To: Portland City Council, Multnomah County Board of Commissioners

cc: Metro Council, Washington County Board of Commissioners, PBOT Director Treat

Background: 

With the ongoing population growth in the Portland metro area, traffic congestion has become a way of life in most neighborhoods.

NW Cornell Road is one of the few roads over the west hills into the core of Portland. Options for commuters are limited. There is no bus service on Cornell between Washington County and NW Portland. The park and ride for MAX at Sunset Station is full by 7:30am. Steep terrain in the hills makes bike commuting impractical for most people.

Cornell Road is a critical commuter access route. During peak hours, it carries vehicle traffic far beyond its intended capacity. Road expansion is effectively prohibited by tunnels and environmental concerns. Other roads over the west hills are similarly limited. 

While Cornell’s road designation is “neighborhood collector,” Portland has acknowledged since 1992 that it “functions more like a Major City Traffic Street by providing access from the surrounding area into the City's downtown commercial areas, or a Regional Trafficway by providing neighboring cities to the west of Portland a commuting route into town.”

When the City of Portland recently closed access from Cornell to NW Westover during peak hours, it substantially increased the daily commute time on Cornell, creating a significant hardship for thousands of people in communities northwest of Portland’s core, including Portland residents. We believe this change should only have been undertaken as part of a broader program of traffic management in the area. We sympathize with residents of Lovejoy and Westover, who have long experienced increased daily congestion and cut-through traffic near their homes. We support the creation of breaks in traffic and other safety measures. However, many people who commute on Cornell have suddenly had their commute times nearly doubled, literally overnight.

We must work together as a community to improve the quality of life in our region, and access to an efficient transportation network is a critical component. There is significant congestion on all through roads in the west hills, and we want to work with PBOT, Multnomah County and other agencies to find and implement effective solutions.

 Asks:

1. Because of the hardship from the unexpectedly large increase in commute times, PBOT should suspend the Westover closure experiment until the implementation of other congestion relief improvements in the area. Once relief measures are in place, we would support Westover traffic calming measures if still needed.
2. Portland needs to allocate funds to implement a few effective short-term solutions for Cornell between Skyline and NW 23rd (such as a light at NW 25th & Lovejoy).
3. We would like to work with Portland, Multnomah County and other agencies to explore potential longer term solutions to the larger problem, including a Transportation Demand Management program (TDM) to provide options for commuters on all routes over the west hills.  TDM programs can include subsidized transit, offering van or car pool systems, shuttle buses, telecommuting or flexible work hours.