Do you think a Streetcar would benefit your neighborhood or local main street? Here’s an opportunity to share your idea!
On July 27th, Reconnecting America will hold one of four regional Streetcar conferences here in Portland. In conjunction with this, on Saturday morning, July 28th, we’ll hold a local brainstorming session to identify Streetcar corridor opportunities here in the Portland region.
If you’d like to present your ideas as part of the brainstorming, please contact session chair Chris Smith at chris@chrissmith.us.
72 responses to “Call for Streetcar Corridor Ideas”
Sounds like fun. I’ll sharpen my Sharpies…. :)
Hawthorne!
Hawthorne!
Hawthorne!
SE Powell -> SE Foster
from Ross Island Bridge to 82nd
How about on 82nd from I 84 to Clackamas Town Center? Highest ridership in the city….
Albina? Broadway? Sandy? Belmont?
All good options… :)
How about no more rail projects until we can fix what we already have.
New buses.
Grade separated light rail.
8+ lane freeways
6/7 lane artirals
This topic made me think about a streetcar line that, historically, I knew went by my house near North Killingsworth. So I googled it to see if I could find an old map. Instead I found a website about ALL of Portland’s old streetcar routes.
Some people here might find it interesting, both for reflection, and for thinking about the future. Also, while intuitively logical, it’s interesting to note that a lot of the more developed areas (historically speaking) in Portland were built around the streetcar lines.
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/dthompso1/StreetcarLines.html
How about no more rail projects until we can fix what we already have.
…
Grade separated light rail.
Any way you slice/define/route “grade separated light rail”, it pretty much qualifies as a major new rail project, thus invalidating your premise.
– Bob R.
Bob,
I think Anthony meant grade-separate the light rail we already have first, although that should be a separate issue from streetcars.
Aaron –
Yes, I presumed that was what he meant. My point was, there is no way to grade separate what we already have (that which isn’t already separated) that wouldn’t be by definition a major rail project.
For one idea on a partial grade separation project, see my post from March 2006 on how I would untangle the Rose Quarter.
– Bob R.
PS… I will be presenting some ideas for a Hawthorne Streetcar route at the conference.
– Bob R.
Broadway/Weidler to Hollywood is a no-brainer…plenty of row and plenty of destinations. I like Williams/Vancouver as well to Killingsworth (PCC, Library, Jeff High).
re the “more roads” suggestion…I dare anyone to suggest that 39th Avenue be widened through east Portland, let alone I-84.
We are done widening roads in this region…its not even up for debate. The next road agenda item is the removal of old freeways (like Harbor Drive) that sit on valuable land.
Anthony: 8+ lane highways
Right. Just tell that to the people whose houses would get demolished.
Burnside Streetcar: from the Washington Park Rose Garden (single track within the Park) north to NW 24th and Burnside, then following Burnside or Burnside/Couch across the Burnside Bridge and out to SE 28th Avenue. Loop from 26th and Burnside to Ankeny to 28th and back to Burnside.
Bury the Blue/Red Line MAX under Morrison Street from First to Twelfth, and run two track MAX on Morrison from 12th to 18th. Then use Yamhill for two-way streetcar traffic. Yamhill will be the center link in a line from 23rd Avenue to Hawthorne Boulevard. Route: Thurman Street down 23rd Avenue to Burnside, Burnside to 18th, 18th to Yamhill, Yamhill to 1st Avenue, 1st Avenue to the Hawthorne Bridge, Hawthorne or Hawthorne/Madison to 50th.
Transform the SAM tracks (along the Springwater Trail) to an outdoor streetcar museum with three stations: OMSI (connect to MAX and Eastside Streetcar), Oaks Park, and a new seven-block street rail on Umatilla to 13th (Sellwood Station). Run historic trolleys on that route, adapted for wheelchair boarding with lifts at all three stations.
What about reviving the old route up what is now MLK with a branch on Alberta and a branch up Lombard up to St Johns?
I’d at least like to see a Williams/Vancouver line include an Alberta spur, which could maybe loop back through the Killingsworth/33rd area.
Didn’t the baseball stadium concept for the PPS site include a streetcar line into Boise-Eliot?
