Playing Devil’s Advocate: What if we wait?


A discussion on the timing of big-ticket capital projects.

As most of you are aware, I’m a supporter of several (although certainly not all) of the upcoming big-ticket transit projects, including one which has drawn immense criticism because of it’s price tag and concerns about how it is being funded–namely the Milwaukie MAX project. I share concerns about things such as bonding future payroll tax revenues and use of urban renewal funds–and given that these things together are less than 10% of the overall project budget, I find it highly unfortunate that more “honest” sources of revenue haven’t been found to pay for the project.

However, I consider the project an important long-term investment. In the short term, the line will offer significant but not earth-shattering performance and reliability gains over 33/McLouglin, which the line will replace north of Milwaukie. (Average trip time will decrease, but not significantly; reliability will improve due to running in an exclusive right-of-way). Capacity will instantly quadruple, assuming trains run at the same headways as the #33 in the corridor, and MAX will certainly attract some riders that won’t ride the bus. (To what extent such passengers should be accommodated is a frequent topic of discussion). Passengers on the 33 south of Milwaukie will be inconvenienced by a transfer; unlike the proposed project across the river, it will be a transfer to a faster service.

But the key long-term issue that justifies the expense, in my opinion, is the likely possibility that we could soon see a day where gasoline becomes far more expensive than it is. There are also the environmental issues to consider. If and when that day comes–and it may come before the line’s scheduled 2015 opening–we may find that we desperately need a high-capacity, high-performance, non-fossil-fuel powered transit line serving SE Portland and northern Clackamas County. And a few other places as well.

But there’s that word: if. What if “if” never occurs? Might it be better to wait until we Really Truly Need the project, than build it “on spec” today?

Why, indeed?

Obviously, I’m playing devil’s advocate with this question. I believe we need it today; that “if” in this case is as close to a sure bet as we are going to get, and that the cost of waiting outweigh the benefits. In addition, the bulk of the funding for the project is conditioned on the project keeping to schedule; were it to be indefinitely postponed, either of the lottery funds from Salem or the federal matching funds from Uncle Sam might vanish. They could be re-appropriated in the future, but given all the politicking needed to plan a project of this magnitude, it could be a very long time before the project is able to re-start. (And if conditions do change in such a way that public demand for transit is greater, there will be much more competition for funds).

Obviously, this is a hypothetical discussion in the context of Milwaukie MAX. The Final EIS has been written, a Decision of Record will soon be registered with the FTA, and construction is scheduled to begin this year. Preliminary work on the new bridge has commenced as you read this. Some of the funding sources may be jeopardized by forthcoming initiatives and politicking, but the proportion of funding which is presently at-risk is very small–a referendum by Clackamas County voters to withdraw the county’s share of funding is unlikely to scuttle the project.

But since we are engaging in a hypothetical, let as assume, for the purposes of this discussion, that the project could be delayed and restarted without consequence, and that doing so might be advantageous. Obviously, there are some out there who consider this project a bad idea at any time, and would vote for “never” as a start date. While I and the other editors here disagree with that opinion, it isn’t an illegitimate one–go ahead and chime in. But my assumption in the discussion is that the project is worthwhile, and ought to be built sooner or later–and which one (sooner vs later) is the subject of debate.

If you prefer, of course, feel free to replace references to “Milwaukie MAX” with references to projects further in the future, where the wheels aren’t already set in motion–many of the arguments considered are not exclusive to MLR.

Macroeconomics 101

One line of argument, with arguments both pro and con, is the effect of the current recession and level of public debt. Many conservatives argue that during a recession (which arguably we’re still in–even if Wall Street is doing fine, we’ve got 10% unemployment still, which is a Big Problem) we need to tighten our belts, and delay discretionary investments in response to a decline in tax revenues. Others argue that we need to increase spending in a recession, to help bring the economy out of it–and point that many (although not all) so-called “deficit hawks” are far less eager to raise taxes (which would penalize the rich) than cut spending (which tends to inflict more pain upon the poor). A response to the Keynesian school of thought is to point out the current humongous budget deficit, and note that whatever the merits of countercyclical spending otherwise, it is inappropriate with the current level of debt. Many liberal economists would respond that the US is a sovereign currency issuer, unlike countries such as Greece or Ireland (whose debt is denominated in a currency they cannot control the supply of), and that inflation is near zero; thus increasing the money supply (aka “printing money”, which the Fed did a bit of last November) is a reasonable option. OTOH, when the Fed did engage in a bit of “quantitative easing” last fall, the bond market was less than happy–creditors to the US don’t like it much if we devalue our debts via inflation, and inflation would be highly detrimental to Americans living on a fixed income–in particular pensioners, whose pensions would be effectively reduced by inflation of the dollar. OTTH, a good argument can be made that sovereign governments ought to be in charge of the financial sector, rather than the other way around.

That’s enough macroeconomics for this post; the high-level debate over the correct fiscal and monetary response(s) to our current situation are covered by writers far more knowledgeable on economics than yours truly. However, I will note that if countercyclical spending is to occur, the money has to come from Washington. Neither John Kitzhaber, Sam Adams, or Neil McFarlane have the authority to engage in deficit-spending other than via limited means such as obligation bonds–local governments cannot print money, and are rather constrained in the sorts of debt they can issue. Right now, the mood in Washington seems to be against such actions–the “stimulus package” of 2009 was politically unpopular–so the money flow is slowing. OTOH, the Milwaukie MAX funding has already been approved, and the project has a very good FTA cost-effectiveness rating, and thus has a good chance of surviving the sharp pencils.

Other factors

Various other factors which could influence the decision include:

