This spring, we tried to get the Gubernatorial candidates to response to a questionnaire on transportation. We failed miserably.
Jim Mayer of the O did a little better, but transportation certainly is not a big issue in the campaign.
This spring, we tried to get the Gubernatorial candidates to response to a questionnaire on transportation. We failed miserably.
Jim Mayer of the O did a little better, but transportation certainly is not a big issue in the campaign.
23 responses to “Missing Issue in Governor Race”
Politically speaking transportation issues are not win – win when you do not have and answer.
Governor K has tried to capitalize on his two no-gas tax increase efforts which has resulted in bonded investment dollars that will cost us all much more then it should have cost.
The real problem is that we need to up the gas tax as the most reasonable user tax that targets road and highways investments primarly.
Our neighbor north of us were able to sell their citizenery on doing it and a vote by all of its state citizens agreed.
When you drive the I-5 corridor north through Vancouver boy do you see the difference. They eliminated the need for HOV lanes with adequate capacity and a good transit system (buses).
I-5 in Portland is a joke with NO solution at hand. Nothing is in the works that will provide any real improvements by 2030 when it is estimated that the I-5 corridor will come to a complete stop, not smart, Metro, PDOT and ODOT.
All transit methods are good, all alternate modes are equally important, but it is stupid to suggest that they will make up for increased demand on our major arterials. If the major arterials are competely congested they will over flow on to our secondary roads and highways and that is wht is happening.
Light Rail and transit center centric housing is not enough to meet real growth in need, population and life style changes we now see.
We must replace many of our current political leaders, if they do not or can not address this transportaton disaster that the are leading us into.
From what I see, a pragmatic Sam Adams is now one of the few keepers.
When you drive the I-5 corridor north through Vancouver boy do you see the difference. They eliminated the need for HOV lanes with adequate capacity and a good transit system (buses).
You must not drive to Vancouver during rush hour and you certainly haven’t tried to use their transit system.
In an effort to answer Ross Williams statements it is important that a reasonable perspective is offered up. Ross said:
“You must not drive to Vancouver during rush hour and you certainly haven’t tried to use their transit system.”
Ross, until 3-years ago I lived Salmon Creek/Hazel Dell area before moving back to Oregon. I am called into Vancouver often to help get my grandchildren to schools and to activities in Portland because their parents are school teachers and conflects take place where grandparents have to jump in, in rush hour circumstances.
I am not saying that everything with I-5 and C-Tran in Vancouver is perfect but when you compare it to what we get in Oregon with the dollars we spent and the priorities we have Washingtonians are a hell of a lot better off.
The C-Tran “Park and Rides” are a real successes and really help reduce SOV’s commuting into Oregon. The Salmon Creek #134 express bus route into Portland is fast, works and is an example of service that cannot be equaled with Light Rail.
Oh, by the way in my past I was appointed to the SW Washington Regional Transportation Council as an alternate. I have real knowledge and history that many do not have about SW Washington and Oregon transportation systems.
A “ The real problem is that we need to up the gas tax as the most reasonable user tax that targets road and highways investments primarily.”
B Before any consideration of raising the gas tax takes place, it must be returned to a road fund only with the requirement that alternative modes of transport be directly charged for specialized infrastructure and transport service. That alone will pump more dollars into streets and highways. Currently motor vehicle fuel taxes are siphoned off to pay for bicycle infrastructure, nature trails, etc that motorists can not use. This is an excessive reliance on motor vehicle taxes.
The Salmon Creek #134 express bus route into Portland is fast, works and is an example of service that cannot be equaled with Light Rail.
I agree, it also can’t equal the service that light rail provides. But it also cannot provide the service that light rail or even regularly scheduled bus service can.
The Salmon Creek bus runs only on weekdays, ends before 8:00 am and provides service only to downtown Vancouver and downtown Portland. In the afternoon it provides service between 3:30 and 6:30. If you work in Lloyd Center it does you no good at all. Well, actually you can take the Max across the river, which is why the comparison is faulty.
I actually think that Clark County would be better off right now with more express buses and scheduled service, rather than an extensive light rail system. There is no political committment for the kind of dense development that a light rail system supports and, frankly, I’m not sure there will be market support for it outside downtown Vancouver.
