Keep in mind that New Jersey has the highest average population density in the country, and it’s 34x more dense than Oregon, on average! New Jersey’s population density is an almost an order of magnitude closer to Portland’s population density. Then when you take a look at the municipalities in Oregon and New Jersey, even bigger differences appear. Oregon’s population is overwhelmingly concentrated in Portland and the greater Portland metropolitan area (which includes Beaverton, Hillsboro, Gresham). Something like 50% of the state population lives in the metro area as of 2010 census, and it’s a small part of the state, geographically. Over 500k in Portland alone. Look at New Jersey and you get a radically different picture, at least if you look at municipalities. The distribution between municipalities is much more even.
Also note that the airport, Portland International Airport, is within Portland city limits, proper.
I would say that lessons learned in New Jersey do not translate well to Oregon. Speaking as someone who lived years in Oregon and years in New York, it’s easy to underestimate the differences. It took me a while to understand (as little as I do) the political and geographical divisions in New Jersey, and let me tell you, they are not like the political and geographical divisions of Oregon.
Just to paint more of a picture, Salem and Eugene are ranked #2 and #3. From my personal experience as a driver, these cities are NOT like Portland and it would be absurd to regulate them in the same way. Even “downtown” Salem and Eugene, such as they are, do not suffer from traffic in remotely the same way that Portland and the surrounding metro area does. What makes this worse is that Portland has been experiencing high growth rates for many years now, and the traffic infrastructure has not been able to keep up with the number of cars on the road. Traffic is shockingly worse compared to ten or twenty years ago, and Portland needs to be able to make the policy and infrastructure changes to fix that.
Also note that the airport, Portland International Airport, is within Portland city limits, proper.
I would say that lessons learned in New Jersey do not translate well to Oregon. Speaking as someone who lived years in Oregon and years in New York, it’s easy to underestimate the differences. It took me a while to understand (as little as I do) the political and geographical divisions in New Jersey, and let me tell you, they are not like the political and geographical divisions of Oregon.
Here’s a population density map of New Jersey: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_Jersey_Populatio...
List of municipalities in New Jersey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_municipalities_in_New_...
Population density map of Oregon: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oregon_population_ma...
List of cities in Oregon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Oregon
Just to paint more of a picture, Salem and Eugene are ranked #2 and #3. From my personal experience as a driver, these cities are NOT like Portland and it would be absurd to regulate them in the same way. Even “downtown” Salem and Eugene, such as they are, do not suffer from traffic in remotely the same way that Portland and the surrounding metro area does. What makes this worse is that Portland has been experiencing high growth rates for many years now, and the traffic infrastructure has not been able to keep up with the number of cars on the road. Traffic is shockingly worse compared to ten or twenty years ago, and Portland needs to be able to make the policy and infrastructure changes to fix that.