February 2, 1989. Thirteen minutes to midnight. Fifteen degrees with a stiff breeze.

Keith Bartholomew and Robert Liberty stood shivering on the deserted sidewalk in front of 1000 Friends’ office in downtown Portland. A legal brief challenging the highway known as the Western Bypass had to be postmarked by midnight or it would become so much recycling fodder. But the taxi that had been scheduled well in advance was nowhere to be seen.

A brown van rolled by, slowed, then stopped. The driver opened his window. "You fellows look cold," he said. "Need a lift?"

Seven minutes later, Liberty and Bartholomew handed their documents to a bleary-eyed postal clerk. The rest, as they say, is history. By May, when the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) upheld their arguments, Bartholomew and Liberty were just getting warmed up–and the Bypass was headed for the deep freeze.

A Snowball’s Chance: By 1988, approval of a new freeway skirting the suburbs of Washington County looked like a done deal. The political leadership and business community of the Portland region were virtually unanimous in their strong support for the project, which had been on the drawing board since the 1960s.

Just days after the frigid filing of the pivotal brief, citizens concerned about the proposed bypass gathered at the Ponzi winery in Washington County. 1000 Friends staffers explained the impacts of the proposed Bypass and the importance of challenging it as a violation of Oregon’s land use laws. But one citizen stood up and said it wasn’t enough to be against a bad plan: we also had to be for something.

That citizen was Meeky Blizzard, and her idea snowballed into a major research, education, and advocacy effort spearheaded by 1000 Friends of Oregon: the "Land Use, Transportation, Air Quality" project, or LUTRAQ.

Creating a Land Use Alternative: LUTRAQ grew out of an understanding that a major cause of traffic congestion is an underlying development pattern that denies people choices in how to travel. This pattern, typical of many suburban communities, segregates different land uses, isolating people from the places they need to go. Communities are built to cater only to the automobile, leaving people no logical option but to use their cars for virtually every function in their lives. Not surprisingly, the population of vehicles has grown faster than the population of humans, and more land is now devoted to the use of cars and trucks in American metropolitan areas than to housing.

With the help of Blizzard’s group Sensible Transportation Options for People (STOP) and various planning and economic consultants, 1000 Friends designed, raised the money for and managed a $1.5 million project to construct an alternative land use pattern for the future of Washington County–one that relied on good urban design and made transit, walking, and biking instead of the Bypass.

The eight-year project produced dramatic and convincing results. The LUTRAQ option proved superior to the Bypass on all key criteria: vehicle miles traveled, work trips in single-occupant vehicles, transit use, energy consumption, air pollution. Most striking was the fact that LUTRAQ would even outperform the Bypass in its ability to reduce congestion. And it would accomplish this not by adding expensive highway capacity, but by reducing the demand for that capacity.

Victories and Challenges Ahead: By the time the Metro Council finally voted to kill the Western Bypass in 1997, LUTRAQ had changed the paradigm for land use planning in the region. Most of the land uses called for in LUTRAQ have been incorporated into the 2040 Framework Plan for how the region will accommodate growth in the coming decades.

Its impact has been felt not just in Washington County, but elsewhere in Oregon and across the country. LUTRAQ won national awards from the American Planning Association and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In a hearing in Maryland in the 1990s, opponents of a highway known as the "intercounty connector" started chanting, "LUTRAQ! LUTRAQ! LUTRAQ!"

To be sure, the interests calling for more roads everywhere as the one-size-fits-all solution to transportation problems have not gone away. During the 1999 Legislature alone, lawmakers passed a gas tax package that ignored good transportation planning; tried to mandate the use of federal transportation funds for roads only, and even made an abortive attempt to revive the Western Bypass itself.

Lynn Peterson is Bartholomew’s successor as 1000 Friends of Oregon’s advocate for balanced transportation policy. Peterson, who has degrees in both engineering and planning, is working not only to carry out LCDC’s existing transportation goal, but also to influence how the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) defines and solves transportation problems.

Peterson has become a respected, if not always welcome, participant in the debates over state transportation policy. She provided a critique of the 66 projects contained in ODOT’s $600 million construction wish list (projects that will not be built, due to the defeat of the proposed gas tax increase).

Peterson is also assisting and educating local land use groups (including Friends of Bend and Friends of Eugene) about how they can influence the transportation decisions that shape their communities. And she is working with other state and local groups to build a new transportation reform coalition, the Oregon Transportation Reform Advocates Network.

"We’ve made real progress in the Portland metropolitan region on rethinking land use patterns and their effect on transportation choices," say Peterson. "But based on what we have seen at the Legislature and ODOT, we have a very long road ahead to change the thinking and spending habits of public officials from car-centered to community-centered."

But Peterson is optimistic about the future: "Citizens no longer believe freeways will solve congestion--they are ready for different solutions." 1000 Friends will be there to help develop those solutions.