It makes sense to get light rail across the river and maybe to Clark College. That would certainly benefit downtown Vancouver. It also will probably make sense at some point to extend the Airport/I205 lines across the river to park and rides just so people can avoid the congestion on the I-205 bridge.
But the rest of the loop that has been proposed will require dramatic changes in the land use priorities and economic conditions in Clark County. As long as it remains committed to low density sprawl, light rail trying to serve that sprawl would be a waste of money and will never get the political support it needs in any case.
I was appointed to the SW Washington Regional Transportation Council as an alternate.
So perhaps you can explain why Washington decided to build seven freeway lanes (SR500, SR14 and I5) ending at a three lane I5 bridge and then took one of those lanes as a merge lane for SR 14. I’m not sure having served on the group responsible for that “planning” is a recommendation.
I have real knowledge and history that many do not have about SW Washington and Oregon transportation systems.
And I was briefly a citizen member of TPAC. There are a lot of people here with a lot of history with transportation in the region.
The reality is that there are people on both sides of the river that prefer the other state’s approach. But it would be a huge mistake for Portland to allow the tail to wag the dog and adopt Washington’s transportation priorities. All they need to do is look at Seattle to see the results of that model. They keep widening freeways and wondering why traffic keeps getting worse.
Terry, I like what you say but it is not a perfect world out there and we need to get going with major improvements and investments in our roads and highways or we will have the 6-mile of backup in the 2030 time frame.
They can only take so much money and filter it to bike and PED paths and what little they get often gets more people out of and off the roads and highways at a cost that is less then building additional space on our roads and highways.
Gas Tax dollars cannot get spent on Bike and PED specific paths and specific transit oriented activities including Light Rail by State statutes.
Ross, Again Vancouver, Clark County and Washington State and are not perfect in their transportation investments but it is not because they are not trying. On SR-500 and SR-14 traffic that feeds into and out of the I-5 corridor makes many of their improvements that they have made address local commutes and activities. Concurrency has to be addressed in Clark County too.
The number of vehicles that are southbound on I-5 in Clark County Washington and do not cross the Interstate Bridge and that is much greater then most people know.
A big issue in Washington that in its self might derail any effort to extend Light Rail into Clark County is the voters of Clark Count approving bystate taxing authority that to all effect would be controlled by Oregon and Tri-Met.
There is not a lot of trust in Oregon politicians and Oregon transportation priorities in how they address the bystate needs of a constituency of a Clark County citizens that pays the 3rd highest dollar amount into the Oregon State treasury in Oregon income tax of any county in the State of Oregon and we all know that they get very little for it.
Concurrency has to be addressed in Clark County too.
Isn’t concurrency the concept that you don’t allow development where you can’t provide infrastructure? If you extended the concept to the I5 bridge, there would be no new housing development in Clark County excpet where there was an adequate transportation system that could get people to jobs in Portland. Or jobs created for them on the Washington side of the river that didn’t require using the bridge.
Concurrency would be a great concept if you applied it to the transit system as well as the motor vehicle system. Can you imagine how much demand there would be for expansion of the bus system if you couldn’t build where there was no service?
we all know that they get very little for it.
What do you mean they get very little for it? They have a job which they can’t get on the Washington side of the river. The fact is that people on the Washington side of the river benefit from public spending on the Oregon side, whether they pay for it or not. Mostly they don’t. But take away Portland and Vancouver would be the size of Longview and about as attractive to employers and other people looking for an urban environment.
it is not because they are not trying.
I agree. But I think they have made a lot of poor decisions. Portland would be making a mistake to let those decisions force it into trying to absorb a huge increase in traffic from Clark County.
Metro Land Use Policies are as much to do with creating this housing boom in Clark County as anything.
Just remember that the Metro Land Use Policies and where they have added to the UGB is doing the same thing to Clackamas County and you see the impacts on I-205 and 212/224 corridors.
God bless the Clackamas County economic development and highway team for their heroics in trying to head off transportation disaster in this south Metro county.
Metro Land Use Policies are as much to do with creating this housing boom in Clark County as anything.
Metro’s choice to add Damascus and other parts of Clackamas County to the UGB was largely driven by state law requiring a 20-year land supply and the state’s hierarchy of lands by soil type. Given their druthers, I suspect most members of the Council would have kept the UGB where it was to drive more infill where transportation infrastructure (of all kinds) already exists.
