Proof that CRC Alternatives Do Not Violate Laws of Physics


6-2-10_MD-HI-Hybrid-Concept

Courtesy of the Mayor’s office, here is the presentation (PDF, 1.8M) of the URS Columbia River Crossing analysis and alternatives that was presented to the Portland Freight Advisory Committee last week.

We also have a full-size PDF map (3.4M) of the combined Marine Drive/Hayden Island interchange. The key idea seems to be to use a small bridge across the slough to access Hayden Island from the freeway, rather than on-island ramps.

Another intriguing feature is keeping MAX and bikes on a separate structure across the slough. Apparently there is some discussion of continuing this on to Vancouver and building it before the bridge replacement to provide a travel alternative during bridge construction. What a wonderful idea… train all those commuters to use MAX!


85 responses to “Proof that CRC Alternatives Do Not Violate Laws of Physics”

  1. Chris,

    “All those commuters” you want to “train” WILL NOT RIDE THE YELLOW LINE!!!!

    I’m a 64 year old white guy I/T person who has short hair and showers daily. The middle aged women who are the majority of riders on the Clark County expresses are resentful when I or any other guy like me sits down next to them in an empty seat on the 199 or 105. They only want to sit with other women.

    And you expect them to ride down Interstate Avenue with the boom boxes and winos? Get real and get a life! If their express buses are taken away the WILL drive to work.

    To get to the 99th Street TC via Max, the 4, and the 37 in the evening after the expresses have stopped takes between an hour and ten and an hour and thirty minutes, depending on the transfer between the 4 and 37 which run on different headways.

    Now the 4 would be removed from the journey if Max crosses the river to downtown Vancouver, but you’d still have the same headway problem: the Max and 4 run every 15 minutes while the 37 runs every 20.

    It is just not worth spending an addition $700 million dollars to bring the Max to Vancouver, and I believe it will never be worth it. You can run a LOT of express buses for a long time for $700 million.

    As much as I hate to ally with so rabidly anti-transit a person as Karlock, his solution is broadly the best: build a new southbound bridge, improve the transitions to and from the existing spans, and use them for the northbound crossing.

    Where I do disagree with him strongly is with his “run the buses in general traffic lanes because everything will be free-flowing” position, because traffic won’t be “flowing” after a couple of years.

    The new southbound bridge should be five lanes to ensure HOV priority, and Oregon should designate one lane on I-5 southbound in the morning as “HOV and Oregon plates only”. The existing northbound HOV does not have sufficient capacity to be “and Oregon plates”, but I expect that southbound in the morning even if the new short stretch were so-designated it would give buses a big leg up.

    Also, there are a number of fairly low-cost Golden Gate Transit-type ramp ameliorations between the slough and Delta Park that could sweep buses by the jam ups, taki five minutes off every peak hour bus’s travel time and improving Max access for non-express buses.

  2. Since most folks in Vancouver are living there to avoid Oregon taxes, I suggest we put a $5 toll on travel each way to re-coup some of that lost state revenue. That may also encourage the middle-aged ladies to take the Max. The more you charge, the fewer lanes you need!

  3. Since most folks in Vancouver are living there to avoid Oregon taxes, I suggest we put a $5 toll on travel each way to re-coup some of that lost state revenue. That may also encourage the middle-aged ladies to take the Max. The more you charge, the fewer lanes you need!

  4. Jake Says:

    Since most folks in Vancouver are living there to avoid Oregon taxes, I suggest we put a $5 toll on travel each way to re-coup some of that lost state revenue. That may also encourage the middle-aged ladies to take the Max. The more you charge, the fewer lanes you need!

    Is this meant as a JOKE???
    1. I think it is 38 million in annual tax dollars the Washington taxpayers pay to Oregon…… maybe more. They pay for services that Oregonian receive and they do not, school, fire, police, metro,parks, etc…… they buy gas here and pay gas taxes for our roads. They shop here, eat in restaurants,Dr. appointments, and other services that provide employment in our state. The more they work here and pay taxes and live somewhere else……. the less stress on our government services…..
    2. Their employers pay Tri-met taxes per employee and often there in NO service available to our ports and industrial area that met the needs of works……
    3. Living somewhere else is less congestion on our roads,…….
    It is a long list of benefits……
    So …… Whats up?

  5. If Anandakos and the folks he is comfortable with ride the Yellow Line, it will be full of white guys who have short hair and shower daily. Somehow, the middle aged women in Portland have learned that sitting next to an unfamiliar person doesn’t kill them, and it is likely that those who live north of the river can do it too.

  6. “I think it is 38 million in annual tax dollars the Washington taxpayers pay to Oregon…… maybe more. They pay for services that Oregonian receive and they do not, school, fire, police, metro,parks, etc”

    In fact, they do make use of many of those services. And many Oregonians who pay income taxes don’t make us of all of them either.

    I don’t buy the idea that people whose entire income comes from working in Oregon, who use Oregon as recreation center and who spend most of their hours awake in Oregon should be exempt from paying taxes because they sleep in Washington. Especially when the value of their home in Washington is almost entirely dependent on the services available just across the river.

    There is no evidence that the average Clark County commuter puts less of a burden on Oregon’s public services than someone who lives and works in Oregon.

  7. People who live in Vancouver (and commute to Oregon) are doing so under their own volition. You work in Oregon, you pay Oregon’s taxes.

    I don’t disagree that there are some things that people who pay Oregon’s taxes should be allowed to access such as in-state tuition for them or their children. That’s at least a fair criticism.

  8. Think Clark Co. commuters would favor tolls to get to Oregon? Try going door to door in the ‘Couv with that message then!! And the actual revenue they are bringing in to Oregon is approx. $150 million per year—and then the rest of the state adds another $50 million. I know that Clark Co. folks are already boiling mad with contributing 9 per cent of their taxable income to Oregon, so some project that results in high tolls would not be well tolerated. believe me.

    Ohhhh, please….One of the last things we need is another bridge right alongside the I-5. Let’s forget that idea. Hello! The I-5 corridor is FULL! Particularly we don’t need one that fulfills only a very limited purpose. If we build that, then the next group that also has a very limited purpose will want THEIR bridge, and so on, ad nauseum.

    I don’t buy the idea that people whose entire income comes from working in Oregon, who use Oregon as recreation center and who spend most of their hours awake in Oregon should be exempt from paying taxes because they sleep in Washington.

    So now we are going to tax people who use us as a “recreational center?” Sounds like something California would try. I guess we don’t want them spending their earnings here, either. And try selling that idea to Oregon businesses.

    Build the Third Interstate Bridge—like any normal area of the country would do. Even ‘progressive” areas like Seattle and the Bay Area have a lot more “over the big water” highway capacity than we do. Seattle area has FOUR main north-south routes. Bay area has several bridges over the Bay.

  9. Ron,

    It would escape me as to why a Clark Co. resident is “boiling mad” over paying a tax they can choose not to pay. It’s called working in Washington.