  • When will peak oil occur? As noted above, a major justification for the project is the price of gasoline and other fossil fuels. Petroleum is not produced in Oregon; it’s something we have to import. Whether it comes from Alaska or Texas or Venezuela or Saudi Arabia, it nonetheless gets here on a freighter or in a pipeline. As a result, nearly every dollar spent on gasoline is a dollar sent out of the region; the local value-add is pretty small. The price of gas, essentially, is a tax on our economy, and that excludes the taxes that we ourself levy on fuel. It’s a tax which confers no benefit on the region–and in many cases it’s money that winds up in the hand of various unsavory characters. And it’s a particularly regressive tax; millionaires pay the same amount for gas as do minimum wage workers. (OK, rich guys may buy premium for their fancier cars, true…). Every dollar increase in the price of gas represents hundreds of millions of dollars removed from the local economy; a $2 increase in fuel prices would represent an increased “tax” on the region which is comparable in size to TriMet’s annual operating budget, but without paying for a single bus or train. This suggests that should gas start to get expensive again, increased transit capability cannot come too soon.
  • The ability to redeploy highways: The previous item suggests a reason why waiting is bad; here’s one that might weigh in on the side of delay. A major expense of the Milwaukie MAX line (and capital projects in general) is the cost of right-of-way. To be useful, the lines have to be built through existing urban fabric–and generally, there’s already something there along the route. A big chunk of money is going to UPRR (buy me a beer and I’ll tell you what “UP” really stands for) for the ROW between the freight lines and McLoughlin, and another big chunk is going to demolish perfectly good buildings in the SE industrial area. TriMet has long saved money by running in downtown streets, but tearing out a few lanes of McLoughlin (or Barbur or I-5) to make room for tracks (or a busway) is presently out of the question. In a post-Peak Oil world, we may find that the political climate has changed, however, and that converting highways to rail lines is suddenly a practical thing to do, given that nobody wants to drive at $5/gallon. This would be poetic justice, after all, many of our urban highways occupy former railway grades. More than a few transit advocates call for such conversions today–but today, removing highway capacity just ain’t happening. Tomorrow, it might.
  • Construction costs: Another issue to consider is this: Building rail in the US, at the present time, is expensive, far more so than in comparable countries elsewhere in the world, with similar levels of labor cost and environmental regulation. Lots of different reasons why have been suggested (large number of stakeholders each imposing their own requirements, a convoluted approval process with lots of red tape, above-market labor rates, rail being a “specialty” discipline in the construction trades and thus bids subject to far less competitive pressure than projects involving pouring concrete). If a project were delayed, or delay could be credibly threatened, then maybe costs might go down. OTOH, costs could go up as well, especially if a construction boom occurs in the future.
  • Changes in technology: One other issue sometime suggested is that future technological improvements may make our planned choices obsolete (whether rail, busway, or freeway) in the near future. GM and Nissan both now manufacture vehicles capable of full-time electric drive; Toyota and Honda have had hybrids on the market for several years. Some rather exotic technologies (driverless autos, “personal rapid transit”, etc.) are presently the subject of research, although many of these are decades out and would require far more substantial changes in infrastructure to deploy.
  • The population forecast and the long-term economic outlook. One other important point to make is that many infrastructure projects which add capacity, whether road or rail, are based on predictions of future demand as much as on current demand. Current demand is often constrained by existing capacity, and induced demand is a long-demonstrated phenomenon–but projections on future demand are based on long-term projections of population growth, a science which is inexact, to say the least. Population trends are inherently tied in with economic trends (and vice versa) as well as demographics; a region with a robust economy will attract immigrants, and a region with a declining economy will often have people moving away. (Population and the economy are important for financial reasons as well). It is tempting to suggest that “wait and see” is a prudent approach, particularly given the current recession–the concern that “this is the new normal” and there won’t be a substantial recovery for a long time, is a reasonable one. On the other hand, concerns about long term trends represent a level of uncertainty that will always be present, no matter how long one waits–for a project expected to last for decades, there’s often no advantage in delaying for a few years.
  • Organizational issues: Finally, there’s the laundry list of issues specific to TriMet and other agencies involved–concerns about their finances (in particular, agreements with workers past and present) and their organizational competence. Some feel that TriMet has to get its finances in better order prior to spending any money on a project of this magnitude. Others may think that projects of this nature are part of the solution and not the problem–the bulk of funds available for construction are not available for pensions and other expense items, and that longer term, capital projects will help with the operating bottom line.

Thoughts? Any others? As noted above, this post is meant to stimulate a bit more discussion on the merits of big-ticket capital projects, and their timing. If you think that waiting is a reasonable course of action (whether in the context of MLR, another project in the pipe, or in general), feel free to say so–but please include in your missive what conditions ought to be satisfied for the project to proceed. If you think that full speed ahead is the correct course of action, please add your two cents about why delay is unwise and/or arguments for delay are unimportant. (And if you hate the project altogether, go ahead and say that too–though keep in mind that an underlying assumption of this discussion is that the project is ultimately worthwhile).

Happy Chinese New Year!


72 responses to “Playing Devil’s Advocate: What if we wait?”

  1. If this money has to be spent on transportation, and high speed rail is not an allowed option, I’d almost rather see it go to the CRC. It just seems like a better investment for overall system potential, given the aux lanes from to/from N Portland and the MAX extension.

    Even with only aux lanes it’s possible to make traffic smoother. You don’t move any faster, but it’s more fluid which reduces stress and reduces accidents. At least, that’s why I-15/CA-15 through San Diego (between I-8 and I-5) was completed according to CalTrans.

    I love MAX, but the MLR project seems like a way to placate Clackamas County without doing much for overall regional mobility.

  2. I don’t know who in Clackamas County is being “placated” but the few politicians and proponents.
    The citizenry does not want MAX, period.
    Even moreso they do not want new vehicle registration fee and UR schemes to pay for their share of it. Yet is is being forced upon them.

    The fact that the $1.6 (or more) Billion short line is being advanced with the worst financing package in Oregon history means nothing to TriMet.
    They’ve elevated the importance of the project to ride above any and all fatal flaws. Including their own survival.
    Meanwhile they have been contributing to the CRC planning and design that has spent $120 million to produce nothing but a useless design.

    At the same time they are parroting the WES rhetoric in trying to advance the Lake Oswego Sreetcar and Foothills development.

    Development that is in such a two decade funk that a SB322 has surfaced to provide tax abatements to commercial portion of TODs.

    It doesn’t get any crazier.

    We’re at a juncture where irrational is being driven to new levels.

    It’s good to see some of you here recognizing some of it.

  3. Steve S wrote: “I don’t know who in Clackamas County is being “placated” but the few politicians and proponents. The citizenry does not want MAX, period.”

    Please don’t speak for me. I live in Milwaukie and whole-heartedly support this project. It is very rude of you to try and support your own agenda using the voices of people you don’t know, whose opinions and goals you seem to mock

  4. Steve:

    You are absolutely correct. This is another enormous waste of tax money. I too reside in Milwaukie- This is an outrageous boondoggle-one more reason people are simply going to show their contempt for this abuse at the next election.

  5. EngineerScotty: Isn’t the cost of construction tied to some extent to the price of oil? If oil prices skyrocket I’d expect the cost of construction to go right up with it.

    Steve S.: I thought the Clackamas County car registration fees were only meant to fund the rebuilding of the Sellwood Bridge. I can’t find any articles on vehicle fees that mention the Milwaukie MAX line.

  6. We have a freeway network that took years to build at great expense. We need to complete our high capacity transit network, the sooner the better. Bids should be on the low side in the current economy and plenty of people need the work. Kill the CRC and put I-5 and MAX in subways thru the Central City.

  7. jhb,

    I said:

    “I don’t know who in Clackamas County is being “placated” but the few politicians and proponents. The citizenry does not want MAX, period.”

    Please don’t distort what I said. It’s obvious I was not speaking for you. Or for anyone else.

    You may “whole-heartedly support this project” and speak for “the few politicians and proponents” but from every available observation you are in a relatively small minority.

    I have no agenda at all. I do however have the Nov 22 poll of Clackamas County showing 71% of Clackamas County resident do not want Milwaukie Light Rail.
    I also have the County ‘s McLoughlin Area Survey showing the top priority to be Public Safety and a strong preference for better local connectivity with little interest in the regional MLR type transit. I also have the recent TriMet levy results showing Clackamas County voted against it 60-40%.

    So when I write the “citizenry does not want MAX” I am referring a super majority of Clackamas County taxpaying voters as measured by the above polling, survey and vote.

    The county and their “partners” could have easily polled the county themselves or even allowed a vote. They have not. Instead they rely upon you and your minority to advocate the pretense of majority preference for the MAX line.
    Talk about making mockery. I’ll wager you don’t even have a majority in Milwaukie who want MLR. Let alone the whole county. If it were put to a county vote MLR would get clobbered far worse than the recent TriMet levy. Your own City of Milwaukie does not have their $5 million share and will soon be facing an uprising to stop that funding. Last word was they may try and borrow it from TriMet. LOL

    The county is attempting to pay $25 million towards a project the citizenry does not want. Their only source for that $ 25 million is the McLoughlin Area Urban Renewal Plan
    that will go before County wide voters and be defeated.

