The Role of Statewide Planning Goals in Oregon's System of Coordination and Planning and Their Effect on Transportation Planning

About the report:

The motivation for this study was the observation that the reactive approach to the coordination of land use and transportation planning, which treats transportation planning as the handmaiden of land use planning and which greatly limits the options and potential effectiveness of transportation planning, might need to be abandoned before significant improvements could be expected in transportation planning. The study focuses on an analysis of the approach to transportation planning that was a product of Oregon’s establishment of a system of coordination and planning in 1973 with the passage of Senate Bill 100. The analysis of the system established in Oregon focused on the importance of the statewide planning goals and the system established by SB 100 that enforced their use as goals by all planning entities in the state. It is argued that the central role that the statewide planning goals have in the Oregon system of coordination and planning makes that system an important counterpoint to the reactive approach to coordination with its attendant restricted approach to transportation planning. The study concludes that the range of options open to transportation planning and thus its potential effectiveness in addressing transportation problems is far greater with the Oregon approach to coordination and planning than with the reactive approach.

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