  10. I would suggest you talk to Clark Co. people who make the commute to Oregon. Perhaps, they could answer your questions.

  11. “So now we are going to tax people who use us as a “recreational center?”

    No, we are taxing people who work here. People who just come here to recreate are complete freeloaders, subsidized by the Oregon public, except to the extent they patronize businesses that pay Oregon taxes. The point is the claim that people who work in Oregon don’t use the services their taxes support is false.

  12. The Oregon Bureau of Revenue reported that in 2002, Southwest Washington residents filed 51,991 income tax returns in Oregon, totaling $104,074,000. This money funds social, educational, and health care programs in Oregon to which Washington residents do not have access. Congressman Baird was joined in his effort to prevent the state of Oregon from imposing an income tax on Washington residents by Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), who introduced companion legislation in the Senate.

    http://www.house.gov/list/speech/wa03_baird/morenews/crossriver032905.shtml

    Thanks
    JK

  13. No, we are taxing people who work here. People who just come here to recreate are complete freeloaders, subsidized by the Oregon public, except to the extent they patronize businesses that pay Oregon taxes.

    And we do the same to them, except that we pay their sales taxes.

    And they make employment for Oregonians, who then pay state income tax and other taxes. So I guess the rule is “You can’t work in Oregon unless you live here and don’t visit either, except to shop.” But maybe you are right. Gov. McCall had opposed the idea of outsiders coming here, but then those after him, following the eight year long Carter Recession, changed the policy. Alright, everyone: Reverse the industrial policy we have been following for 25 years!!

  14. Lets be clear. No one is arguing people from Washington shouldn’t visit or work in Oregon. In fact, that is the whole purpose of extending light rail to Washington isn’t it? Its not like very many people in Oregon need to get to Washington every day.

    The whining by Washington politicians pandering to their constituents paying Oregon taxes is part of what fuels their “rage”. But the fact is there is no injustice to it at all. They use Oregon services themselves and their employment depends on Oregon services. They often spend most of their waking hours in Oregon.

    Many Oregonians pay those same taxes and never use all the services those taxes pay for. In fact, they use fewer services than some of those folks from Washington.

    Washington is going to share the cost of getting light rail across the river. But are they going to reimburse Oregon for the local share of Interstate MAX, the Rose Quarter Transit center and the Transit Mall. The obvious answer is no. Yet, without those investments on the Oregon side, a light rail bridge wouldn’t be worth much to Vancouver residents.

    Washington residents need to get over it. They want the employment and other benefits of living close to a major city, but they don’t want to have to pay for them. It doesn’t usually work that way.

  15. Back on topic, I must say… This is among the best ideas yet… only… what happens to Safeway?

  16. And we do the same to them, except that we pay their sales taxes.

    That’s your loss Ron – flash an Oregon driver license and you don’t pay sales tax. I heard on OPB just yesterday that WA gives up ~$50 million every year through this program, which they are proposing to expand to BC residents.

  17. Back on topic, I must say… This is among the best ideas yet… only… what happens to Safeway?

  18. Carter,

    [Moderator: Personally-directed remark removed. – Bob R.] I have posted dozens of times that I used to ride the Yellow Line daily from the day it opened. I wasn’t talking about who I’m comfortable with but rather the bulk of the riders Chris wants to “train” to use the Max.

    Now that I have the 99th Street Transit center to which I can walk on a nice summer day I use the Clark County express buses, because I don’t have to fight the traffic at the bridge (the driver does), I don’t have to worry about having my car stolen from the Delta Park Pre-Release Center (it was once and broken into twice), and I get downtown in a half hour less total time. What’s not to like?

    I then transfer to the Blue line to Beaverton Creek.

    When I do ride the Yellow Line because I have to go to a medical appointment or leave the car at our mechanic’s on the 44, I still can see the ridership during the peak. There are very few middle-aged, middle-class women on the Yellow Line either. I expect that’s probably more a result of the demographic that lives along Interstate Avenue, except around Overlook, where the few that ride do get on and off. Most of the Interstate corridor is younger people and minorities.

    Where are the middle class transfer riders at Lombard that would be the equivalent of forcing Clark County riders off the express buses onto the Yellow Line? They’re few and far between.

    Yes, there are plenty of people who transfer at Lombard, but they’re mostly transit dependent people: young or poor. The folks who live west of Interstate on the St. John’s “peninsula” who need to go downtown either ride the Greeley bus or drive. They’re not transferring at Lombard.

    My point is that choice riders cannot be herded or coerced to use a service that’s forced on them. The rump of service proposed for Vancouver will serve perhaps a thousand walkup riders per day. Everyone else will either be transferring from local Clark County buses or parking and riding at the garages. Since the combined capacity of the three garages is about 3000 cars and nearly everyone that parks and rides drives alone to the transfer point, that’s another 3000 riders. OOOOH. We’re up to 4,000 per day plus whatever percentage of riders on the express buses might be willing to switch to some sort of local service down to Mill Plain, then ride the Yellow Line with twelve stops between the transfer station and downtown. (Hint: about 10% MAYBE). The service will of course still get the trickle of transit dependent transfer riders from the 4 and 44 who chose at Delta Park today. But those people ride the Yellow Line anyway; they can’t be included in any increase attributed to crossing the river.

    Yellow Line ridership is not the same as that on the east-west lines. It’s more of a bus replacement than a regional metro. The average speed is lower and there is no long high-speed section approaching the CBD as there is on the main route. It will always be beaten by a good express bus program to and from Clark County.

    It is simply INSANE to spend that much money on a plan that serves so few potential riders. Advance it onto Hayden Island to serve the riders there, but forget the pipe dream of bringing it to Vancouver.

    And to everyone who’s in such high dudgeon about the tax issue the truth is that we Washingtonians do get some benefits from the income taxes we pay to Oregon. Since the roads aren’t entirely paid for by fuel taxes we get some benefit from the general fund expenditures. And those of us who use Tri-Met get benefit from whatever non-employment based funding source it has. We get police and fire protection while we’re at work.

    What we don’t get is the 50% of income tax revenues spent on public education. That is 100% gravy for you snarky Oregonians.

  19. Scotty,

    Thank you. That was an excellent expansion of my point about choice riders.

    Now maybe some of the women who ride the expresses do not have enough money to buy and maintain a second car (most I expect are married given the demographic along I-5 north of Fourth Plain). They may not be able to continue working in Oregon, which would severely limit their work options. But it WOULD benefit Oregonians by reducing — if only by a smidgen — the pool of competitive candidates for Oregon jobs.

    But I also expect that the number in that situation is pretty small. So forcing them onto a two-ride trip is only going to reduce the number of cars at the 99th and 134th street P&R’s and increase the number on the bridge.

