According to Metro Commissioner Ed Washington, the key to intelligent regional planning is deciding how to move people from work, to school, to the store and back home. Transportation and land use are joined at the hip, the navel and the head. So, Portland boasts a mass transit system that is used by 45 percent of people who work in the city. Riders are attracted by the system's ease of use. Routes and schedules are posted at every stop, and computer monitors update travelers.
Bus drivers stop anywhere along routes at night to discharge passengers traveling alone.
The system is so user-friendly, tourists are regularly told to abandon their cars for the weekend. You have to make excuses for driving. Using mass transit is more than politically correct, however. When new lines are built, they attract business. The line will link the city's burgeoning downtown with a congested residential neighborhood in the northwest.