Looking to State to Plug Milwaukie Gap?


I heard third hand today that Metro and TriMet made a pitch to the Oregon Transportation Commission today to make a multi-year commitment of flexible funds (Federal I assume) to help close the funding gap on the Portland-to-Milwaukie LRT project.

Anyone have first hand details?

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7 responses to “Looking to State to Plug Milwaukie Gap?”

  1. Bond *and* borrow. Bonding involves borrowing, it also involves dedicating a revenue stream to repay the amount borrowed, allowing the agency to borrow at a lower rate, and the bondholders to have greater assurance of getting paid.

    So either are correct; “bond” is more precise in that it more completely describes the mechanism to be used. But yeah, they’re takin’ out a loan.

  2. Hopefully I am not getting off topic and hopefully this has not been discussed ad naseum, but does anyone know where to find the proposed travel times for the Milwaukie Light Rail line are?

    All I see are “improvement of 29%”. That doesn’t tell me much.

    It takes 20 minutes via a bus ride from downtown Milwaukie to downtown Portland via the 33 bus.

    What times can one expect to be in downtown Portland from central Miwaukie via this new Orange Line?

    Thanks.

  3. (4-18) is based on 2030 “projected” numbers.

    I’m not sure I care for these numbers as it makes broad assumptions — most of them *presumably* factoring in waaaayyy overestimated population gains.

    It takes about 15 minutes driving from downtown Milwaukie to Pioneer Courthouse Square (non-peak time that I know of).

    Transit along the #33 bus during peak times takes 20-25 minutes vehicle ride time according to transit stats.

    **Am I understanding this correctly; we’re going to pay more for a slower transit option (travel time) to downtown? (Or at best, a 4 minute transit time reduction according to an over inflated DEIS).

    So, there’s going to be a decent reduction in time to South Waterfront…where nobody lives currently and where there is scant industry. That’s a lot of money to throw at speculation.

    If the goal is to get to SoWA faster, wouldn’t the more logical and cheaper way be to make it faster than the current 15 minutes plus 10-15 minute headway times from downtown?

    It takes way too long to get from downtown to SoWA and it’s 2 miles away for crying out loud!

    But no, a way overpriced and out of character bridge design is needed instead.

    The (Slow)Rail-volution continues…

    Sorry if I am getting too off topic, but it’s pertinent to the money gap issues and what we should and shouldn’t be paying for.

  4. Ah, 10,000 people work at OHSU with more to come with another big chunk of riders go to PSU, two stops away.
    The big cost item in MLR is the bridge. It will server light rail, bicyclists, pedestrians, transit riders on three bus lines (freeing up some lane space on Ross Island), Streetcar and maybe someday a BRT line out Powell/Foster. So its well worth the money.

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