    P.S. You’re right about the Cruisemobiles. They are very nice! And it’s not just the luxe interiors; it’s the quiet. Because they are true hybrids, the diesels turn over at a slower speed even on the freeway.

  20. Building the Yellow Line with bike/ped first is a no-brainer…give folks in the ‘Couv some options.
    Many already use transit, bike, etc., and a lot more will with easy, safe, reliable service. MAX ridership will probably double overnight, and take the pressure off the freeway. Remember that today there is NO C-Tran service in the I-5 corridor that connects to all the jobs in N/NE Portland via the Yellow Line…Rivergate, Swan Island, Interstate Corridor, Lower Albina, Columbia Corridor, etc.

  21. Lenny,

    Yellow Line ridership can’t “double overnight”. It could during the middle of the day, but at the peak the trains are SRO crossing the Steel Bridge, and there is very little additional capacity at the intersection of Interstate and Rose Quarter for more trains.

    Not to mention the crossings around the Pioneer Court House. Trains must run on precise schedules to cross the two tracks of the other direction as it is. If Yellow Line headways were reduced to 7.5 minutes it would impact the ability to move the Blue line peak extra trains through the crossings. Tri-Met is always going to favor capacity in the east-west trunk line over the street-car like Yellow Line.

    Also, your assertion that there is no C-Tran service that serves the Yellow Line is flat wrong. The #4 connects very carefully with nearly every Yellow Line at Delta Park. The #44 also provides transfer service during the peak hours. Now it’s true that both of these buses serve the low-income Fourth Plain corridor and there’s no way to know for sure if the #37’s crossed the bridge to Delta Park during the peak if many people would switch from their cars.

    But nobody destined to Rivergate is going to switch to transit. The trivial service on the #16 runs only at the peak and so provides a poor alternative to driving. It’s a LONG walk from the businesses of Rivergate to Expo Center Max station.

    To use the #72 and #85 that provide service to Swan Island a rider from nearly all parts of Vancouver would require a three-ride journey given that the Yellow Line will serve only the tiniest part of Vancouver directly. Do you really believe that someone who can drive and park free — the businesses on Swan Island all provide ample parking because it’s an industrial area — will switch to a three trip ride? Anyone they doesn’t already take the bus won’t change his or her travel because the Max connects a mile and a half closer to home.

    The “Columbia Corridor” doesn’t even have transit service.

    And who other than Union Pacific and the Portland Water District offers employment in “Lower Albina”. Oh right, Widmer Brothers. The school district is too far away from Albina/Mississippi for practical use. People probably walk from IRQ.

    Nobody who works for the railroad can depend on transit, because they don’t know when they’ll be called. The other employers are trivial in size.

    Look, I’ve been pro-transit for forty years. I lived in Seattle and even Anchorage for a total of twenty years with no car. I want transit to succeed.

    But spending $700 million crossing the Columbia River to downtown Vancouver will NOT make transit succeed.

  22. Wow… WOW…When did this site get so hateful?! I mean wow! I think this may be the last time I post here… The good old days were much better when they were massive brainstorms with support and not these maddening debates (arguments really) and even personal attacks! Wow… I’ve been to sites with teenagers on them with less hatred. Whew… Better. Farewell. You know how to contact me…… camjohn918@gmail.com

  23. Anandakos,

    Looking at your concerns another way, the problem seems to be that the Vancouver extension is too short and does not connect much in Vancouver.

    Suppose that the line extended to WSU Vancouver and possibly the Clark County Fairgrounds. Would you support Max then?

    Suppose that a second branch extended from Clark College east to somewhere east of I-205, possibly somewhere around 164th and the Fisher’s Landing area. Would you support extending Max to Vancouver then?

    Getting across the Columbia is the expensive part of extending Max. Why not get more bang out of the expensive bridge costs?

    I think the biggest problem with the current proposal is that the line does not go far enough into Vancouver and that too few people will have easy access. A longer system, while costing more, also benefits more people and should result greater support. A lot of people take a “what is in it for me” approach.

    Comparing the old bus line 5 to Max Yellow line, the Yellow line doubled ridership in the first year. While there are probably exceptions, experience in many parts of the country shows that rail will attract many more riders that a supposedly similar bus service. And many places touted for their successful bus systems are building a rail system because of the limitations of buses.

    All of the places you name combined probably have fewer employees than downtown/Lloyd district. The lack of Ctran service in these areas compared to downtown and the Lloyd district shows that transit demand from Vancouver is lower than to downtown Portland. And the area you are calling “Lower Albina” has plenty of occupied buildings, so people do work in the area even if neither of us know many of the employers in the area.

    As for the Rose Quarter/Steel Bridge concerns, there still is capacity. From 5-6 pm, there currently are 8 blue line trains, 4 red line trains, 4 green line trains, and 4 yellow line trains, for a total of 20 trains. Allowing for future increases, suppose that there are 10 blue, 5 red, 5 green, and 10 yellow line trains in the peak hour. Other transit systems routinely operate on 90 second scheduled headways with all trains stopping at the same platform. These systems also switch trains onto different branches while operating on 90 second headways. Most of these systems are capable of operating on 1 minute headways when trains get off schedule.

    So Portland should be able to go to 40 trains per hour and possibly more since trains are split between two different stations on each side of the river. Upgrades to the train control and safety systems may be required, but these costs are modest. Small amounts of additional track may be needed to facilitate free movement through the switches and crossings near the Steel Bridge.

    Tom G

  24. Tom,

    Talk to Portland DOT. They are concerned about the congestion at Interstate and Rose Quarter Blvd (the east landing of the Max Tracks on the Steel Bridge). That plus the time to co-ordinate the switches and the crossings at the Pioneer Courthouse are the limiting factors, not the bridge crossing itself.

    And “No”, I would not support it because people will not ride it. If there were express trains that made only two or three stops between the bridge and IRQ they might, but it is just too darn slow compared to the express buses.

    Besides there is not nor will there ever be sufficient density in the SR99 corridor between downtown Vancouver and the Clark County fairgrounds to support fixed rail. Whichever side of the freeway north of the Main Street O/C you put the Max, the freeway is close enough to it to truncate half the walkshed. Yes, old Hiway 99 is LOADED with opportunities to knock down junk and build nice condos. But only for three miles between NE 63rd and NE 99th. And even for those three miles, just one block west is the impermeable barrier of I-5. The developable area is too small to make the line pay. C-Tran and the RTC already did the analysis. It won’t fly.

    They’ve already abandoned the idea of having BRT along old 99 as too expensive. If BRT isn’t cost-effective, how can Light Rail make the grade? It can’t.

    Mill Plain would come somewhat closer and it even has a six lane street from the top of the hill east of Grand to just beyond the hospital and then again from Chkalov to 164th. One lane each direction could certainly be converted at least in the western portion (the east end might suffer traffic congestion as a result). However, to get to the top of the hill would require tunneling from Clark College to somewhere east of Brandt. Big Bucks. And then there would have to be an elevated structure between SE 92nd and Chkalov. More big bucks.

