Transportation: Public and Private—Bend, Oregon

One of the fastest growing cities in the country is Bend, Oregon. As noted by The Bend Bulletin in 2015, The Oregon Population Forecast Program predicts this as one city where growth will more than double by 2050, bringing it to 200,000 people rather than its current 90+ thousand (Ditzler, 2015). Some believe this will happen even earlier than 2050, and that a level of growth that feels unsustainable may occur in the next few years. As Bend scrambles to build new schools at a current rate of one or two per year, it also struggles with an Urban Boundary Growth Plan that in 2016 released 2380 acres of ranch and farmland for purchase and expansion by developers and allowing it to be targeted for new housing and city expansion. As noted by the Central Oregon Association of Realtors, just two years later that land was already looking to be insufficient for all the people descending upon Bend seeking the good life (COAR, 2018). 

With growth comes a need for planning and transportation. Currently, little new roadwork appears to be happening. People I know who live there already complain of early morning traffic jams and slowdowns. Therefore, as with any fast-growing city, it is critically important that a clear plan for future transportation be developed. With any region, both private transportation such as personal vehicles and rideshare services such as Uber and public means for the conveyance of people to and fro need to be investigated. 

My plan for Bend involves a series of road expansions combined with the development of a public Metra-type train and bus systems allowing worker movement, largely from the more affordable towns to the south where the bulk of commuter workers seems to come from, and from whence gridlock is predicted to be especially rough in the future. 

While it is still possible, lands need to be seized using eminent domain laws to allow widening of both Highways 97 running north/south and Highway 20 running east-west. At the very least, new passing and turn lanes need to be added to avoid further slowdown and continued safety on these roads. Highway 20 needs to be four-lane at a greater distance extending out from the city, with the necessary land acquired now while and if it can be. It seems likely that the Urban Growth Boundary will again be moved farther out from Bend if its population in the first half of this century is indeed going to double. Road expansion needs to be given prominent consideration before developers buy out most of the needed land for that to happen. 

Secondarily, the use of cars in this city appears to me to be excessive. While Bend has a city to city bus transportation, specifically from Portland and areas such as Corvallis and Eugene, its metropolitan bus system has yet to be developed. I advocate forming such a system now. Buses could bring up people from Sisters, LaPine, and Sunriver for work, allowing one large vehicle where now perhaps thirty or forty cars are being used. Bids and competitive plans should be sought soon. Perhaps the buses would not always be fully loaded today, but they soon will be, and systems need to be put into place before gridlock occurs.  Cities with quality bus systems, whether public or private, such as Chicago, should be studied for their approaches to determining the number of busing routes needed and how to plan for long-term sustainability. Bend already is a biking city, and businesses could provide incentives for those who can bike to work to do so.  However, personal use of bicycles is unlikely to proceed to Japanese levels, even though future crowding in Bend potentially might be at that level.  Still, incentives for bicycles should be investigated, and many bike paths already exist in Bend, making this a low-cost option. 

Finally, a planning group including engineers and experts should be created that will examine the long-term feasibility of trains running between the locations previously mentioned. It is not too late to at least investigate a large city type train system, perhaps much of it overhead to spare ecology damage- something that the introduction of the Nissan Leaf addresses.  Further, there is no major Interstate running north/south through Bend, which likely would need to be placed several miles east of the city. If Bend is indeed headed to being Oregon’s second major city, it is not wrong to consider an arm of Interstate 5 to branch up past Bend diagonally to Interstate 84, which runs east-west. If this seems impracticable or damaging to ecology, as indeed may be the case, then other measures should be put on a high burner. 

To sum up: a metropolitan bus system to serve metropolitan and greater Bend (Sisters, Sunriver, LaPine), creation of incentives to use bicycles for getting to work at least in the warm months, purchase of land now (and/or use of eminent domain) so as to even be able to expand existent highways (at least adding additional passing and entrance/egress lanes) when it’s necessary (probably soon); and investigation of a Metra-type train system, connecting Deschutes County cities to Bend in a way that alleviates road/car dependence.

References

Central Oregon Association of Realtors [COAR]. (2018). Bend’s urban growth boundary: Where do we go from here? The Bend Bulletin. Retrieved from https://www.bendbulletin.com/sp/sp_bendhomes_feed/6176836-151/bends-urban-growth-boundary

Ditzler, Joseph, (2015). Central Oregon in 2065, Population 416,764. The Bend Bulletin. Retrieved from https://www.bendbulletin.com/business/3027280-151/central-oregon-in-2065-population-416764