Keep the streetcars off the high volume traffic streets where they gum up the works and add unnecessary congestion for all other wheeled modes. Require that streetcars be financially self sustainable without taxpayer subsidies and pay a franchise fee to the City to run only on streets that have low volumes of other traffic, some of which can be located parallel streets to high traffic volume streets. Require streetcar pullouts at stops.
While I like Williams/Vancouver as much as the next person in N Portland, it currently has a marginal (for N Portland) bus line on it (#44.) If I was to pick a route going in that area, I’d move over a third of a mile either way to either Mississippi (#4F,) or MLK (#6,) which are both frequent service and could actually use the extra capacity that streetcar would get them…
Really what I’d like to see would be a crosstown streetcar though, something like the #72 or #75 lines.
How about a 1.8 mile streetcar loop through Beaverton?
Couldn’t such a thing help spur redevelopment of all the damn parking lots they have out there, as well as improve connectivity between the actual residential areas of Beaverton and MAX? It might be a catalyst for improving the pedestrian area out there, too.
I’m thinking maybe up Hall and down Watson. That would hit the Round, downtown, the library, and access a decent amount of residences. You could run it over to Beaverton Town Square, too.
I mention it because Beaverton is supposed to be one of Metro’s 2040 town centers, and it’s a tough problem how the hell they’re going to densify the place.
Maybe a streetcar line from Sunset Transit Center to the North Bethany area.
Except for route 89, which only travels along Cornell Rd, none of the routes that serve areas north of highway 26 go to Sunset TC.
BTW, here’s the loop ROW I was brainstorming:
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1024329
It looks like there’s plenty of room for to share the MAX ROW for a little ways. It’s even triple-tracked for some of that distance.
How about down Lombard from St. Johns to Interstate? North Portland gets continuously screwed on a fairly regular basis by the city, so they could be thrown a bone finally.
If I had pickings, I’d want a Lake O (or even Oregon City)->Tigard->Downtown Portland MAX line or high-speed rail from Eugene to Vancouver BC before anything else.
I like Williams/Vancouver up to Alberta east and/or Lombard west. There’s a lot of vacant property along W/V that’s just primed for high-density infill and a streetcar would maximize the utilization of that corridor. Plus it would serve Legacy Emanuel.
Terry Parker said:
“Keep the streetcars off the high volume traffic streets where they gum up the works and add unnecessary congestion for all other wheeled modes. Require that streetcars be financially self sustainable without taxpayer subsidies…”
I agree with point one, actually. Why run a streetcar down a busy street when a nice, lower-traffic street is parallel and one block away?
Point two… why stop at streetcars? Why not require roads to financially self-sustainable while we’re at it? Or, conversely, how much wealth has been created in the Pearl over the past 10 years? Isn’t the streetcar given a huge share of credit for the success of the Pearl? Should those developers be giving 10% of their profits to the Portland Streetcar Company for creating their wealth? How “self-sustainable” does the streetcar look then?
Terry Parker said:
“Keep the streetcars off the high volume traffic streets where they gum up the works and add unnecessary congestion for all other wheeled modes. Require that streetcars be financially self sustainable without taxpayer subsidies…”
I agree with point one, actually. Why run a streetcar down a busy street when a nice, lower-traffic street is parallel and one block away?
Point two… why stop at streetcars? Why not require roads to be financially self-sustainable while we’re at it? Or, conversely, how much wealth has been created in the Pearl over the past 10 years? Isn’t the streetcar given a huge share of credit for the success of the Pearl? Should those developers be giving 10% of their profits to the Portland Streetcar Company for creating their wealth? How “self-sustainable” does the streetcar look then?
I also like the idea of a streetcar from the Rose Garden/ Japanese Garden, but I’m not sure if the cars can make it up the hill from 24th and W Burnside. Does anybody know what the maximum grade is for our streetcars? Chris? Bob?
I had heard somewhere that the maximum allowed grade was 5.5% or 6% but I can’t find anything anywhere in my notes to confirm this… Chris?
Of course, snow and ice are a problem up there more often than down in the valley, so running a streetcar up there we’d have to be sure we weren’t asking for trouble.
– Bob R.
Hasn’t anyone heard of the Council Crest line?