    So, “No” I wouldn’t support the Yellow Line to Clark County even if it went to the east end of Vancouver and to the fairgrounds.

    And just to make it clear, I didn’t bring up “Rivergate, Swan Island, Interstate Corridor, Lower Albina, Columbia Corridor, etc” (the places I iterated). Lenny Anderson did. I was simply making exactly the same point as you: all these places combined provide bupkies employment compared to downtown and the Multnomah corridor. PLUS they have free parking. So who is going to take a two-transfer transit ride when they can drive?

  25. Tom,

    And also, Yellow Line to the 99th Street TC is NOT replacing the #5 with Light Rail (except at night when it would be a BIG improvement). It is replacing 25 to 35 minute dedicated freeway express service with hour long crush loaded rail service on fairly slow arterial streets.

    There is no comparison to the #5 Interstate bus.

    And besides, you KNOW that Tri-Met is going to charge every bit of overhead cost it can dream up to C-Tran, so it will cost MORE per passenger trip than the expresses do. C-Tran won’t even get the operational savings for whatever it has to ante into the $700 million dollar pot.

    People, focus! Bringing Max over the river will cost $700 million dollars if it never goes a foot beyond the McLaughlin Park and Ride garage. Probably twice that to get to the TC at 164th and SR14.

    That’s $700 million that neither Oregon and Washington nor the Federal government have now or are likely to discover in the bedroom chest of drawers. And when the Republicans get back in in 2012 they’ll completely cut off any projects for the Peoples’ Soviet of Washington or cute little Crunchy Granola Oregon. Bank on it.

  26. Tom,

    And also, Yellow Line to the 99th Street TC is NOT replacing the #5 with Light Rail (except at night when it would be a BIG improvement). It is replacing 25 to 35 minute dedicated freeway express service with hour long crush loaded rail service on fairly slow arterial streets.

    There is no comparison to the #5 Interstate bus.

    And besides, you KNOW that Tri-Met is going to charge every bit of overhead cost it can dream up to C-Tran, so it will cost MORE per passenger trip than the expresses do. C-Tran won’t even get the operational savings for whatever it has to ante into the $700 million dollar pot.

    People, focus! Bringing Max over the river will cost $700 million dollars if it never goes a foot beyond the McLaughlin Park and Ride garage. Probably twice that to get to the TC at 164th and SR14.

    That’s $700 million that neither Oregon and Washington nor the Federal government have now or are likely to discover in the bedroom chest of drawers. And when the Republicans get back in in 2012 they’ll completely cut off any projects for the Peoples’ Soviet of Washington or cute little Crunchy Granola Oregon. Bank on it.

  27. Anandakos is right, light rail is a lousy replacement for an express bus. But it doesn’t just replace express buses. It also provides local service to a number of employment and commercial centers along the way. And it does it in both directions all day long, not just one way a few times per day.

    It also offers people in Portland access to downtown Vancouver. One of the reasons the city has supported light rail is that improved transit connections to Portland will make it more attractive to do business. People in Portland might actually go there.

    One of the objections to the CRC is that it will cement in place Clark County’s one-way relationship to Portland as a bedroom community. That relationship is obviously already firmly cemented in the psyches of its residents. The idea that they ought to improve transit access to their employment opportunities from Portland never seems to occur to them.

    The arguments about little old ladies from the suburbs not wanting to share seats was made about the westside light rail and we can see how that worked out. It turns out they are mostly a lot tougher than that.

    The reality is that failing to provide light rail access across the river is not on the table. Nor should it be. If Vancouver wants to be a semi-gated community isolated from the rest of the region, they can’t be allowed to open the gates twice a day to flood Portland with traffic.

  28. Yes, the 4 and 44 link to the Yellow Line, but they come in from Orchards, not down I-5. There is NO C-Tran bus down the I-5 corridor…Salmon Creek, 99th, etc… to the Yellow Line. All that service is express to Downtown Portland. The fact is that more trips over I-5 are to N/NE Portland than to downtown…a few employers: Fred Meyer, Emanual Hosp., Kaiser, not to mention the 10,000 jobs on Swan Island. Bus/Max/Bus is doable for many people, if frequencies are good. There has to be some kind of high capacity transit over the Columbia. Let’s agree to that, then let the numbers guide us…cost/ride, capital costs, operations costs, etc. Time and again, these numbers make it crystal clear that light rail is the answer.

  29. “Time and again, these numbers make it crystal clear that light rail is the answer.”

    ~~>Except for one thing, it appears that the people that live in Vancouver do not want it!

    That is sorta important isn’t it?

    If they want to struggle down I5 everyday it is their right to do so!

    Is this a free country or not?

    (Don’t answer that!)

  30. Lenny,

    If the mile and a half between Expo Center and the Red Lion Vancouver were field or forest — even developed land — it would be a “no brainer” to take Max to downtown Vancouver. Unfortunately, it’s more than half a 40 foot deep, fast flowing river.

    The capital costs alone guarantee that over the normal 30 year cost of money depreciation lifetime of a project the cost per seat mile will be far higher with Max than with express buses.

    For the specific destinations you mention I’d first point out that the Fred Meyer offices are hardly in “North Portland”. They’re southeast of downtown on the way to Milwaukee.

    They will be served by the Orange Line, unless reality rears its ugly head high enough that the folks in Portland realize they can’t afford the Orange Line either. But in any case, they won’t be served by the Yellow Line unless the trains are through routed. From what I’ve read on the Tri-Met website, that is not the current plan, although it would make great sense. Orange line trains will turn at Union Station and return south, replacing the mid-day shuttle to provide frequent service on the mall.

    Most of those 10K jobs on Swan Island are held by Oregonians, rightly. There may be 3,000 Vancouver residents who work there. You would have to achieve a modal split of 50% to add 1,500 riders to the Yellow Line a day. And that simply is not going to happen absent $15/gallon gasoline.

    And if we have $15/gallon gasoline everyone except the farmers and truckers will be on the emergency unemployment insurance.

    The same reality is true of the hospital destinations you mentioned, with the obvious extra complication that roughly half the the total employment at any given hospital is second or third shift, and not well served by ANY transit at one end or the other of the shift. So you’d be hoping for a 50% modal split of the Vancouver passengers while providing no service. That’s a problem.

    And I just do not agree with your assumption that there “must be some sort of high capacity transit across the Columbia.” Clark County has a population of about a half million spread out rather thinly over a large area. It’s true that the river crossings provide “choke points” that might be exploited by high capacity transit much as Lake Washington does for Seattle.

    But Bellevue, Issaquah, Redmond, Kirkland and the unincorporated Eastside collectively have well over a million residents. Vancouver will never reach that population because Portland will never reach the pie-in-the-sky projections of the urban planners paid to spin beautiful fantasies for elected officials. The tech industry is rapidly moving to China and what else do we have? Outdoor wear. I’m very happy I get to work at Nike for a while; it’s a wonderful place filled with smart people from all around the world.