    As for the vehicle registration fee, with Adams’ intention to shift $20 million from the bridge to MLR the Clackamas 22 million share is accurately seen as funding for MLR. In addition commissioners had mistakenly bragged about keeping & raising the fee to fund more of the Metro/TriMet agenda. That cat is out of the bag and Clackamas County residents, public safety and other entities are not tolerating it.

    Lenny’s proposal amounts to what would be like playing fiscal Russian roulette with a fully loaded debt/spending gun.

    With TriMet now seeking another $20 million from the legislature for MLR their gun is almost fully anyway.

  8. Steve S. wrote: “The citizenry does not want MAX, period.

    I’ll second jhb’s reply: please do not speak for me either. I live in Milwaukie and I too support the Milwaukie MAX. I’ll even be a hypocrite and state every single one of my neighbors support the project as well, even though I’ve only talked to a couple of them about it. The rest of the probably support it too because they have not stopped by to tell me they don’t. The citizenry of Milwaukie demand the MAX, period.

    Back to the Scotty’s discussion: Look at the increasing interest in LRT around the country. The US has about 30 LRT systems in operation, a handful of new systems under construction, and about 40 more systems in various stages of planning. The 50% match is the best deal the TriMet is ever going to get as demands for federal funds far outstrip supply. When and if a new transportation funding bill gets passed it may have even less funding for transit projects. Stalling the Milwaukie MAX in order to wait for a better deal is a financially foolish decision.

  9. As for the vehicle registration fee, with Adams’ intention to shift $20 million from the bridge to MLR the Clackamas 22 million share is accurately seen as funding for MLR.

    Nope, that’s not accurate at all.

    Clackamas County is paying A into the bridge, Multnomah County is paying B into the bridge, Portland is paying C into the bridge, and the State is paying D into the bridge. (“A” happens to be the smallest share, by the way, even though Clackamas County residents use the bridge the most).

    Portland has signaled the intention to identify cost savings and invest its negotiated share of those savings into MLR instead. For example, Portland has eliminated streetcar tracks, overhead wires, and streetcar approach ramps from the project. It’s nearly-pure bridge replacement/upgrade-to-modern-standards project at this point.

    Absolutely none of that constitutes a taking of money from Clackamas County to spend on Milwaukie Light Rail.

    If I’m rebuilding a boat with my neighbor and paying for most of it, and my neighbor uses the boat the most, and then I decide not to spend as much on some optional upgrades and use the money elsewhere, I’m not “taking” anything from my neighbor. In fact, an outside observer might conclude that my neighbor is getting much more for the money than I am. I would get justifiably upset if my neighbor ran around telling people just how much money I was supposedly “taking” from him — which makes it all the more amazing and magnanimous that the boat is getting rebuilt at all… get it?

  10. Steve, care to post the actual questions from that November 22 internal poll conducted by the tea-party-affiliated political action group “Americans for Prosperity”? Since you have it, please share the questions, it may be enlightening.

  11. SteveS:

    Thank you for backing up your assertion with statistics. Something like “71% of the citizenry does not want MAX, according to a recent survey” is a fair and reasonable statement. I stand by my objection to statements such as “The citizenry does not want MAX, period.” which is obviously and intentionally false, as only a single supporter refutes your point.

    Of course, I would argue that a survey of urban and suburban Clackamas County in the vicinity of Milwaukie and Oregon City would show much greater support for the project. In my experience the residents of Milwaukie do generally support the project, although I don’t have a survey to back this up, only my own anecdotal evidence. Not too suprising that Molalla or Government Camp residents would not show the same level of support. Clackamas County is a big diverse place.

  12. EngineerScotty: is the likely possibility that we could soon see a day where gasoline becomes far more expensive than it is.
    JK: This can only occur due to political negligence in the USA. Many people think we have enough oil in the ground to be independent, but off limits due to action by various “green” organizations.

    More importantly, new processes (also opposed by the greens) have vastly expanded our recoverable natural gas. Natural gas can be (and currently is being) used to make petrolium. Sasol has plants around the world making petrolium from both natural gas and coal.

    There will NEVER be a shortage of oil. It is simple economics: as the price rises, consumption decreases and supply increases.

    EngineerScotty: There are also the environmental issues to consider.
    JK: Assuming that this is a claim that electric is better than petroleum: Only if someone can figure out how to make electricity on commericial scale, 24-7 without burning coal or oil. Uranium is the obvious alternative, but again, the greens have put it off limits.

    Further, we have hybrid cars that can run pure electric. These have the potential to cut oil consumption dramatically.

    EngineerScotty: When will peak oil occur?
    JK: NEVER – see above.

    EngineerScotty: The ability to redeploy highways: …In a post-Peak Oil world, we may find that the political climate has changed, however, and that converting highways to rail lines is suddenly a practical thing to do, given that nobody wants to drive at $5/gallon.
    JK: Why would people quit driving when gasolene is still cheaper than in Europe where 78% of motorized personal mileage is by private car? If we look to Europe, we see, even with over $5/gal gas, mass transit has lost 20% of its market share in the last 20 years (1980-2000).

    Based on Euroipean experience, we can expect people to put up with the decreased safety and more cramped smaller cars and to continue driving.

    Further, since transit relies on the taxpayer, not the user, for about 80% of its money, an increase in ridership requires an increase in taxes. Now, tell us what are the odds of a tax increase when our economy is in deep depression because of $5/gas (or higher).

    Already transit costs 2-5 times that of driving a car. The cost of gasolene to make driving as expensive as transit is around $30/gal (assuming that transit’s costs stayed the same, which they wont – they’ll increase). Although such prices will only occur as result of really bad political decisions, if they did occur, there would be little demand for transit because there would be few jobs and people’s main concern would be food. (Shelter may not be a problem, because rent may be impossible to collect since most housing may be in foreclosure to closed, bankrupt banks)

    Unfortunately, this deep depression scenario gets more believable when you realize that the housing bubble, which almost brought down the world financial system, was caused by bad government policies. See http://www.portlandfacts.com/krugmanbubble.htm

    EngineerScotty: Changes in technology: …GM and Nissan both now manufacture vehicles capable of full-time electric drive; Toyota and Honda have had hybrids on the market for several years.
    JK: I would expect that these will use far less energy than transit. Making transit even less desirable. And may even stop the need for imported oil, even under today’s politically limited production.

    As to the future – I see no problems if the government would merely let oil be found, produced and refined and if the government allowed coal and gas to liquid plants to be built.

    Thanks
    JK

  13. EngineerScotty: is the likely possibility that we could soon see a day where gasoline becomes far more expensive than it is.

    JK: This can only occur due to political negligence in the USA. Many people think we have enough oil in the ground to be independent, but off limits due to action by various “green” organizations.

    “Many people” think lots of things which are silly and incorrect, JK. Though “some people” might note that the domestic supplies of oil we DO have are frequently exported elsewhere.

