The transportation planners at the City of Portland seem to think that the main function of transportation systems is to move people from one place to another. (And I have no complaints about that noble function, if one of the places is the Drones Club or the Mausoleum Club.) The Port of Portland reminded me and many others, in a report dated November 25, 2005 that it sent out earlier this month, that a transportation system also must move things -- goods, supplies, inventories, and the like. In this regard, the Port's report says, Portland's system is falling woefully short. (The report itself, in an unbelievably long PDF, is linked to from the Port's information page, here.)
The report contains some interesting nuggets. One is that between 2000 and 2030, freight tonnage in the Portland area is expected to more than double (page 8). Another is that all but one of the businesses interviewed by the Port's consultant have restricted operations after 3:00 p.m. because of traffic congestion, and to compensate have pushed their starting times into the early morning hours.
For example, Intel has moved its last shipment departure time from 5:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. for shipments through Portland International Airport because of congestion (page 25).
My conclusion after reading the 60+ pages of the report is that there's a disconnect between the planning people at the City of Portland and the business development people at the Port of Portland. They're too polite to argue in public about it, but it seems clear to me that the transportation planning at the City (and its de facto affiliate, TriMet) isn't meeting the needs of the people at the Port. The Port's not expecting its customers at Intel to get on MAX with a handcart to take the microchips to the airport.