    But outdoor fashion is not sufficient to support a viable city. When Intel moves away — and it will; Chinese and Indian engineers are MUCH cheaper in situ than Americans — Portland will rapidly become like Spokane and Tacoma: a nice place to spend one’s retirement.

  31. Just Saying,

    I ride the Blue Line to and from Beaverton Creek daily. There are not that many “little old ladies” (by the way I said “middle-aged middle-class women”) on the train. There are not that many middle-aged middle-class women either. Most of the Blue Line ridership is young people.

    That’s great for the future of transit ridership in Portland (get ’em young!) but not proof that the express bus riders will switch. The Westside Max provides a MUCH higher level of service than any bus ever provided from Washington County except the two old central Beaverton to Portland “Blue Streak” style neighborhood expresses. I’m sure that the folks in old Beaverton and Raleigh Hills miss those buses because they have to get to Beaverton or Sunset TC on a local bus or get dropped off, but for the vast majority of Westside Max users the trip is considerably faster than it used to be by bus.

    For Vancouver C-Tran riders, except those on the 4 and 44 transferring the trip will take roughly twice as long as it does now. That plus the crowded and garishly painted interiors of the Max cars versus the nice “Cruisemobile” interiors of the Gilligs is not going to sit well with potential riders.

    Because of the stupendous costs of that three miles of Max track the project simply does not pencil out.

    If you want to keep us from “flooding your streets” twice a day when we “open the gates” of Fortress Washington, just pass some law saying that one has to have been an Oregon resident for a couple of weeks before she or he can work for an Oregon corporation. It usually takes a couple of weeks for a newly arrived family to get settled so that shouldn’t be much of a hardship on people moving to your state. And it would effectively strangle those of us in Perfidious Walbion.

    I think it should work out well for you.

  32. Maybe Portland will dry up…its possible, but I hate to plan for that. My main points…more Clark county trips are to jobs in N/NE PDX than downtown, C-Tran does not run a Limited like the 44 or 65 down from WSU/Salmon Creek to the Yellow Line, and there are a lot of people in Clark county (as elsewhere) who will ride MAX or Streetcar and never go near a bus. Put these together and you have a pretty strong case for high capacity transit in the I-5 corridor, and in my view the best HCT option is light rail.

  33. The concepts proposed look like they came out of the minds of a group of highway engineers….and no one else.

    Any thought to community? Placemaking? Does anyone care anymore what our community looks like when we finish spending billions of our tax dollars?

    The added bridges to Hayden Island are a step in the right direction, but they should look like streets, not freeway ramps. They should provide the bones to support a walkable place with shopping and residences, and can still allow freight to pass through, and I-5 to continue to operate. As it is, they look like they were drawn by the twisted minds of R. Moses or LeCorbusier. URS is a large company, they should be able to come up with more developed ideas than this.

    I hope PBOT didn’t pay much for this, I for one don’t see a lot of added value so far. Hopefully it gets better from here.

  34. “not proof that the express bus riders will switch.”

    As I said, Max is a lousy alternative to the express buses. That was true when it replaced express buses in Washington County and Multnomah County. It is basically irrelevant because light rail does serve a whole bunch of people and destinations that aren’t accessible by express bus, serving far more trips than express buses ever can.

    “for the vast majority of Westside Max users the trip is considerably faster than it used to be by bus.”

    If I understand the usage numbers correctly, at this point the vast majority of Westside Max users didn’t use buses of any kind when that was all that was available.

    “If you want to keep us from “flooding your streets” twice a day when we “open the gates” of Fortress Washington, just pass some law saying that one has to have been an Oregon resident for a couple of weeks before she or he can work for an Oregon corporation.”

    It doesn’t surprise me that someone from Vancouver would respond that way. It certainly would be a way to drain the swamp and it would do wonders for affordable housing in Clark County. But it would also be unconstitutional.

    So instead, we will simply have to require that if Oregon has to provide services to people who live in Washington and want to work in Oregon, then Washington has to reciprocate. I understand many folks in Clark County will consider that a ridiculous imposition.

  35. “Regarding the “people who live in Vancouver don’t want light rail” argument–check out this recent article in The Columbian….”

    Well if that’s indeed true then what’s the problem?
    Personally I think they are NUTS not to want it!

  36. Don’t forget, its all about the “choice” riders, the other riders don’t really count, sorta like our nations homeless, they exist, but are hardly noticed nor considered.

    Light rail is sorta a cattle car concept, pack as many in in a small a place as possible and keep labor costs down.

    Absolutely attempt to minimize livable wage jobs, the “deficit” demands it!

  37. Actually, the only question I really have is this bridge ever going to be built?

    I mean in our lifetime?

    Cause it doesn’t look like it to me!

  38. Al, the “rail is for the rich” meme doesn’t work in Portland–when you consider that some of the most blighted parts of town (Rockwood, Felony Flats) have MAX running right smack through the middle of them.

    Back during the “safety crisis” a few years back, when some old guy got beaten up by thugs at a MAX platform out in Gresham somewheres, someone on bojack’s blog (can’t remember if it was bojack or one of his commenters) actually proposed closing all the MAX stops in Rockwood, and running the train as an express between Gateway and Gresham–in order to reduce the amount of riffraff riding the rails. If MAX were being peddled as a luxury service and kept from the rougher parts of town, you may have a point. But by and large, it’s not.

    Lemme ask: What should the main priority of TriMet be? Comprehensive transit? Mobility for the poor? What?

  39. “When Intel moves away — and it will; Chinese and Indian engineers are MUCH cheaper in situ than Americans ”

    You know what? I doubt Intel pays any attention at all to how much their top engineers will have to be paid when making decisions about the locations of their facilities. They are trying to recruit the best and brightest no matter where they live. One of the reasons they have their top engineers in Portland is that it is an attractive place to live. They can get people from anywhere in the world to transfer here.

    Of course there is no guarantee Portland will continue to be attractive. But planning for that failure will guarantee it.

  40. At any rate, if the US is headed for economic collapse due to massive migration of work overseas (moreso than has been occurring lately), then there are more serious issues to worry about than what goes across the CRC.

  41. Just Saying,

    You know as well as I do that the “reverse commute” argument is a canard. Here’s a little “Where’s Waldo” challenge for you. Next Monday through next Wednesday find and digitally photograph 100 Oregon plated cars parked in employee parking somewhere in Clark County.

    It should be a cinch if as you fantasize thousands of people are clamoring to squeeze into the abundant jobs in 13.8% unemployment Clark County.

  42. Scotty-
    I would like the freaking bridge to be built!

    And yes, there is real potential for the bottom to fall out for a huge proportion of Americans.

    The banks along with their corporate stooges are bent on controlling the world so what if it causes huge suffering to the masses around the world.