    JK: More importantly, new processes (also opposed by the greens) have vastly expanded our recoverable natural gas. Natural gas can be (and currently is being) used to make petrolium. Sasol has plants around the world making petrolium from both natural gas and coal.

    Producing oil from natural gas is a rather inefficient and inexpensive thing to do. It makes sense if you find yourself in the predicament that Germany did in WWII–a war machine that runs on petroleum products, but suddenly deprived of a supply of such–but for a civilian economy, not so much. Besides, burning CNG directly is far cleaner than converting it to more complex (and dirtier) hydrocarbons. Of course, CNG won’t work in the tanks of most of the vehicle fleet, but it does work in vehicles so designed.

    JK: There will NEVER be a shortage of oil. It is simple economics: as the price rises, consumption decreases and supply increases.

    What do you think “Peak Oil” means, anyway–that society turns into a Mad Max movie as civilization collapses due to an abrupt and complete withdrawal of petroleum? No. It means precisely what you describe–cheap-to-produce supplies go down, prices rise, and consumption decreases. Such may cause a countervailing increase in production (as wells which are not profitable at current prices come back online at higher prices), and other processes become likewise economical, but the equilibrium price point at which this becomes possible is a lot higher than $3/gallon for gas.

    EngineerScotty: There are also the environmental issues to consider.
    JK: Assuming that this is a claim that electric is better than petroleum: Only if someone can figure out how to make electricity on commericial scale, 24-7 without burning coal or oil. Uranium is the obvious alternative, but again, the greens have put it off limits.

    I’ve nothing against well-run nuclear power, and that may indeed be the best answer long-term. But even if electricity is produced by burning fossil fuels, one big powerplant with modern industrial-grade emission control systems is a heck of a lot better for the environment than tens of thousand of variable-speed, variable-load motors driving around, with only a catalytic converter to limit the pollutants pouring out the tailpipe. There’s the equity issue of whether folks in Boardman (or wherever) ought to be breathing fumes which come from generating power for Portland, but turbines powered by dead dinosaurs are far preferable than internal combustion engines, for a variety of reasons.

    Further, we have hybrid cars that can run pure electric. These have the potential to cut oil consumption dramatically.

    Which I consider to be a good thing. Of course, electric cars only address two of the four main concerns about large-scale driving (energy and pollution); they don’t address the other two much (traffic and parking).

    EngineerScotty: When will peak oil occur?
    JK: NEVER – see above.

    Optimistic projections say about 2020, less optimistic projections say it’s happened already. See here.

    EngineerScotty: The ability to redeploy highways: …In a post-Peak Oil world, we may find that the political climate has changed, however, and that converting highways to rail lines is suddenly a practical thing to do, given that nobody wants to drive at $5/gallon.
    JK: Why would people quit driving when gasolene is still cheaper than in Europe where 78% of motorized personal mileage is by private car? If we look to Europe, we see, even with over $5/gal gas, mass transit has lost 20% of its market share in the last 20 years (1980-2000). Based on Euroipean experience, we can expect people to put up with the decreased safety and more cramped smaller cars and to continue driving.

    But the transit share there is far higher than here; so we can also expect it to rise here in response to rising gas prices. We observed that already in 2007. I’m not predicting that cars will be abandoned en masse, though at sufficiently high price points for gas, that might occur as well. I’m predicting a gradual shift from cars to transit–and, as you note, from big SUVs and pickups to smaller cars; something which also has already occurred several times within the past four decades. Oil shock = more people buying econoboxes.

    Further, since transit relies on the taxpayer, not the user, for about 80% of its money, an increase in ridership requires an increase in taxes. Now, tell us what are the odds of a tax increase when our economy is in deep depression because of $5/gas (or higher).

    Increases in ridership only require increases in taxes when increases in capacity are needed. The marginal public cost of an additional rider on transit is negative–a fare-paying rider who fills an existing empty seat generates revenue for the transit agency. Transit subsidies are presently high, I will agree, but that’s due to the large number of mostly-empty social service routes (as well as things like LIFT, which costs TriMet a TON of money). When busses and trains run full much of the time, transit becomes far less of a drain on public coffers.

    Already transit costs 2-5 times that of driving a car. The cost of gasoline to make driving as expensive as transit is around $30/gal (assuming that transit’s costs stayed the same, which they wont – they’ll increase).

    Only if you use the fuzziest of math.

    Although such prices will only occur as result of really bad political decisions, if they did occur, there would be little demand for transit because there would be few jobs and people’s main concern would be food. (Shelter may not be a problem, because rent may be impossible to collect since most housing may be in foreclosure to closed, bankrupt banks)

    Finally, something I agree with–$30/gallon gas would be a major economic buzzkill. Even current gas prices have drawn complaints from our esteemed Fed chairman.

    But it sounds like you’re trying to make my arguments for me.

    Unfortunately, this deep depression scenario gets more believable when you realize that the housing bubble, which almost brought down the world financial system, was caused by bad government policies. See http://www.portlandfacts.com/krugmanbubble.htm

    While Krugman’s point that strong zoning laws may have exacerbated the housing markets in some cities, including here, the correlation is fairly weak (significant collapses occurred in cities such as Phoenix and Las Vegas, with weak land-use laws). But the idea that zoning is responsible for the larger near-collapse of the financial system is BS–that was caused by widespread fraud in the financial markets themselves.

    EngineerScotty: Changes in technology: …GM and Nissan both now manufacture vehicles capable of full-time electric drive; Toyota and Honda have had hybrids on the market for several years.
    JK: I would expect that these will use far less energy than transit. Making transit even less desirable. And may even stop the need for imported oil, even under today’s politically limited production.

    They’re more efficient, certainly, than your typical gasoline-powered car. But the “transit is inefficient” meme is only close to accurate if you assume large numbers of social-service routes. A bus or trains full of passengers will be more energy efficient than any small car you can think of; the improving drive technologies found in cars can also be deployed in busses as well. And if you hook your vehicle up to overhead catenary, and no longer need to haul around a battery or fuel, then the efficiency goes up even more.

    JK: As to the future – I see no problems if the government would merely let oil be found, produced and refined and if the government allowed coal and gas to liquid plants to be built.

    The government DOES let oil be found, produced, and refined, last I checked. They restrict production in environmentally sensitive areas, such as deepwater drills–but as we discovered last summer, there’s a very good reason for that. The fact that oil companies WANT to drill in 5000′ deep water is an indication of the problem: there isn’t any more (cheap) oil in reservoirs accessible from shallower depths or onshore. That phenomenon, when replicated worldwide, is what is meant by the phrase “peak oil”.

    But it’s nice of you to prove my point.

    Thanks
    JK

    You’re welcome.

  14. The debate over “peak oil”, such that is is, only centers around whether it’s happening right now, or in a few decades, and that’s a debate about world-wide production. Peak oil for US-production already happened years ago.

    Regarding nuclear power, it seems that “greens” and “enviros” are always the target of derision about nuclear. However, large-scale nuclear power as we know it (until better, cleaner, safer technologies are commercially perfected) would not exist at all without massive government subsidy.

    The fact is, no private insurer is willing to assume (or capable of assuming) the massive liability which would be incurred should a large-scale nuclear release/accident occur. It would bankrupt any nuclear operator and its insurer.