There is a book many of you should read, called “Fares Please! Those Portland Trolley Years”
http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-9780870042782-1
BTW, the Vintage Trolley (the ones stored underneath I-5 at the Rose Quarter and run on MAX on Sundays) are patterned after the Council Crest car; two of the original cars are stored at the Oregon Electric Railway Museum in Brooks.
http://www.trainweb.org/oerhs/roster/portlandtraction_503.htm
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/dthompso1/CCLine.html
I know in Seattle there was the legendary Counterbalance up Queen Anne hill. I think there are still operational counterbalances in San Francisco as well. Nothing’s impossible.
Well, there wouldn’t need to be service up there if there’s ice and snow. They could just layover at the park entrance at 24th & Burnside.
Oh, I know.. we could put the streetcar in a subway from 24th & Burnside, with stations at Sacajawea, the ampitheater and the Zoo train. :)
Starting at the eastern end of the Burnside/Couch couplet…
East on Sandy to Halsey…
East on Halsey, under 39th, past the Hollywood MAX station to 47th…
South on 47th to Providence…
Turnaround/layover station at the west entrance to Providence.
Weston owns about 20 blocks along Sandy, future point towers. Lots of redevelopment potential around Hollywood station. And Providence, besides being a great terminus location, having a direct connection to Hollywood just seems like a no-brainer.
I’m intrigued by the MLK/Williams-Vancouver/Mississippi ideas.
What are the merits of each of those and what are possible termini (assuming they start at Broadway/Weidler)?
Hey, they ran a streetcar up to Council Crest a century ago, so the Japanese Garden should be a breeze.
Of those three, I think the Williams/Vancouver alignment has greater redevelopment potential (many, many vacant blocks around Emanuel and further north). A simple initial terminus could occur at Fremont, just north of the hospital. From there extensions could go any number of directions. It could continue north to Alberta then go east to 33rd. Or it could go north to Portland (Rosa Parks) Blvd and turn west to the Yellow line then to UP’s campus (my favorite). It could jog over to Mississippi or MLK and continue north on one of those streets. Lots of options after you pass Emanuel.
An obvious route: Milwaukie transit station, down 17th, down Milwaukie, continue through Brooklyn, cross Powell (#10 one of the heaviest bus routes in town), continue up 11th (at this point) all the way up to Lloyd center max.
Photo op at the Franz baker.
now turn around and do it again.
I also like the idea of a streetcar from the Rose Garden/ Japanese Garden, but I’m not sure if the cars can make it up the hill from 24th and W Burnside.
There’s actually a potential route along an existing trail that’s fairly direct with a not-too-severe grade. It would require a retaining wall and fill along the path for a more consistent grade, but could support a single track to a terminal station at the north end of the Rose Garden.
The Williams/Vancouver couplet goes to Killingsworth, so that is an obvious terminus. The Killingsworth streetscape is currently being upgraded from Interstate to MLK and has increasing amounts of retail activity. Portland Community College Cascade campus is just a few blocks west.
As others have stated, the attractive thing about W/V is the acres of empty or underdeveloped land as well as the relatively low level of traffic with parallel options close by both east and west.
Mississippi between Fremong & Skidmore will be built out in 5 years.
Of course my favorite candidate is Broadway/Weidler, at least to 24th, where the couplet ends. But why not to Hollywood. Already several mid-density projects have been built in this corridor and more are on the way. Hollywood is a Town Center that is beginning to see some re-development activity. The obvious terminus is the MAX station at 42nd and Halsey…right across from the new Trader Joes.
… and Trader Joe’s and the bowling alley are both prime redevelopment sites. I want to see some highrises there in the next few years. I wouldn’t stop at Hollywood MAX though, I’d continue down Halsey to 47th and turn south to connect with Providence. Same terminus as my Sandy proposal.
I suggest NO streetcar lines, except for maybe a hertitage trolley through Washington Park.
Streetcars are obsolete and very inflexible, and this “development” argument is a myth, esp. here in Portland. (A myth which was probably originated by railfans many years ago, I suspect.)
east on hawthorne -> south on 50th (or 52nd) -> southeast on foster to lents. huge capacity for rebuilding out there for 40 blocks on foster, ~20 blocks of 50th. hawthorne, of course, is already filling in on its own.
Aren’t we just going over which bus lines should be converted to Streetcar lines?
Or which corridors, which are already lacking in direct transit connections, should have transit (and of course biased to Streetcar)?
