Throughout the journey, transit has been a defining color in the palette Portland uses to paint its future. The Portland metropolitan area has seen transit as a vehicle to move people, to shape growth, to clean the air, to reinvest in the downtown and to defer highway investments. Regional residents also recognize that land use planning will determine the viability of high quality transit, while limiting sprawl and creating more attractive communities. Citizens, businesses and governments support both transit and land use planning because they are the tools Portland has used successfully to achieve a livable community. The Portland story is more about community building than transportation or LRT building.
Transit is important in Portland because it's a means to an end.
Land use planning is important because it's a means to an end. That end, the community's goal, is livability.