    The risk of that happening is very low (Western power-generation reactor designs, as opposed to weapons fuel generation designs, are substantially safer than say, Chernobyl), but it is still a finite and significant enough risk that no nongovernmental entity can touch it.

    Before someone dismisses me as some kind of anti-nuke greenie, please do keep in mind I’m the son of a radiation safety specialist and I’ve personally operated, on multiple occasions, a research nuclear reactor here in the Portland area.

    Which brings us back to the idea that widespread electric car use is bad because much electricity comes from coal. Well, there are conflicting studies on that, and it’s far easier to regulate and clean up a few hundred coal plants (the resistance of the Tea Party-funding Koch billionaire family duly noted) than it is to effectively maintain hundreds of millions of tailpipes burning dirty hydrocarbon fuels.

  15. If Ford can crank 65 mpg out out of their 1.6 diesel Fiesta—-they should also be able to combine it with their hybrid electric drive system. At that fuel consumption level a 50-50 biodiesel fuel blend becomes agriculturally feasible. And a diesel powered car that gets 90 mpg would certainly emit far less particulates than your old 15 mpg 1980’s GM diesel.

    Or perhaps that engine design could run on natural gas, cutting the emissions in half from their already low level. From what I am told we have enough verified natural gas right now in the US to meet our needs for the next century.Then there are other high efficiency ICE designs, like the Scuderi-cycle or various rotary designs.

    I was just thinking that an interesting component of a PHEV would be dedicated, natural gas powered generator at your home to recharge the batteries.

    The problem is getting the EPA to allow such engines to be sold in the US, with their ppm standards for hydrocarbons. If they would at least allow an exception for high mpg engines I think we would see a lot more of them on the market.

    Peak oil is not necessarily imminent. It may depend upon standards imposed by federal regulation as much as anything else. Plus there seems to be a general social movement away from a high energy consuming lifestyle.

  16. Delay…forever. Use express buses on 99E to get the folks—and you can even extend them to Oregon City with a minimal amount of fuss.

    I don’t care if the city loses people as long as they have a job somewhere. There’s no magic number of population level, Norway with only five million people has consistently the highest standrd of living in the world. ( Of course, they do have North Sea Oil and high inflation, to boot) In the late 60’s—early 70’s many west coast cities had dramatic population declines. We survived that.

  17. Peak oil is not necessarily imminent. It may depend upon standards imposed by federal regulation as much as anything else.

    It depends on a lot of things, including many things outside the control of the United States. (Chinese demand for energy, mideast politics, and so forth). And perhaps modification of pollution standards for engines is in order–if emissions standards aren’t weighted for mileage, they probably should be.

    Plus there seems to be a general social movement away from a high energy consuming lifestyle.

    Yes indeed–and building transit infrastructure helps accommodate that need.

  18. I predict the CRC project will be put ‘on hold’ for at least two years because the current design fails the sniff test. The CRC commission proposal Concept#1 Off-Island Access, combined with the Southbound-only bridge plus the light rail from a few years back deserves an honest public hearing for reconsideration. These two proposals (only now able to be considered together) justifies reducing capacity from 6-lanes to 4-lanes because the merge problem at Hayden Island is stunningly eliminated.

    How is that WarshDOT worries about Pearson Airfield and air space for landing and takeoff, but raises the height of the bridge 25′ to locate light rail and a ped/bike pathway on lower decks?

    Milwaukie MAX has so much in its favor, I can’t see how any delay makes sense. The monies that will NOT go to the current CRC design will be directed to Milwaukie MAX.

  19. EngineerScotty Says: Producing oil from natural gas is a rather inefficient and inexpensive thing to do.
    JK: Sasol is doing it today, presumably at a profit!

    EngineerScotty Says: Of course, CNG won’t work in the tanks of most of the vehicle fleet, but it does work in vehicles so designed.
    JK: Hence the reason to convert to gasolene, or perhaps just octane.

    EngineerScotty Says: What do you think “Peak Oil” means, anyway–that society turns into a Mad Max movie as civilization collapses due to an abrupt and complete withdrawal of petroleum?
    JK: A lot of people do! Ask Rex Burkholder – last time I talked to him, he thought oil production would come to a halt in a few years. I have debated others with the same viewpoint.

    EngineerScotty Says: No. It means precisely what you describe–cheap-to-produce supplies go down, prices rise, and consumption decreases.
    JK: Why would that be a problem. Just get more efficient cars and drive more! Europe lives with gas well above $5 and so can we. Especially with hybrids.

    EngineerScotty Says: I’ve nothing against well-run nuclear power, and that may indeed be the best answer long-term.
    JK: Please help spread the word!!

    EngineerScotty Says: But even if electricity is produced by burning fossil fuels, one big powerplant with modern industrial-grade emission control systems is a heck of a lot better for the environment than tens of thousand of variable-speed, variable-load motors driving around, with only a catalytic converter to limit the pollutants pouring out the tailpipe.
    JK: Of course cars DO NOT put out mercury, Thorium or Uranium into the air as coal powered electric transport does.

    EngineerScotty Says: … but turbines powered by dead dinosaurs are far preferable than internal combustion engines, for a variety of reasons.
    JK: Oil is not used to produce utility scale electricity to any extent. And the oil from dinosaurs idea has been pretty much debumked.

    EngineerScotty Says: they don’t address the other two much (traffic and parking).
    JK: Neither are real problems – just side effects of density, another wrong headed government mandate around here. Also remember the tradeoffs – do we put up with parking and congestion problems to avoid wasting 50% of our commute time on transit? And paying 2-5 times as much for our transportation? And using more energy on transit(compared to smaller cars and the new federal mandates)?

    EngineerScotty Says: But the transit share there is far higher than here; so we can also expect it to rise here in response to rising gas prices.
    JK: WHAT!! Transit share in EU-15 is rapidly declining – down 25% in 20 years. They are switching to cars as fast as they can afford one, just like we did years earlier. See
    portlandfacts.com/transit/eurotranistshareloss.htm

    EngineerScotty Says: We observed that already in 2007.
    JK: Not really, we observed a small increase in transit usage which was a severe hardship on transit because their fuel price also went up!

    The real change was to less driving, not to transit.

    EngineerScotty Says: I’m not predicting that cars will be abandoned en masse, though at sufficiently high price points for gas, that might occur as well. I’m predicting a gradual shift from cars to transit
    JK: You are dreaming that a, OVER 100 YEAR TREND will be reversed. see publicpurpose.com/ut-usptshare45.pdf

    EngineerScotty Says: Oil shock = more people buying econoboxes.
    JK: And that is why people will NOT quit driving .

    EngineerScotty Says: When busses and trains run full much of the time, transit becomes far less of a drain on public coffers.
    JK: Can’t happen enough to make a difference. Even big dense cities like NYC, Chicago, NYC have very spendy transit. See portlandfacts.com/top10bus.html

    EngineerScotty Says:(Quoting JK) Already transit costs 2-5 times that of driving a car. The cost of gasoline to make driving as expensive as transit is around $30/gal (assuming that transit’s costs stayed the same, which they wont – they’ll increase).

    Only if you use the fuzziest of math.
    JK: Please tell us what is wrong with the math I posted on the February open thread near the top? Or at: portlandfacts.com/aaa_cost.html

    EngineerScotty Says: Finally, something I agree with–$30/gallon gas would be a major economic buzzkill. Even current gas prices have drawn complaints from our esteemed Fed chairman. … But it sounds like you’re trying to make my arguments for me.
    JK: Making your argument?? Your argument is that people will go to transit. My argument is that history shows that they don’t.