Maybe Portland should start by first breaking off from TriMet so that it can turn over all city bus routes to the City; at which time the City can then do a comprehensive study of how to realign its transit system and mode of transport – and determine which routes should become Streetcar routes. Los Angeles and Chicago have done it, and Seattle has effectively separated regional and local transit as well. San Francisco, the model that Portland is trying to become, also has done the same.
Take a walk along the existing Streetcar line and see how much construction has occurred. Look at marketing materials for some of those buildings…there is Streetcar. I have never seen so many cranes in Portland’s sky for so long. All due to Streetcar? well no, but it sure gets a big piece of the credit (or if you like blame.)
Streetcar is seen by many as a development tool, it attracts investors, developers; buses are great for many things, but they are not and will never be a development tool.
the City can then do a comprehensive study of how to realign its transit system and mode of transport – and determine which routes should become Streetcar routes.
In fact, this will happen as part of the City-wide Streetcar Planning process. However, the conference is a sort of pre-brainstorming process for the plan to start to generate citizen interest and involvement.
Months ago I suggested a line on existing BNSF tracks to Castle Rock, let Portlanders and sW wash people fall in love with the new Colorado Railcars then buy a set for the existing line, to run as passenger service ran for many years…
vancouver/williams would be totally ace. with a possible extension down killingsworth then up greeley (just to exploit the pre-existing streetcar turn with semi circular building to boot).
V/W is already going to be an area that will see an incredible amount of development in the next few years. the hostess building ready for giant redevelopment. kaiser has a building going up on fremont. etc.
it would be neat to tie it into some sort deal to get emmanuel to FINALLY develop the lots they tore down 40 years ago. its still a big bone of contention in the hood- the hospital knocking down the business district with federal money to create empty lots!
in terms of economic justice it would be nice to see portland give back to the community it totally screwed years ago. too bad most of the original residents left/were forced out/sold out long ago.
oh, and a V/W street car has a natural terminus at the rose garden as well…
Lenny said:
“Take a walk along the existing Streetcar line and see how much construction has occurred.”
>>>> And take a walk along Belmont, Hawthorne,
Division, Alberta, Mississippi, et al. Also take a walk around St. Johns. See how these places “redeveloped” themselves WITHOUT streetcars.
And the Pearl, South Waterfront would have gone off without the streetcar; it’s just that Portland was ripe for this kind of redevelopment.
It’s just that the developers were sold a bill of goods (by railfans?) about the streetcar and use it in some of their advertising.
(LET RAIL BE RAIL – don’t misapply it.)
Lenny said:
“Take a walk along the existing Streetcar line and see how much construction has occurred.”
And how much of that new construction received additional taxpayer subsidies in the form of property tax abatements, city service fees waived, cheap land from or money from PDC to build it their way, etc?
Here is another thought, since the truck route from Swan Island is on Greeley to I-5, do a makeover of Going Street between Interstate Avenue and Greeley into a two lane Main Street with a streetcar that extends onto the island. The price tag would be covered through farebox revenues that reflect the costs of providing the service, and by a Swan Island local improvement district that would include the extra width of the cut could that could be recaptured land available for main street type development. That way, when the last business that leaves Swan Island for more the more economically friendly suburbs or Mexico doesn’t have to worry about turning out the lights because Swan Island would then become the latest high density housing enclave similar to the Pearl District or SOWHAT, but without the taxpayer subsidies and property tax abatements of the those districts. Additionally, Greeley could be widened to handle any capacity lost on Going which would be part of the same project.
I’m somewhat more inclined to support an MLK line precisely because it is so much more busy than W/V and is on a frequent-service bus line; it seems somewhat more central in terms of geography (would bridge the yawning chasm between the neighborhoods to the east and west); it seems like it is a better distance from the parallel MAX line; it might make it easier to go up Alberta because Alberta between MLK and V/W is heavily residential and super-narrow; and, lastly, MLK is also, of course, ripe for high-density redevelopment and an improved streetscape. A spur to the west could still go up Killingsworth, around the corner at Greeley (great idea), and onwards to St Johns.
I can also see all the points in favor of W/V.
Would the N/NE neighborhoods and business associations have the political will to pull it off??
I think a N/NE line with E/W spurs, Hawthorne/50th/Foster, and Sandy/Hollywood should be the next lines after the eastside loop gets underway. And they should all get built simultaneously :).
