, that doesn’t work either.

Now, if more jobs were available in or near the walkable communities, that might make a difference. Like with the Intel employees, you’d probably see more walking, biking, and carpooling. Will that work for all residents of a given community? Of course not. But it is certainly something to keep in mind when designing or redesigning neighborhoods.

Myself, I probably wouldn’t move into someplace like Orenco Station unless I did have a job nearby or easily accessible. I definitely couldn’t live there, regardless of its walkability, and continue to work at my current job, which would be 23.3 miles away by car, one hour and 26 minutes away by public transit, and don’t even ask me about riding my bike over the West Hills.  So the question for me is, how can we make our east side neighborhoods more walkable and bikable?