🚀 go-pugleaf

Jason McHuff wrote:

> > Why would they close the bus mal for construction except under the
> > assumption that rail will be built right down the bus mall medians?
> > I bet you they leave the auto lanes open during construction, BTW.
> >
> They are also going to renovate the mall.  Repaving?

Good excuse for washing their hands of the bus system.  WMATA did 
a similar thing in the late 70's in an attempt to force people to
use the DC Metro system, which was (then) no more extensive than
MAX today (but faster).  The result was that everyone abandoned 
the bus system years before Metro recovered the same number of
riders.  

In the 50's/60's DC's bus system was known as one of the best 
in the country.  Even today, DC Metro carries more riders than 
many other rail systems combined -- and fewer than the system 
of express, local and trolley-replacement buses carried in the 
early 70's!!  If they had kept the bus system they'd have room 
to fit all-new riders on the now-swamped Metro.   Nobody remembers 
that now.  

And they won't remember Portland's award-winning bus system either
once it's gone... only that transit just got built in the wrong places 
and the result was an incomplete, inefficient trolley network and a 
failed bus system where all the lines feed into said incomplete trolley
network.  People hate feeder bus systems, cause they force transfers 
for --all-- trips.

I tell ya, people's memories are short.  Politicians know they can
scrap the system cause it's intangible, just like they can scrap 
capital projects for subways because they haven't been built yet.

Be afraid, be very afraid, for folks like Baxter will be crowing 
20 years from now how MAX ridership just exceeded the current
combined bus-rail ridership figures, with not a thought in the 
world for how badly the bus system got screwed up and how many
of those riders would have taken the bus 20 years earlier (today).
That's exactly what we've done here in DC.

> > If the political situation were different, it'd be eminently feasible
> > and desirable.  They funded an elevated system in Seattle at the depth
> > of the current recession.  But methinks the topography (views of Mount
> > Hood) and tax situation in Portland (terrible) makes it a long shot at
> > the present time.
> >
> I still don't see how it would block views of Mt. Hood.  I see it only
> blocking views of the buildings across the street.

The views are to be had on CROSS streets (on smogless days, granted
it's usually impossible unless you're up in the hills.) If MAX were 
built today they could probably get away with sealing off the viewshed
on one of the 20 cross streets (Yamhill or Morrison or whatever).
 
But a north-south line affects views on every single cross street for 
every single developer who tells people that they can see the river
from their condo balcony if they look to their right (or left).

Now I don't care about that personally, but developers do.  Oh yeah
an elevated line between Pioneer Courthouse and Pioneer Courthouse
Square would be a non-starter.  

A Broadway el would work, now that all the historic theater marquees 
have been torn down it would only block the views of a bunch of tacky 
office buildings and chains. because Broadway is nice and wide.  

But the Meyerhoff (or whatever it's called) and the library are still 
there and historic preservationists (who sat on their hands while the 
rest of Portland's historic structures got torn down) will scream 
bloody murder.  

The closer you get to the water, the worse opposition to an el 
would be (remember, they tore down a freeway there). West of 
broadway you're not really in downtown anymore.  So it's 5th
or bust, I think.  Unless you run it down 405 and then cut over
to the east??

I'm not sure there's a north-south street where you could get 
away with it without offending everyone to the west (cuts off 
potential views of the waterfront from their front door) or 
east (psychological barrier between Yamhill/Old Town district 
and the downtown.)  
Of course this might actually serve as a healthy corrective 
to soaring property values in those two historic districts, 
one of the good things about els is that they make great 
semi-impermeable membranes for regulating the concentration 
of yuppies. ;-)

-BER