In fact, this will happen as part of the City-wide Streetcar Planning process.
So the City of Portland has a genuine interest of developing its own transit system, without requiring the rest of the metro area pay for it (through the TriMet subsidy)?
So the City of Portland has a genuine interest of developing its own transit system, without requiring the rest of the metro area pay for it (through the TriMet subsidy)?
The City of Portland has an interest in exploring whether Streetcar has a positive use in the community outside the Central City. I did not say that it would do so in isolation from the the rest of the system (you said that). Funding issues will be looked at as part of the planning process.
This is being conducted in concert with the regional HCT process that Rex mentioned in his recent post, NOT in isolation from the regional system.
BTW, Erik, if you’d like to organize a presentation for potential application of Streetcar in Tualatin, we’d happily consider it for the conference.
I’m soliciting and hoping from several presentations from cities closer to the edge of the region.
peter Says: east on hawthorne -> south on 50th (or 52nd) -> southeast on foster to lents. huge capacity for rebuilding out there for 40 blocks on foster, ~20 blocks of 50th. hawthorne, of course, is already filling in on its own.
I second this! Foster is one of Portland’s most underachieving urban areas. It is ripe and ready for development. A new streetcar line as described would serve these two neighborhoods wonderfully.
There’s also talk of lightrail (MAX) starting at Powell and 17th (branching off the Milwaukie line), out Powell to Foster, then on to Lents, and possibly further. So which would be better for Foster? MAX or Streetcar?
The Killingsworth Street Improvements Planning Project has only completed the first phase of it’s three phase master plan. Phases II and III (yet to be done) include sidewalk improvements, streetlights, and trees on Killingsworth, and ultimately rebuilding/improving the I-5 overpass to better re-connect the historical divide between neighborhoods caused by the construction of I-5.
I imagine that a streetcar line, similar to what George posted above (terminus at the Rose Garden, up Vancouver/Williams, west on Killingsworth to Interstate MAX, maybe to Greeley then N to Lombard……or Willamatte and then to UP) could pretty easily be integrated into the Killingsworth street improvement plan.
This would provide direct service to UP, Adidadas headquarters, Interstate MAX, PCC, Jefferson High, Emanual Hospital & Red Cross, PPS headquarters, and the Rose Quarter. The entire route would pass through areas that are ripe for re-development and would benefit greatly from the addition of a streetcar line. Plus it would re-capture the spirit and sense of old Portland as this line follows routes of Portland’s original streetcars.
note the differences between the redevelopment in the pearl compared to mississippi/alberta/division.
miss and alberta had pre-existing structures that just needed facelifts/upgrades to reoccupy. they redeveloped with very few public incentives (besides PDC storefront) because everything penciled out.
looking at the pearl, redevelopment was much more difficult.
i see a similar dynamic on the V/W corridor. lots of empty lots. the current projects, like the kaiser building on fremont, are having a bit of trouble getting off the ground, as presales are lagging. something like a streetcar would give those projects the kick in the pants they need to move forward.
also, it could be tied into a deal with emmanuel. which still needs to settle the LONG OVERDUE score with the neighborhood.
additionally, although there is more traffic on MLK currently, V/W loaded with med. density is going to be a future generator of significant transport needs. it would be nice to get something in the ground early.
Streetcar from Powell up 39th to Hollywood, with stops at every major intersection, curving over to head west on Alberta st, with a stop at Miss., heading NW to dead-end into Interstate Ave & Killingsworth to connect to the MAX.
Underground the sections as needed…
could also be a MAX line.
Chris,
I’m sure I could draw a lot of Streetcar lines on paper.
For example, Lake Oswego to Lake Grove (via A Avenue and Country Club Road, south along Lower Boones Ferry Road to Lake Grove, west to Bridgeport Village, southwest to Tualatin Commons.
But what benefit does this provide? What is to state that density will occur (or is even desirable) – developers are certainly free to develop as they please (look at Bridgeport Village, the entire area is growing, and said development is spreading to the Nyberg exit; Tualatin Commons has also developed, and this is without any type of “high capacity transit” – in fact it’s being done with very little transit.
The same is true of the Tanasbourne and northeast Hillsboro area. And many of the development areas that are supposedly “transit oriented” aren’t – such as Orenco Village (whose center is along Cornell Road, not the MAX line; and Cascade Station, where the development is happening along Airport Way.)