  43. “It should be a cinch if as you fantasize thousands of people are clamoring to squeeze into the abundant jobs in 13.8% unemployment Clark County.”

    Your response just reinforces my point. Clark County has no interest in investments to make it more attractive for people from Portland to work there.

    You could have said the same thing of Washington County 30 years ago. Now “reverse commutes” are pretty common and Washington County is a net provider of jobs.

    Its very likely people from North and Northeast Portland will apply for jobs in downtown Vancouver once light rail is extended across the river. It will be a shorter commute than downtown Portland. And employers locating in downtown Vancouver will have a wider selection of employees than they do now. That is going to make it more attractive for business.

  44. Just Saying,

    There is NO BUSINESS in downtown Vancouver. Don’t you understand that? There are the operations centers of a modest local bank, a tiny bank headquartered in the Dalles that can’t get I/T staff to move there, and a medium sized credit union, plus “business banking” branches of three other banks. That is IT!

    There are plenty of un- or under-employed white-collar workers in Clark County to provide services for a downtown Vancouver of three times the current level of employment. Why would the people of north Portland (however you grandly define it) want to come across the river to work for lower wages and pay Oregon income tax for the privilege? They will continue to work in Oregon because they get paid more and will continue to do so.

    That’s because Clark County residents will work for less WITHIN Clark County because we don’t then have to pay that tax ourselves or fight the bridge traffic.

    Vancouver has struggled for years to develop an independent economy, but it has not materialized. In fact, the three of the four once sizable tech employers in town have essentially shut down.

    I really don’t understand why business seems so allergic to Vancouver. Our business taxes are MUCH lower than yours for profitable companies, and even those “losing money” pay B&O taxes only on intrastate sales. Most tech would be interstate.

    Our schools consistently perform much better than do yours, and our housing costs and taxes are lower. But still tech prefers to locate along the Beaverton-Forest Grove axis, so as long as it lasts, it won’t be moving to Vancouver. It has amply proven that.

    Heck, we even started the active outerwear industry in the Portland Metro Region (Jantzen swimwear), but that’s mostly gone, too.

    Anyway, all of your arguments would be well made and well taken were it not for the incontrovertible fact that the region can not afford the CRC as proposed. It must be made smaller, less impactful, and most importantly cheaper.

    The best way to accomplish ALL of those goals is by building a southbound only bridge with a full time HOV lane and a Vancouver to Marine Drive “slip lane”, using the existing spans for another twenty years in a similar five lane disposition and finding out whether the region grew or shrank. In the meantime, toll the southbound bridge to pay for it and to subsidize better transit between Clark County and various Portland-side destinations. This would be similar to the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway, and Transit District.

    I think the Portland Metro area will grow some for the next six or eight years and then begin an irreversible decline as immigration to the sclerotic United States slows and then reverses.

    The talented brown-skinned peoples of the world will go somewhere else because they are so hated by the bitter old white people who control the politics of the country.

    Intel and companies like it will follow them or be overwhelmed by home-grown Chinese or Indian competitors.

  45. Just Saying,

    You know? It really might not be unconstitutional for Oregon to pass a law saying that Oregon employers must employee Oregon residents. It would be unconstitutional for Oregon to pass a law saying that Washington residents cannot work there. That would be interference with interstate trade.

    But the first version might just pass muster as merely a workforce regulation.

    Yes, I realize that they have identical outcomes, but the crafting of legislation matters to the Supreme Court.

  46. The talented brown-skinned peoples of the world will go somewhere else because they are so hated by the bitter old white people who control the politics of the country.

    Just like the talented wheat threshers left after the threshing machine came along, and the talented corn huskers left after the harvesting combine was invented. And that’s not to mentioned talented potato pickers, carrot pluckers, walnut pickers, caneberry pickers, beet pickers, orange pickers. Could be they went to Brazil to make five dollars a day and provide the Eastern US with fresh produce.

    JMHO

  47. Out in the reactionary weeds are we?

    In response to the original commenter, I copy what I posted at Dead Horse Times:

    http://deadhorsetimes.blogspot.com/2010/06/inversion-of-usual-busrail-assumptions.html

    I ride and really appreciate the comfort and speed of the C-Tran 105. I’m happy to pay the extra bucks.

    The trip from Columbia in downtown Vanc to the Portland Transit Mall is 14 minutes in the morning. Yes, it’s longer back in the PM but I don’t really care. The buses are so comfortable; I doze easily. Whenever, if ever, the CRC is expanded, the return to Vanc will be quicker.

    So far, the CRC documents claim C-Tran will not cancel the Express buses once MAX extends to McLoughlin in Vancouver. I hope that’s the case. If my only option becomes the Yellow Line, I’m sure I’ll opt for my car again. There’s no way I’d ride The White Whale to Vanc.

    Why? Too long. Too slow. Too uncomfortable especially standing in the PM.

    Plus, I dread what plowing LRT through downtown Vanc will do for accessibilty in my town. Plopping LRT on an abandoned rail ROW works, I guess, for the Blue, but ramming it through neighborhoods is bad, bad, bad. Most of Interstate has become a dead zone as a neighborhood. The same will happen in parts of SE Portland when Orange is rammed through.

    I wish TM had built a heavy rail network to service the outlying suburbs like all the more advanced systems back east. Can you imagine LRT being used for the Long Island Railroad?!

    Heavy Rail (not just commuter rail) to/from Longview, Forest Grove, Salem, Hood River…..our children will wish.

    I apologize for Anonymous, truly, but I’m on the inside and need to be, need to be anonymous, that is.

  48. Most of Interstate has become a dead zone as a neighborhood.

    Whether or not you would choose to ride light rail from Vancouver to Portland, rather than your current express bus, is of course a your own prerogative and a matter of personal preference.

    But I thoroughly disagree with your characterization of the Interstate Ave. corridor as a “dead zone”.

    I walk nearly the entire corridor on a regular basis, and have done so since before full construction began.

    Since light rail went in, I have seen an increase in pedestrian activity, an increase in street-level businesses, including an increase in businesses with outdoor seating. I’ve seen the enlargement of a major grocery/variety retailer, and the opening of a brand-new grocery retailer.

    There are still assorted vacant storefronts, this cannot be denied, but overall the area has seen an increase in business and streetscape/pedestrian activity.

    Whether this can be directly attributed to the presence of light rail is debatable, but I plainly don’t buy the assertion that things have somehow become a “dead zone”. Tell that to the owners of “Fire on the Mountain”, Fred Meyer, or New Seasons.

  49. I expected the response from someone.

    David, one the owners of New Seasons stated that they bought that land not because of MAX being built but because their research showed an opportunity and need in NOPO.

    Fred’s was already there.

    The one sizeable apartment building was built by TriMet, across from the old firehouse.

    Interstate was “transformed” from a 4-lane boulevard with transit stops every 2 blocks or closer to a 2-lane boulevard with transit stops every 4-5 blocks.

