Our Most Pressing Environmental Crisis is at Home

By Miranda Bonifield

Oregon’s most pressing environmental crisis isn’t in forests or renewable energy. Our human habitats have been endangered by our restrictive so-called “smart growth” policies. Even when we talk about allowing growth, policymakers tend to favor light rail over people’s real needs. Senate Bill 10, which would require cities like Portland to allow development of 75 housing units per acre in public transit corridors, misses the mark in two key areas.

First, the bill’s attempt to legislate the location of new development won’t improve transit ridership. Despite billions in new light rail lines and mixed-use developments, TriMet’s ridership has been declining since 2012. 

Second, the bill removes parking minimums from these developments. This could lower the cost of development, but it could also worsen parking and traffic problems in a city that’s been trying and failing to cut down on automobile use for decades. It’s a mistake to allow denser development while assuming that the people who live here will depend on public transit rather than cars.

Taking the shackles off developers so that we can provide housing is a good idea, but lawmakers need to plan around people rather than trying to stack people into their plan. Transit-oriented development hasn’t worked in the last twenty years. It’s not going to start working today.

Miranda Bonifield is Research Associate at Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market public policy research organization.