Hacker News Reader

Comment by jimbob45 | Hacker News Reader

The traffic is the #1 reason not to move to Portland. It's a six-lane city that only had three lanes planned for. Sure, the drivers may be better than Florida but at least Florida (outside Orlando) wasn't designed with confusing lanes the width of half a car.

View on HN

Agreed that Portland isn't a great place for cars. However I think if we grow healthily as a city we can maximize public transportation, expand the MAX and street car, have dedicated bus lanes, and make it so that it isn't a problem.

The suburbs can't escape cars, but I bet we can make Portland proper a utopia for pedestrians.

I already barely use cars. It's wonderful compared to Orlando (where I happened to grow up).

It's so ironic that Portland has some of the worst street infrastructure and yet some of the best rail infrastructure. I agree that expanding MAX would greatly help the situation.

The city does not want to encourage people to drive more. Quite the opposite, in fact.

It is not ironic, it is 100% intentional. The city does not want to buy into the "build more lanes" ponzi scheme because it cannibalizes the livability of the city, and communities near large highways shrivel up and die.

The city has a growth boundary and there are a ton of national parks and awesome nature. There is nowhere to expand to, so we have to use the land we have available to us.

Don’t forget taxes!

I moved out of PDX because of both, still return a month a year but man, the traffic is so awful.

The best solution for this is to live in the neighborhood you enjoy and don't travel much. Portland is very walkable/bike friendly and has many vibrant districts all over the city which have everything you need.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com