    Go travel on MLK from Broadway to Lombard and you will see WAY more human activity, development and crosswalks with a 4-lane boulevard and transit stops 1-2 blocks.

    The crush loads on the old Line 5 should’ve been replaced with new artics, and new amenities for a fraction of the $360M, or whatever, cost.

  50. If you want to make an argument that there’s more vitality on MLK than Interstate, or that the businesses on Interstate are there for reasons entirely unrelated to light rail, that’s fine. Go for it. But your original characterization of the Interstate corridor was “dead zone”, which it is not.

  51. “I expected the response from someone.”

    Then why did you make a statement that was so clearly untrue?

    “David, one the owners of New Seasons stated that they bought that land not because of MAX being built but because their research showed an opportunity and need in NOPO. ”

    Nonetheless, New Seasons is thriving business on Interstate. As is Fred Meyer. Your claim was that MAX made Interstate a “dead zone”. It didn’t. To the contrary, its had new businesses locate there since MAX was built. Whether because of MAX or despite it.

  52. Out in the reactionary weeds are we?

    Please let’s keep the insinuations of bad character out of this, plus referring to old people as “bitter.” None of you are mind readers.

    Plus, I thought we were getting into a “big conversation” not rehashing the exigencies of the CRC plan.

    For those who don’t know, I have at least some history in working for mass transit and against rampant freeway construction, having been a volunteer for Tom Walsh, before he became GM of Tri-Met. You should be glad (I hope:) that the 1990 Transportation Plan and its checkerboard freeway plan was halted in its tracks.

    However, I don’ take that to signify that there should be a total moratorium on new highway construction or that light rail systems should never be examined in their costs/benefits ratio. I don’t dismiss city buses as a desirable option, nor assume that their current technology will not advance beyond what it currently is. I have nothing against bicyclists, but can’t help but wonder that just as other social trends changed with demographic circumstances, this is another one that will wax and wane.

    My central issue is that I don’t think the population projections for our area are necessarily a desirable thing, even if we are now required by state law to account for them in planning. West Coast cities, including Portland, have even gone through population downturns ( not just slower growth) with no disastrous consequences. I think it is Portland’s slower growth which has allowed it to achieve more successful planning. My impression of Seattle is that it has been much more economically vibrant than us, but I think their planning has suffered. In a nutshell, because we now are depending on highly subsidized transit systems, is this something that should be increased at an even greater rate, because, somehow, a bigger population is considered a bonus? Are we certain that we would even make progress in achieving a workable tranportation structure? Perhaps the population would grow faster than could be successfully managed.

    That is the problem I have seen with the CRC: It is expensive and really doesn’t solve very much, and then would require further–and rather expensive– projects.

    Seattle population peaked in 1960 and did not recover the level until 2000. San Francisco experiences a loss of population beginning in 1986, which did not fully recover until 1993. It also had a significant loss, as did Portland, in the 1979-1985 recession. Were these disasters?

    If Portland’s population grows, as per the projections, the whole state will be impacted. I’m sure that real estate prices will rise nearly everywhere (good for some, bad for others) and that our recreational and resort areas will be impacted. People are not just going to hang around the condo complex all the time.

    One last note to put an international perspective into this. There is no economic or moral imperative to seek to settle a large population from other countries here. I just read about an infrastructure project in the Mazatlan/Durango area of Mexico: A fifty mile highway through the mountains with nearly one hundred bridges and tunnels. 2007 est. cost: $900 million US. What would that cost here?

  53. San Francisco Population had reach a peak in 1950 at 775,000—yet dropped all the way to 679,000 by 1980. Was this a disaster? The BART system began operation in 1972, so the population decline couldn’t have been all bad (and it made a lot of hippies happy with cheaper rents).

  54. San Francisco is part of a larger urban agglomeration, and was (and still is) sufficiently dense that the drop in population didn’t hurt it much.

    It’s when a metro area’s population drops sufficiently much to drive density below a certain level, that a turd-fan collision occurs.

  55. And it was a shame that they built the Cypress Viaduct—which ended up substantially collapsing in 1989. My question, though, is: Is there an intrinsic value in rapid population growth? I don’t see it, I think it triggers more problems, and both Portland and its West Coast neighbors have even gone through periods of central city declining population with no serious damage.

  56. And it was a shame that they built the Cypress Viaduct—which ended up substantially collapsing in 1989.

    A pal of mine died in that mess!

  57. Couple of thoughts on Interstate and the MAX Yellow Line.
    The street took a big hit when I-5 was built, from which it never really recovered. It was a beat up old state highway in 2000 when MAX construction began, good for only driving thru.
    Since then, every station along the route has seen signifcant investment in commercial facilities and to a lesser extent in housing. Some of that is no doubt due to adidas relocation and the relative affordability of the area. Not enough to knock your socks off, but slow and steady with the expected delays from the Great Republican Recession.
    Interstate Avenue is a now a real multi-modal facility and its location about 1/4 mile from I-5 gives it better TOD potential that MAX routes that are along freeways/expressways. But things take time; the Pearl District was the exception, not the rule.
    MAX takes 20 minutes from Expo to Rose Quarter…not bad when you figure that you can count on those times day in and day out. Downtown Vancouver to downtown Portland will be about 30 minutes plus when the bridge gets built…not a lot different from Gresham, Clackamas TC, Beaverton and so on, over 100,000 trips a day. The Yellow Line will be full.
    It is important to note that a majority of commute hour trips over the I-5 bridge are to N and inner NE Portland, not to downtown. Fewer still are to Washington County. The current C-Tran express service offers nothing to all those commuters; an extended Yellow Line MAX will hit the mark for many of them.

  58. Downtown Vancouver to downtown Portland will be about 30 minutes plus when the bridge gets built…

    I know you said “plus”, but I just wanted to augment this comment… It all depends I guess on where you consider the “donwtown” endpoint to be. A popular central location, and one used in many analysis of trip times to downtown, is Pioneer Courthouse (and/or Square).

    The current travel time, according to TriMet’s trip planner, from the Expo Center MAX station to Pioneer Courthouse is 30 minutes. Assuming a hop to Hayden Island adds at least 2 minutes, and to Vancouver at least another 3, the trip time would be 35 minutes. Add a stop further north in Vancouver, and be a bit less generous with the estimates, and we’re pushing 40 minutes.

    Still, for people who want a reliable and frequently-departing ride, and who don’t have to transfer, 40 minutes ain’t so bad. But it is an entirely different service compared to express buses. Both have their place.

  59. “You know what? I doubt Intel pays any attention at all to how much their top engineers will have to be paid when making decisions about the locations of their facilities. They are trying to recruit the best and brightest no matter where they live. One of the reasons they have their top engineers in Portland is that it is an attractive place to live. They can get people from anywhere in the world to transfer here.”