God bless the Clackamas County … highway team
I’m glad that its obvious that Clackamas COunty transportation department focus is on building highways, not local arterials.
As for economic development, where are the results? The only economic development in most of Clackamas County seems to be new housing. There are jobs being created in Wilsonville and Lake Oswego, but that is happening despite the county, not because of it.
While C-Tran provides express buses for Clark county residents who work in Downtown Portland, it does nothing, nada, zip, for the majority of county residents who work in Rivergate, Swan Island, Interstate Corridor and Lower Albina.
All they need to do in order to serve all these folks is link service to MAX at Delta/Vanport. I’m still waiting for a C-Tran bus to pull into one of those bus bays.
Express buses, while popular, are highly inefficient….one bus make maybe two trips, with no ons or offs at intermediate locations. The beauty of lightrail is that it gets people reliably and in comfort from Expo to Rose Quarter in 20 minutes…a tad slower maybe, but it serves a half dozen intermediate destinations and has four times the capacity to operator ratio. Its just another 5 minutes to downtown Vancouver.
One of the area’s where Clackamas County has been working is in the 212/224 corridor with lots of improvement where there are a lot of jobs and they are trying to save them. Congestion in that corridor is unbievable and is only going to get worse.
Clackamas County has been ahead of the curve with the Sunrise Corridor that gives all of the growth in Damascus area a way to bypass the 212/224 industrial/employment area’s with a alternative arterial that save jobs.
Clackamas County has been ahead of the curve with the Sunrise Corridor that gives all of the growth in Damascus area a way to bypass the 212/224 industrial/employment area’s with a alternative arterial that save jobs.
Uh. Not really. The Sunrise Corridor is a state highway project that was part of Governor Goldschmidt’s highway program. The partial phase one of that project could have been done several years ago if Kennemer and Sowa hadn’t been unwilling to compromise on their desire for a new four lane freeway all the way to Sandy. Their all or nothing approach until recently had stalled the project.
Ross Williams said:
“But the rest of the loop that has been proposed will require dramatic changes in the land use priorities and economic conditions in Clark County. As long as it remains committed to low density sprawl, light rail trying to serve that sprawl would be a waste of money and will never get the political support it needs in any case.”
>>>> I may be wrong, but it was my understanding
that multi-family (i.e., apts. and condos) was
supposed to make up 40% of all new housing in
the city of Vancouver.
Nick
Ross: The history of the Sunrise Corridor project can be debated but the most important thing today is that Clackamas County has with their own money has stepped forward and bought most of the cirtical right-of-way that could stop this project. It has to happen or critical job’s in the area can be lost.
This significant to north and east Clackamas County where we have had employers already testing the waters to see if relief is going to happen before they make long term decisions.
They need improvement in freight mobility right now.
…Vancouver, Clark County and Washington State and are not perfect in their transportation investments but it is not because they are not trying.
I wholeheartedly second that. It was amazing what it took last year to keep C-TRAN running at current levels (which I was a part of) – and to the best of my knowledge, C-TRANs local sales tax is still the lowest of any metropolitan transit system in Washington State.
The Salmon Creek #134 express bus route into Portland is fast, works and is an example of service that cannot be equaled with Light Rail.
I agree, it also can’t equal the service that light rail provides. But it also cannot provide the service that light rail or even regularly scheduled bus service can.
I think there’s a market for both kinds of service – those which run directly from one place to another with no stops between, and those which make a few intermediate stops, but much fewer than regular local service. Additionally, all of C-TRANs express routes are “regularly scheduled,” but run only during rush hours as that is when there is the most demand.
All they need to do in order to serve all these folks is link service to MAX at Delta/Vanport. I’m still waiting for a C-Tran bus to pull into one of those bus bays.
That’s an option on the table at this point. The route they’re thinking of running there is none other than their most used route, 4-Fourth Plain (not to be confused with TriMet routes 4-Fessenden and 4-Division).
I’ve also heard that some people have suggested they should try to operate service in and out of the overglorified Lombard St./Interstate Ave. intersection, AKA Lombard Transit Center (I would know, I’m one of them), where you could connect not only to MAX, but also TriMet routes 4, 6, and 75. Now that would really benefit Clark County residents who work north of Downtown Portland, and vice versa.
