A blog for better streets and public spaces in Portland, Maine.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Transit Study public meeting: TONIGHT at 7 PM

After shooting down the highway-expansion bogeys at last month's I-295 and PACTS meetings, it's high time for Portlanders to go on the offense against the hidebound traffic engineers and express our own positive visions for what a 21st-century mobility infrastructure should look like.

Tonight's public forum for the Peninsula Transit study should be a great chance for us to do this. It begins tonight at 7 pm in the newly-built Ocean Gateway terminal on Portland's waterfront (the new construction site where the BIW drydock used to be, one wharf east of the Maine State Pier).

City Councilor Dave Marshall appointed me to be the city's second-district representative for this study. We've only met once so far, but the consultants who are administering this study (Nelson/Nygaard) are really innovative and practical thinkers. I think we have a chance to make some big, positive changes in Portland when the study wraps up and presents its recommendations this summer.

This will be a nice change for local transportation activists: instead of fighting bad ideas, like widening I-295, now we have a chance to articulate our own, positive visions for transportation that's actually affordable, sustainable, and convenient for Portlanders. See you there.

1 comment:

Jesse said...

Can't make it tonight, but there's a winning political slogan out there that might sound something like:

"We just want what Portland had 100 years ago, back when the trolley lines ran up every major street. It worked then, it can work now."

Think of how much tax revenue Portland had back when Forest Ave was 3 stories tall all the way past Woodford's Corner...