Improved bus service would go a long way towards making a neighborhood (especially an established one) friendly and accessible; Streetcar would be the logical upgrade from frequent, decent and reliable bus service. However Portland insists on using rail and disinvesting in bus; making bus service so undesirable that the only option left is an expensive Streetcar. So those neighborhoods for which Streetcar doesn’t make sense, doesn’t want busses either – which results in more traffic, or a dependence on autos to suburban parking lots to ride MAX – that doesn’t solve the problem, it just shifts the problem to an outlying point. (And as long as downtown businesses and governmental entities remain auto dependent, such as Metro and the City of Portland, excessive auto use will continue to exist – there’s no point in telling someone to park their car at a remote MAX park-and-ride to ride downtown, just to pick up another car to use during the day.)
I have already provided a concept of a MAX line that would serve Multnomah Village, Garden Home, Washington Square, Tigard, Durham, and Tualatin – providing a truly regional light rail system that would be complemented through a network of local neighborhood bus routes, along with improvements to the existing bus services throughout the southwest area. However such has been largely “pooh-poohed” as serving a “low-density” area (never mind that it connects multiple neighborhood, regional and town centers), too reliant on bus connections, and that there is no development potential (it isn’t meant to, it’s meant to provide added mobility). Nor does it serve the Barbur Blvd. TC (for which transit shouldn’t simply exist as a shuttle between a parking lot and downtown, it should be a true solution to transportation problems instead of shifting the problem somewhere else).
Should Tualatin grow larger than it is now, then maybe a Streetcar line connecting the Tualatin MAX station with the east side of the Commons, Bridgeport, and Lake Grove would make plenty of sense – and could alleviate traffic problems along Lower Boones Ferry Road.
But couldn’t quality bus service do the same thing? Certainly, as many people have called Kruse Way an “employment powerhouse”, that development also did not occur because of quality transit; in fact transit service in this area is generally poor. Couldn’t additional bus service (a route from Tigard TC to Kruse Way, then south on Lower Boones Ferry Road to Tualatin P&R and the Tualatin CR station) accomplish the same at much less cost, and just as effective?
Erik, we absolutely have should have more quality bus service. We have to stop making this about how we slice a scarce resource and make it about how we generate a vision that convinces voters to help fund a bigger pie.
Since we’re going outside of Portland city limits, here’s something farther afield. Salem has already studied streetcar service:
http://www.cherriots.org/Misc.%20Info%20pages/Streetcar_Study.htm
I will also put my $0.02 in on the Beaverton alignment ideas. The Hall/Watson idea is great, you could probably extend it north all the way to Hocken to connect with the currently booming Cedar Hills Blvd. area. Possible future extension through a redeveloped Tektronix campus.
A spur to the east along Broadway is a great idea. I think the Town Center/Fred Meyer superblock is ripe for redevelopment. Put a new Broadway alignment right down the middle between Canyon and Beaverton-Hillsdale, and put some new N-S connecting cross streets in. Not only would it increase development opportunities, if done correctly it could help traffic as well, with local traffic having a new grid of streets to choose from rather than funeling through limited arterials.
^^^^
Bill, I 100% agree with your Beaverton proposal. There is so much underutilized land on both sides of Canyon and B-H Hwy, and a new grid in that area would both improve circulation and spur major redevelopment. And a streetcar through there would make sure that it’s high-density redevelopment.
How about several different, but complementary, lines in N/NE, built in phases? Seems like it would be better to build a series of lines with good connections, and not end up focusing on one long route like W/V-Killingsworth-Greeley-Willamette Blvd.
1. A Williams/Vancouver line to Killingsworth past PCC to Interstate MAX.
2. An Alberta line from W/V up to 33rd/Fox Chase and back.
3. A Lombard line west from Interstate MAX to St. Johns.
All three, I suspect, would have high ridership numbers.
Do we have any specific info at this point on the city-wide rail plan we keep hearing rumblings from Sam Adams about?
^^^Scratch that question about the rail plan! I forgot about Rex’s post a few days ago…
Instead of two-way streetcar service on NW 23rd, how about a 21st/23rd Avenue loop? North on 21st, south on 23rd. It could run from Burnside to Northrup (sharing existing track to 23rd) or Burnside to Thurman.