As for the Oregon Governor’s campaign, to the best of my knowledge, the only candidate to even mention public transit on their website is Joe Keating.
I can see how this discussion has turned from talking about Oregon politics to transit to and from Vancouver, WA – it’s probably the biggest transportation issue in the area, if not the state, but many in Oregon say it’s a Washington State issue; and many in Washington say it’s an Oregon issue.
Meanwhile, under the Portland-transit-centric radar: Cherriots (Salem-Keizer) is trying for the second time this year to pass a ballot measure to maintain current levels of service and start Sunday Service (their previous attempt in May failed due to less than 50% voter turnout); and the City of Bend recently launched it’s own fixed-route system. So, Portland’s not the only part of Oregon with transportation issues.
think there’s a market for both kinds of service
I agree. Express service doesn’t really replace MAX or vice versa. The problem is that transit agencies have limited budgets and its tough to justify serving the same trip twice. Max serves a broader range of trips, but it isn’t usually going to serve the trip to downtown Portland as well as a direct express bus on an HOV lane. But it does serve that trip.
Lenny Anderson says: “While C-Tran provides express buses for Clark county residents who work in Downtown Portland, it does nothing, nada, zip, for the majority of county residents who work in Rivergate,…”
Lenny Trimet does a lousy job of providing service to the Rivergate area and it is in their city and five miles from one of the poorest parts of that city. And if they provided better service maybe there wouldn’t be some many poor in that area. No Trimet is just sucking blood from the workers in Rivergate to sibsidize the downtown literail. Don’t put the blame on C-tran when Trimet should do a better job itself.
M.W.
Is Cherriots really going to try again at the ballot box? I was suprised that they put it on a ballot that required a double-majority. Then again, I was suprised that it actually got 50% of the vote. (I used to live in Salem and it appeared to me as an anti-government town–maybe because of having the state HQ in town).
As for express buses-vs-light rail, I agree that an express bus is nice, if it can avoid traffic and if you want to go during rush hour (and sometimes in the peak direction), but it is useless otherwise. What I would like for the I-5 north corridor is a MAX line that goes along the freeway so it is fast and goes to downtown Vancouver so it cuts down on transfers. Now, it doing Rivergate-Vancouver requires going down to either Lombard St or downtown and back up to Marine Drive.
To be sure the TriMet 16 to Rivergate is barebones, but that’s driven more by all the free parking out there and the low job density. Can’t really give TriMet a bad rap for not running a lot of empty buses. It also connects to MAX at Expo, so its tricky for Clark county riders at best. It does connect to the TriMet 8 at Jubitz which runs frequently thru the heart of NE Portland. I wonder by it still runs all the way Downtown; I’d turn it around in St Johns and get more frequency.
But my point was the failure of C-Tran to link to the Yellow Line. Hopefully the proposal to run peak hour express or limited versions of the C-Tran 4 to MAX at Delta/Vanport will go forward with regular service via Hayden Island all day. A lot of Clark county residents work along the Yellow Line or on Swan Island which is reasonably well connected by the 72 and 85.
Lenny writes:”To be sure the TriMet 16 to Rivergate is barebones, but that’s driven more by all the free parking out there and the low job density.”
I could not disagree more. Given all the money that the companies in Rivergate pay into Trimet, they, that being Trimet, could run a bus every fifteen minutes. The problem is that low income people in North Portland have little access to the job opportunities in Rivergate because of the poor service.
Trimet needs a new motto. How about we recycle one from the ’60s that described Ma Bell?
“We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re Trimet.”
M.W.
The problem is that low income people in North Portland have little access to the job opportunities in Rivergate because of the poor service.
I don’t have specific figures for Rivergate, but I do know from my own experience that employers secretly discriminate against those that use transit. I’ve heard some will even run help wanted ads that say, for example, ‘no bus service’ when a bus runs a short distance away and services all shifts; or ‘car required’ even if the job doesn’t involve driving.
Jobs that absolutely require an employee or contractor to be on-call, on-demand, yes, I can see why they would say that. Things like office jobs and even overnight jobs were someone could take one of the last buses in the evening and go home on the first bus of the morning or whatever, I don’t see a reason. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why some people seem to be chronically unemployed and on public assistance.