    That might be *one* reason, but it’s not the main reason. Oregon loves what Intel does to the tax base, so Oregon scratches Intel’s back. Intel loves the wholesale electricity prices it can get in Oregon for fabrication plants, so it spends $2B on building development fabs at Ronler Acres, and employing another 2,000 people each. Having a pipeline into the electrical engineering program at Oregon State University isn’t a bad thing either, and they definitely have that too.

    I’m pretty sure that “hey, Portland is kinda nice” is pretty far down the list of reasons to do business here.

  60. I don’t think electric rates have anything to do with bringing engineers from all over the world here to do their new development. And they aren’t getting very many of those engineers from Oregon State. They have fab plants all over the world. The ones out in Hillsboro produce their newest chips for a reason. And it isn’t the tax breaks and cost of electricity.

  61. Tuscaloosa, Alabama or Topeka, Kansas is going to be a tough place to attract young, intelligent people for an Intel operation. I think you’re wrong in your assertions.

    I think Portland being a “cool city” does play into where a business would set up shop, among other things.

    I only wish that we allow for any business to set up a place in the area, without regard for their “sustainability” street-cred or whatever industry we’d envision to have.

    If we subsidize one industry (Silicon Forest), we need to subsidize them all. Fair is fair.

  62. Electric rates–and abundant local water supplies–are very important concerns for semiconductor production.

    And it’s also worth noting that much of what Intel produces may not legally be exported overseas.

  63. I worked on the construction of some of the Intel facilities. Electric rates and plenty of water were mentioned as big concerns.

  64. Uh – I have no doubt that there is more than one reason Intel has plants in Portland. But they also do their primary development of new technology here.

  65. I just read about an infrastructure project in the Mazatlan/Durango area of Mexico: A fifty mile highway through the mountains with nearly one hundred bridges and tunnels. 2007 est. cost: $900 million US. What would that cost here?

    Do we really want to match the construction standards and environmental review process that is used to build a road of Mexico? The bridges I’ve seen down there looked fairly unsubstantial, and even the tolled freeway was nowhere near up to the standards of the Interstate Highway System.

    I guess if we wanted to give up on a lot of safety and environmental standards to build roads cheaper, but is it really worth the savings?

  66. Perhaps there are technical details I’m unaware of, so this is going to sound really naive, but why couldn’t we take all of this CRC money and use it to subsidize cheaper and more frequent Amtrak service between Vancouver and Portland’s downtown areas?

    The infrastructure is already there. It’d be faster and more convenient than the MAX. It would increase bicycling in each downtown core.

    Seems like a no-brainer to me.

  67. How cheap and how frequent? Are you talking about trains running between Union Station and the Vancouver depot every fifteen minutes?

    BNSF probably will have something nasty to say about that–given that they like to run freights–long ones–through the tracks every once in a while. So might numerous Columbia River barge operators, who would find their operations severely hampered were the rail bridge constantly in the “down” position to accomodate rapid transit.

    Heck, WES is limited by P&W freight operations (among other things)–and the P&W is a branch line railroad.

    At any rate–were I were to propose such a thing, and were the track capacity to magically appear (but still require FRA compliance) I would use DMUs similar to WES, which can simply reverse direction at either station and don’t have useless-for-transit features like dining cars; I wouldn’t use loco-hauled Amtrak trains which are designed long-distance travel and can’t run backwards.

  68. Dave H, I think you missed my point. Perhaps you should read or re-read the sentence before your quote of me. I was talking about imperatives.

  69. I wouldn’t use loco-hauled Amtrak trains which are designed long-distance travel and can’t run backwards.

    Notwithstanding the other valid issues you mentioned, I swear I was on a Talgo trip once which was, in fact, running “backwards”.

    But maybe it was just a bad microwave hamburger in the snack bar. :-)

    (And I bet a commuter service which served breakfast sandwiches and coffee, for a charge, of course, could pick up a fair bit of revenue in the morning.)

  70. Even better, have it serve beer in the evening.

    Of course, with commuter rail, chances are the rider’s headed to a park-and-ride for the drive home, so maybe booze isn’t such a good idea after all.

  71. “Uh – I have no doubt that there is more than one reason Intel has plants in Portland. But they also do their primary development of new technology here.”

    I think this has a lot to do with being able to walk across the campus for an engineer to see what’s happening in a fab, rather than spend hours on a plane to do the same thing.

    Intel loses over a million dollars a minute when a development fab is not fabricating parts. That makes for stupendously expensive air travel to get your engineers to where the cheap electricity and water is, if they aren’t there already.

    Also, it’s worth saying that the current Intel Core™ series of processors were actually started with the Pentium-M cores, which were designed in Israel. Intel has many teams in many places competing with each other for designs. Hillsboro is just one of many.

  72. Dave H, I think you missed my point. Perhaps you should read or re-read the sentence before your quote of me. I was talking about imperatives.

    I think the sentence before it was a little bit outside the scope of discussion here. This isn’t a blog about immigration, so I’m keeping things in the realm of discussion that “people are moving to Portland.” Read into that whatever international citizen movement you’d like, but it seems irrelevant.

    You asked what a similar project here, and I rationally posted part of why building a project in the US instead of Mexico is different (and more expensive). That is the point that seems relevant to this blog.

    Please clarify your point if it’s not how cheaply Mexico can build a roadway compared to the US, using different regulatory standards.

  73. On the subject of commuter rail:

    BNSF probably will have something nasty to say about that–given that they like to run freights–long ones–through the tracks every once in a while. So might numerous Columbia River barge operators, who would find their operations severely hampered were the rail bridge constantly in the “down” position to accomodate rapid transit.

    If all the recommendations in the 2003 I-5 Rail Capacity Study wind up being implemented, conflicts with freight trains would hopefully be less of an issue. As for what to do about the frequent bridge lifts? I got nothin’.

    I know whenever a CRC-related topic is raised on this blog a frequent subject of debate is how much commuter traffic originating in Clark Co. is bound for Washington Co. Anyone know if a feasibility study has ever been done on passenger rail connecting the two? DMUs could travel on BNSF tracks across the Willamette, then switch to P&W tracks to follow the Tillamook Branch through Cornelius Pass (unfortunately, the tracks currently extend only about as far as West Union and I don’t know how feasible it would be to rebuild the old ROW all the way to Hillsboro).

  74. Interesting comments. I was thinking of a headway of 30 mins and a price comparable to, but more expensive than the WES.

  75. FYI, Caltrain regularly operates with the locomotive pushing the trains:

    Be aware that Caltrain operates in “push-pull mode.” The locomotive usually pulls southbound trains. However, on northbound trains, the train is “pushed” from behind by the locomotive with a passenger car leading the train. Trains can travel in either direction on either track.

    It might be a Caltrain journey from about 10 years ago that’s clouding my memory about the Talgo. I know I was on “backwards” train somewhere somehow. :-)

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