    EngineerScotty Says: While Krugman’s point that strong zoning laws may have exacerbated the housing markets in some cities, including here, the correlation is fairly weak (significant collapses occurred in cities such as Phoenix and Las Vegas, with weak land-use laws).
    JK: It is not always silly land use laws that created the shortage, just usually. In the case of Vegas, I was told that it was that most land was Federal and they stopped selling it.

    EngineerScotty Says: But the idea that zoning is responsible for the larger near-collapse of the financial system is BS–that was caused by widespread fraud in the financial markets themselves.
    JK: Sorry, the root cause was the bubble. The fact is , as Krugman says, without land use restrictions NO BUBBLE is possible, because the free market can readily supply ANY natural level of demand. Only after the bubble forms, does fraud become an issue. The fact is that Metro style land use planning almost brought down the entire world economy.

    EngineerScotty Says: But the “transit is inefficient” meme is only close to accurate if you assume large numbers of social-service routes.
    JK: But they are a necessary part of mass transit. Especially a government run one. Try cutting more routes and see how far you get?

    EngineerScotty Says: A bus or trains full of passengers will be more energy efficient than any small car you can think of;
    JK: Explain how one fills ALL busses or trains and still provides enough off hour service and outlying area service to attract riders? Or are you going to say all we need to do is re-order society into high density ghettos to overcome the inherent shortcomings of transit? AND all of use have the same working hours and NO service in the mid-day or evening. BTW, the higher loads in the big dense cities doesn’t save much money or energy (just a little).

    EngineerScotty Says: the improving drive technologies found in cars can also be deployed in busses as well.
    JK: Last I heard hybrid buses aren’t saving much energy.

    EngineerScotty Says: And if you hook your vehicle up to overhead catenary, and no longer need to haul around a battery or fuel, then the efficiency goes up even more.
    JK: You still have the low load factor problem. And all the stop-starts. And the added expense. How much money are you willing to waste to save a little energy?

    EngineerScotty Says: The government DOES let oil be found, produced, and refined, last I checked. They restrict production in environmentally sensitive areas, such as deepwater drills..
    JK: They went to deep water because the government wouldn’t let then extract oil from easier/safer areas.

    EngineerScotty Says: But it’s nice of you to prove my point.
    JK: NO WAY!

    Thanks
    JK

  20. Great post! As a side note and personal request, is it possible to refrain from “OTOH” and “OTTH” and other acronyms of this sort? For me it hampers readability and the pool of readers wanting to keep reading about this important issue.

  21. Yes indeed–and building transit infrastructure helps accommodate that need.

    I’m not sure what we need to build—-since we already have most of it. Last time I checked, construction projects take a huge amount of energy.

  22. EngineerScotty Says: Producing oil from natural gas is a rather inefficient and inexpensive thing to do.

    JK: Sasol is doing it today, presumably at a profit!

    Here’s an article on Sasol on their business model. If the spread between oil and gas is sufficient, which may be the case going forward, then GTL (gas-to-liquid) may indeed be a cost-effective means of producing liquid fuels. However, the GTL process pollutes quite a bit, and it would take dozens of GTL plants to come close to approaching the current fuel needs of modern society.

    EngineerScotty Says: Of course, CNG won’t work in the tanks of most of the vehicle fleet, but it does work in vehicles so designed.
    JK: Hence the reason to convert to gasolene, or perhaps just octane.

    Or develop more CNG infrastructure.

    EngineerScotty Says: What do you think “Peak Oil” means, anyway–that society turns into a Mad Max movie as civilization collapses due to an abrupt and complete withdrawal of petroleum?
    JK: A lot of people do! Ask Rex Burkholder – last time I talked to him, he thought oil production would come to a halt in a few years. I have debated others with the same viewpoint.

    Well, Rex isn’t here–I’ll let him speak for himself. But just because Rex allegedly believes something silly, doesn’t make it unsilly.

    EngineerScotty Says: No. It means precisely what you describe–cheap-to-produce supplies go down, prices rise, and consumption decreases.
    JK: Why would that be a problem. Just get more efficient cars and drive more! Europe lives with gas well above $5 and so can we. Especially with hybrids.

    And with lots of transit. If you want to make us more like Europe in terms of land use and energy policy, I’d be happy to join you in that endeavor. Welcome aboard, comrade. :)

    EngineerScotty Says: I’ve nothing against well-run nuclear power, and that may indeed be the best answer long-term.
    JK: Please help spread the word!!

    EngineerScotty Says: But even if electricity is produced by burning fossil fuels, one big powerplant with modern industrial-grade emission control systems is a heck of a lot better for the environment than tens of thousand of variable-speed, variable-load motors driving around, with only a catalytic converter to limit the pollutants pouring out the tailpipe.
    JK: Of course cars DO NOT put out mercury, Thorium or Uranium into the air as coal powered electric transport does.

    They have their own stew of nasty pollutants. I suppose we could go back to coal-fired steam engines if you like, though. :)

    EngineerScotty Says: … but turbines powered by dead dinosaurs are far preferable than internal combustion engines, for a variety of reasons.
    JK: Oil is not used to produce utility scale electricity to any extent. And the oil from dinosaurs idea has been pretty much debumked.

    I’m being a bit tongue-in-cheek here.

    EngineerScotty Says: they don’t address the other two much (traffic and parking).
    JK: Neither are real problems – just side effects of density, another wrong headed government mandate around here. Also remember the tradeoffs – do we put up with parking and congestion problems to avoid wasting 50% of our commute time on transit? And paying 2-5 times as much for our transportation? And using more energy on transit(compared to smaller cars and the new federal mandates)?

    What you’ve just said is “we can solve problems with parking by dedicating more space to parking”, which is what we do now and what causes all the trouble in the first place. But the congestion problems found in large cities are generally caused by suburbanites trying to get in or out at the same time, not by the residents thereof.

    EngineerScotty Says: But the transit share there is far higher than here; so we can also expect it to rise here in response to rising gas prices.
    JK: WHAT!! Transit share in EU-15 is rapidly declining – down 25% in 20 years. They are switching to cars as fast as they can afford one, just like we did years earlier. See
    portlandfacts.com/transit/eurotranistshareloss.htm

    I said it’s higher than here, and quality transit is readily available. You seem to think that I have a goal of outlawing the automobile or something…

    EngineerScotty Says: We observed that already in 2007.
    JK: Not really, we observed a small increase in transit usage which was a severe hardship on transit because their fuel price also went up! The real change was to less driving, not to transit.

    I’m more than OK with “less driving”. While the increase in fuel prices was an unplanned for expense by TriMet (and their speculation in the petro market was a Dumb Thing To Do); in the long term the agency would benefit from a combination of higher energy prices but more customers. TriMet’s biggest expense is labor, not fuel.

    EngineerScotty Says: I’m not predicting that cars will be abandoned en masse, though at sufficiently high price points for gas, that might occur as well. I’m predicting a gradual shift from cars to transit
    JK: You are dreaming that a, OVER 100 YEAR TREND will be reversed. see publicpurpose.com/ut-usptshare45.pdf

    What matters is not the age of the trend, but the factors which drive the trend. Many factors not present 100 years ago are now present.

