Orenco Station residents ditch the car – sometimes

A study in metropolitan Portland provides a largely but not wholly encouraging answer to the question of whether new urban design gets suburbanites out of their cars. Sociologist Bruce Podobnik has found that residents of the new urban development Orenco Station in Hillsboro, Oregon, use mass transit more than they did in the neighborhoods where they previously lived. They also walk to local shops more than residents of conventional suburban communities do. On the other hand, they fall far short of making mass transit their primary means of commuting. Podobnik, who teaches at Lewis and Clark College, organized door-to-door surveys of residents in Orenco Station and two other neighborhoods — a less affluent conventional subdivision in southwest Portland and a traditionally designed, much poorer inner-city area in northeast Portland. Eighteen percent of the adults in Orenco Station told Podobnik and his assistants that they always use the region’s buses or light-rail system to get to work. That’s slightly more than the 16 percent of southwest Portland adults who always ride transit to work. It’s slightly less than the 20 percent transit-commuting rate in mostly minority Northeast Portland, where people have less money with which to buy private vehicles. A tiny proportion of Orenco residents reported always carpooling, biking, or walking to get to work — less than 3 percent, compared to just under 7 percent of southwest Portlanders and nearly 11 percent of Northeast Portlanders. Many of Podobnik’s findings are in the study, posted on the Internet at http://www.lclark.edu/~podobnik/orenco02.pdf. Others emerged in interviews and e-mails with New Urban News. The pedestrian-oriented design of Orenco is clearly succeeding in enticing people to walk to local stores. More than 70 percent of the Orenco residents surveyed said they spend money each week in the town center. Many said they shop there almost daily. The nearness of a clubhouse, parks, and sports facilities also encourages Orenco residents to walk to those facilities. The walkable design promotes environmental sustainability and “is also likely to improve the health of residents over the long term,” he said. The big question is why the proportion of Orenco adults relying on their own feet or on bikes, carpools, or transit for their regular commute is, at 21 percent, lower than the 23 percent doing so in southwest Portland. The answer may lie in Orenco residents’ relative affluence, the locations of their employers, or other factors. “A lot of Orenco Station residents go to work in the corporate campuses of Intel and other software companies,” which are not generally served by bus lines, Podobnik noted. By contrast, many southwest Portland residents work downtown, which can be reached via several bus routes. The fact that Orenco residents “are using mass transit somewhat more than they did in their previous neighborhood” indicates, he said, “that they are becoming accustomed to mass transit use.” He suggested that with organized efforts such as employer-provided shuttles from light rail stops to the office complexes during peak commuting hours, more Orenco residents might shift to light rail for their daily work trips. good social outcomes On most social measures valued by New Urbanists, Orenco far surpasses the other two neighborhoods. Community friendliness and involvement in group activities are greater in Orenco than in either of the other neighborhoods. Orenco is, he said, “a hopeful beacon” for those trying to “achieve important social and environmental reforms in urban residential development” by pushing development toward New Urbanism. “This pedestrian-friendly design increases the likelihood that people will get to know one another while going through regular shopping routines within the local community,” Podobnik said.