Tadman wrote:Just about anything other than cookie dough, when put in a vacuum, won't work. Light rail, a football, sex... it takes a system to make it work.
David Benton wrote:How many times have you planned a rail journey , and didn't go ahead , because the "last mile " connection wasn't there?. Network is the key alright , but the light rail (and heavy rail ) can connect to buses and other public transit.
And that's the problem in Portland. While Portland's transit agency and MPO have been busy building light rail, they simultaneously gutted the bus system. Today, despite two brand new MAX lines, a new WES Commuter Rail line, several Streetcar expansions, and a lot of money spent, transit ridership is exactly the same in 2016 as it was in 2008. Our traffic volumes are at all time highs - not just "pre-recession" high, not just "cheap gas" high - but ALL TIME high, since the invention of the automobile and the first road.
What good is a light rail system, if its only destinations are parking lots? What good is a light rail system, when the neighborhoods it serves have been gentrified - and those who can afford the high priced housing, don't care to take transit? Those who need transit have been forced to move further away to areas where TriMet reduced/axed the bus system, forcing them to drive.
For years, Portland was the poster child, attracting transit advocates, urbanists and planners from around the world. But in the last couple years, people have woken up to realize Portland is not all it is claimed to be. We screwed up. Seattle, who has largely invested in bus service as other cities thought bus service was an easy budget cut item, found its transit usage increasing by double-digits. When gas prices dropped, transit usage didn't drop off. Why? Its buses had capacity, and served people - not developers and lobbyists. Whereas Portland bought the cheapest 40' bus around, Seattle was investing in hybrid buses, articulated buses, trolley buses - and simply put more buses on the road. And the ridership responded. Portland's transit riders got fed up and bought cars.
Light rail is nothing more than corporate welfare for developers and construction interests who like the "jobs program" it creates; but ultimately it takes transportation dollars away from where it's needed, and attempts to engineer a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Portland loves to cite its reluctance towards "urban sprawl", yet anybody who has lived in our region for the last 20 years knows that Orenco Station or Orenco Village or whatever it's called is precisely urban sprawl. It was farmland and two-lane roads in 1995. Today it's cookie-cutter faux "downtown" buildings, with lots of five and six lane roads, no parking, strip malls, fast food restaurants, overpriced condos...but it's got a light rail station so it must be good! Today we're planning the next light rail expansion, the Southwest Corridor - but this time the planners are being a little more honest - the intention is to redevelop Barbur Boulevard from a former U.S. Highway to a mixed-use development, with gentrification and housing. The line will end at a suburban luxury strip mall, currently full of SUVs from the nearby wealthy community of Lake Oswego, while bypassing a larger, regional shopping center as well as a regional office and employment center - with absolutely no plan or promise of bus service to either of those transit destinations. The result? An expensive light rail line will create a handful of temporary construction jobs, a lifetime of subsidies - and more automobile traffic, but less transit usage.