    EngineerScotty Says: Oil shock = more people buying econoboxes.
    JK: And that is why people will NOT quit driving .

    Some will. Some won’t. We don’t need 100% abandonment of driving to justify alternatives.

    EngineerScotty Says: When busses and trains run full much of the time, transit becomes far less of a drain on public coffers.
    JK: Can’t happen enough to make a difference. Even big dense cities like NYC, Chicago, NYC have very spendy transit. See portlandfacts.com/top10bus.html

    NYC runs its subways 24/7; Chicago is simply corrupt as hell, and NYC was listed twice. :) OTOH, Hong Kong has privately run transit ops which actually make money.

    EngineerScotty Says:(Quoting JK) Already transit costs 2-5 times that of driving a car. The cost of gasoline to make driving as expensive as transit is around $30/gal (assuming that transit’s costs stayed the same, which they wont – they’ll increase).

    Only if you use the fuzziest of math.
    JK: Please tell us what is wrong with the math I posted on the February open thread near the top? Or at: portlandfacts.com/aaa_cost.html

    The problem is that you’re a) conflating public costs with user costs; and b) ignoring the marginal costs, as indicated above. Just because TriMet spends $400 million a year in ops expense (some of it recovered at the farebox) to provide 100 million trips, doesn’t mean each additional rider costs the agency another $4.

    EngineerScotty Says: Finally, something I agree with–$30/gallon gas would be a major economic buzzkill. Even current gas prices have drawn complaints from our esteemed Fed chairman. … But it sounds like you’re trying to make my arguments for me.
    JK: Making your argument?? Your argument is that people will go to transit. My argument is that history shows that they don’t.

    Ignoring the current recession–Portland’s transit ridership has skyrocketed in the past twenty five years.

    EngineerScotty Says: While Krugman’s point that strong zoning laws may have exacerbated the housing markets in some cities, including here, the correlation is fairly weak (significant collapses occurred in cities such as Phoenix and Las Vegas, with weak land-use laws).

    JK: It is not always silly land use laws that created the shortage, just usually. In the case of Vegas, I was told that it was that most land was Federal and they stopped selling it.

    You were told? By whom? Should Uncle Sam have an obligation to sell public lands to developers?

    EngineerScotty Says: But the idea that zoning is responsible for the larger near-collapse of the financial system is BS–that was caused by widespread fraud in the financial markets themselves.
    JK: Sorry, the root cause was the bubble. The fact is , as Krugman says, without land use restrictions NO BUBBLE is possible, because the free market can readily supply ANY natural level of demand. Only after the bubble forms, does fraud become an issue. The fact is that Metro style land use planning almost brought down the entire world economy.

    Oh, please. Bubbles happen in all sorts of markets, many without regulations such as land-use laws. Bubbles only require an environment of rising prices, prompting speculative investing in the hopes of selling at even higher prices, until the prices get too expensive, and everything crashes. Restrictions on supply can exacerbate bubbles, but there’s little evidence that the UGB was causing houses to not be built–the effect of our UGB is that they were being built on smaller lots. But construction crews were busy building as fast as they could until the bubble burst–the notion that there was a ceiling on the supply of housing in Portland was simply nonsense.

    EngineerScotty Says: But the “transit is inefficient” meme is only close to accurate if you assume large numbers of social-service routes.
    JK: But they are a necessary part of mass transit. Especially a government run one. Try cutting more routes and see how far you get?

    Not if the system is fully built out.

    EngineerScotty Says: A bus or trains full of passengers will be more energy efficient than any small car you can think of;
    JK: Explain how one fills ALL busses or trains and still provides enough off hour service and outlying area service to attract riders? Or are you going to say all we need to do is re-order society into high density ghettos to overcome the inherent shortcomings of transit? AND all of use have the same working hours and NO service in the mid-day or evening. BTW, the higher loads in the big dense cities doesn’t save much money or energy (just a little).

    You don’t have to have full trains everywhere 24/7. You just need enough to compensate for the empty trains late at night.

    EngineerScotty Says: the improving drive technologies found in cars can also be deployed in busses as well.
    JK: Last I heard hybrid buses aren’t saving much energy.

    They do save energy; the debate centers on whether the reduction in fuel costs justifies the additional capital cost. But the larger the vehicle, the more benefit one can get from hybrid operation–this is why all modern train locomotives are diesel-electric, not direct-drive diesel. (As an aside, it was rather dumb of WES to use direct-drive rather than DE in their DMUs, if you ask me…)

    EngineerScotty Says: And if you hook your vehicle up to overhead catenary, and no longer need to haul around a battery or fuel, then the efficiency goes up even more.
    JK: You still have the low load factor problem. And all the stop-starts. And the added expense. How much money are you willing to waste to save a little energy?

    As if cars don’t start and stop numerous times on trips?

    EngineerScotty Says: The government DOES let oil be found, produced, and refined, last I checked. They restrict production in environmentally sensitive areas, such as deepwater drills..
    JK: They went to deep water because the government wouldn’t let then extract oil from easier/safer areas.

    In many cases, it’s because the oil in the easier/safer areas is already gone. (More accurately–the well is no longer profitable at current prices, and gets capped). Certainly, there are oil-producing areas off limits due to environmental reasons, but in many cases there’s good reason for that.

    EngineerScotty Says: But it’s nice of you to prove my point.
    JK: NO WAY!

    Way! :)

    Thanks
    JK

  23. JK:

    There’s plenty of leasable land/sea area for oil companies that they have not tapped into yet that’s waiting for drilling.

    It’s more of a political issue with oil companies because the more land area they have available and proven to produce oil, the better their stocks are.

    That’s my notion of the situation, at least.

  24. Vinny,

    Read my comments again. I wasn’t speaking for anyone and I fully acknowledged there are some MLR supporters in Milwaukie.

    Even with “every single one of your neighbors supporting the project” I’ll wager more Milwaukie resident are opposed to it.

    How can you speak for Milwaukie and say “The citizenry of Milwaukie demand the MAX, period”?

    I was citing a poll, survey and the TriMet vote in stating the citizenry of Clackamas County opposes MLR.

    TriMet doesn’t even really have a 50% match. The local match is so ginned up and unfunded the fed 50% match is unreal.

    Stalling the Milwaukie MAX would be in order to prevent the worst project in State history. Many times worse than WES.

    TriMet has taken “financially foolish decision” to near criminal levels.

    Wells,

    “Milwaukie MAX has so much in its favor, I can’t see how any delay makes sense”
    There is nothing but the usual hyped concepts and theories that favor MLR. The cost, financing and widepsread detrimental impacts are horrific.

    JHB,
    I know some of your Milwaukie neighbors and they know many more who are all livid at this project being forced upon the city and county.

    The 71% of the Clackamas County citizenry who do not want MAX is a sufficient majority to say “The citizenry does not want MAX, period.”

    Just as any moderately or heavily tilted election is often cast as what the citizenry wants.

    I don’t know what your speculative argument that a different survey would show much greater support is supposed represent.

    Is that suppose to neutralize the county poll, MAP survey and TriMet vote?

    Again, I’d wager you are in the minority even in Milwaukie. And why is it you want it anyway?