The problem with that is the blocks between 21st and 23rd are double-long blocks, so it would actually be 4 blocks separating the north and southbound alignments.
18th/19th seems like the natural choice for streetcar up to Thurman.
I wasn’t thinking of 21st/23rd as a corridor, but rather as a one-way loop. For a corridor, I’d put both northbound and southbound on 23rd.
Ah, gotcha.
I still worry that both 21st and 23rd are already overly congested, and adding streetcar to either one would cause gridlock, or severely compromised streetcar operations.
Erik, we absolutely have should have more quality bus service. We have to stop making this about how we slice a scarce resource and make it about how we generate a vision that convinces voters to help fund a bigger pie.
I agree 100%. Unfortunately, both TriMet and Metro have decided to “slice a scarce resource” and have diverted virtually everything to Streetcar/MAX planning and construction, and bus service has clearly deteriorated from the disinvestment caused by siphoning bus money towards newfangled transit projects. Again, I’d like to see many of the Streetcar/MAX proponents ride some of TriMet’s quality bus service on board a 1400, and then tell me that bus service hasn’t deteriorated.
That’s why I can’t support these kinds of plans, until the leaders stop slicing and dicing. When bus service is improved to the point that it’s no longer the leftover step child of the region’s transportation system, I’ll happily support investment in Streetcar/MAX/whatever.
“Unfortunately, both TriMet and Metro have decided to “slice a scarce resource” and have diverted virtually everything to Streetcar/MAX planning and construction, and bus service has clearly deteriorated from the disinvestment caused by siphoning bus money towards newfangled transit projects.” -Erik
First of all, rail is hardly “new-fangled”. It’s a proven entity that pre-dates buses. Second, no matter how many times you say that TriMet has disinvested in its buses, it doesn’t make it true. You’ve obviously not ridden in other cities’ buses because if you had, you’d see that ours are not bad at all. Seattle may be an exception (maybe), but try riding on SF’s buses for a week, or Philly’s, or NYC’s, You’ll see that Portland’s stand up very favorably to all of them.
I also like the ideas for downtown Beaverton and the N. Bethany area.
I think it would be cool if they could do a loop connecting Sunset TC to North Bethany and then down to Tanasbourne and connecting with the 185th Willow Creek max stop. Of course thats a pretty big loop – maybe it wouldn’t be a traditional streetcar type route in that case.
The big advantage I see for rail over buses is that you can get a lot more bikes on a train. As a cyclist, I can get around easily by using the train for long distance trips and then bike the last few miles.
I think a streetcar from Sunset TC to Cedar Hills Blvd, then south into downtown Beaverton could be a great tool to help redevelop a lot of those parking lots. As well as maximize Peterkort’s density.
Aaron: Since the max already connects Sunset TC to downtown Beaverton, would that be too redundant? Although I agree that something connecting downtown with Cedar Hills Blvd would be great. It would be nice to take a Streetcar from Powells at the Cedar Hills Blvd. mall to the Beaverton Library.
^^^^
Oh, absolutely. I didn’t mean for the streetcar to end at Cedar Hills Crossing, but continue all the way through to the Hall/Watson couplet (connecting to MAX at The Round) and down to the south end of DT Beaverton and the Library. It wouldn’t be redundant at all (unless you’re only going from Sunset TC to the The Round) because it would serve mostly Peterkort, Cedar Hills Blvd and Hall/Watson. There’s a lot of vacant/underutilized land in that corridor.
^^^^
Oh, absolutely. I didn’t mean for the streetcar to end at Cedar Hills Crossing, but continue all the way through to the Hall/Watson couplet (connecting to MAX at The Round) and down to the south end of DT Beaverton and the Library. It wouldn’t be redundant at all (unless you’re ONLY going from Sunset TC to the The Round) because it would serve mostly Peterkort, Cedar Hills Blvd and Hall/Watson. There’s a lot of vacant/underutilized land in that corridor.
Michael Wolfe – I also agree with the Beaverton, and also Hillsboro and the other major town centers (re: Gresham) should all receive a nice 1.2-2 mile Streetcar Circle… but it should be done more like Tacoma’s and not Portland’s. If the burbs in their respective town centers get Streetcars like Portland’s, usage won’t be anywhere of what it could be if it is done more like Tacoma’s.