    Maybe you can provide an example of the existing stations and improvements in the region you want duplicated in Milwaukie?

    Bob,

    That bridge ABC/boat doodle you went through was a hoot.

    The claim of Clackamas County residents using the bridge the most is also wrong but irrelevant.
    http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2010/03/city_club_transportation_repor.html

    The Adams shift demonstrates that Portland has the Clackamas Sellwood Bridge share but chooses to spend it on MLR instead.
    And in the context of the rest of the shell games, ponzi schemes and shenanigans it’s offensive to Clackamas County residents.

    Then there’s the Portland bridge design that is as screwed up as the CRC. It has a ridiculously disproportionate mode surface and Adam’s savings are probably from carving up traffic flow at the west end.

    Can you tell me why the bridge needs TWO -12 foot pedestrian only sidewalks? One on each side of the lanes.
    How many people will ever be on the bridge at the same time? 50? The need 24 feet in width all the way across?
    Was there a phony pedestrian travel forecast by Metro showing that needed capacity? Or is it just nuts?

  25. Bob wanted the poll.

    He called it an “internal poll conducted by the tea-party-affiliated political action group “Americans for Prosperity”.

    Boy that sure sounds suspicious.

    It was commissioned by AFP but conducted by the profession polling company Action Solutions.

    The poll involved straight up questions.

    This was a telephone poll, conducted November 22. We called people in the same ratios as voter registration figures in Clackamas County. We reached 1150 people.

    Here are the questions we asked and the responses:

    1.Do you support Clackamas County paying $22 million to help replace the Sellwood Bridge in Multnomah County? YES: 24 % NO: 76 %

    2.Do you support the county commissioners’ proposed ‘new’ Vehicle Registration Fee on all vehicles within Clackamas County? YES: 16 % NO: 84 %

    3.Do you support Milwaukie light rail and it’s funding? YES: 29 % NO 71 %

    The party break down

    Ds 585

    Rs 451

    Us 189

    Too bad the county didn’t conduct their own poll. Or did they and didn’t like the results?

    Of course a public vote will be the ultimate poll.

  26. Steve, the Oregonian article you provided does not help your case much. Here’s an excerpt from that article:

    When county officials informed Iaccarino of the error, he looked into it, and the committee that prepared the report agreed to change the wording in the report to say that Portland and Multnomah County residents would pay 10 times as much to replace the bridge, even though Clackamas County accounts for almost as many trips. (Emphasis added)

    “Fortunately, although our own numbers were incorrect in this instance, our larger point still stands,” Iaccarno said. (Emphasis added)

    So, the very best we can say with your Americans for Prosperity poll and the Oregonian article, is that Clackamas County residents don’t even want the county to pay for 1/10th of the Sellwood Bridge even though they use it about as much as Portland & Multnomah County residents do. Meanwhile, you’re complaining that Portland is looking for cost savings in the bridge in order to contribute slightly less than 10X what Clackamas County is contributing.

    As for that poll:

    3.Do you support Milwaukie light rail and it’s funding? YES: 29 % NO 71 %

    A typical push-poll: Ask two questions first about fees (and one which clearly is designed to pit county against county), and then ask the light rail question at the end, and not as a stand-alone question but one which is combined with funding.

    It’s not sloppy methodology — it’s politically-targeted methodology.

    And it’s not surprising. Action Solutions is a conservative get-out-the-vote and push-poll outfit. That’s not a slam on them, it’s their job. From their own web site:

    Our specialty is identifying Democrats and Unaffiliated voters who lean conservative on key issues.

    President Jeff Kubler has worked on initiative campaigns, led a county Republican party as ChairVice President Lee Vasche was the President of Oregon College Republicans and helped grow it from 3 college clubs to 15 by the time he graduated. Lee has also been an active Republican volunteer, Precinct Committee person, and is currently the head of the Marion County American’s For Prosperity. (Emphasis added)

    So it’s a political, internal poll for Americans For Prosperity, just like I said. It’s not a slam on the backers or the respondents, I’m just pointing out that the results are going to be skewed to a particular viewpoint.

    I see that the client list also includes the Dallas Tea Party, FreedomWorks, the Art “Radioactive Waste is Good for You” Robinson campaign (I think I’m safe mentioning him since he’s not running for anything anymore), and the anti-gay advocacy group Family Policy Institute of Washington.

    So, yeah, you guessed it, I’m not convinced by that poll.

    [Comment edited to not refer to FPIW as a hate group, as they are not officially on the SPLC designated hate group list. – Bob R.]

  27. Looks like light rail is more popular than the Sellwood Bridge in Clackamas County. But really, none of these answers are surprising. “Do you want to pay higher registration fees, never mind where the money’s going?” NO!!! “Do you want to pay for something you personally will rarely, if ever, use?” NO!!!

    As for the Sellwood Bridge, I do think that 12 foot sidewalks PLUS 6.5 foot bike lanes is overdone. (12 feet would make sense if bikes + pedestrians shared the path). The wide bike lanes I’m okay with, because they double as shoulders for auto traffic. But with bikes using the shoulders, why on earth do the sidewalks need to be more than 6 feet wide? That’ll let two wheelchairs pass each other going in opposite directions. Unless somebody’s planning to set up food carts on the bridge, it’s at least 12 feet wider than it needs to be.

  28. I think what we’ve seen from the Hawthorne bridge, where bikes/peds share the sidewalk, is that conflict points arise when there are high-speed and low-speed cyclists and pedestrians in the same ROW. Now, I don’t expect that the Sellwood will see nearly as many riders as the Hawthorne, but it does help to separate higher-speed riders (such as regular commuters) from casual riders and pedestrians.

    I agree that it’s not absolutely necessary. But then again, freeways with 14′ travel lanes aren’t necessary either, they just help vehicles move faster with a greater degree of separation. That’s usually worth it. Whether the extra space on the Sellwood is worth it is of some question, but the design has been through extensive public comment.

  29. In response to declining revenues the 2008 legislature passed a bill allowing counties and cities to try collecting regionally for projects.
    Charging Clackamas County for constructing Multnomah County’s Bridge is a complicated matter that invites more waste.

    The Sellwood Bridge should have been replaced long ago, but under the misguided leadership of a board dominated by Diane Linn and Lisa Naito, the bridge was ignored.

    Lots of money is being made by promoters of Milwaukie Light Rail. Now, even after diverting millions from other potential projects, it appears TRIMET is going to have to build a shorter line than planned.

  30. Randy,

    While cost trimming has reduced the scope of MLR some what, the length of the line hasn’t been shortened. The original plan for this project was to go to Oak Grove or thereabouts, and that’s where it is going to go. There was talk about truncating the line to Milwaukie TC, but that hasn’t happened.

  31. Bob,

    The article refuted your claim that most of the traffic comes from Clackamas county.

    Even the parroted claim was 70% eiother came from or originated in Clackamas County. But it’s irrelevent anyway.

    You’re wrong. That isn’t a push poll and it isn’t skewed.
    It doesn’t convince you of what?

    On the Sellwood bridge. Why did you respond with talk about separating pedestrians and bikes when the question was about the need for Two-12 foot sidewalks?

    No one questioned the separation factor.
    There is TWO-6.5 foot bike paths.

    So why the TWO-12 foot sidewalks?

    Is there no answer or reason at all?

  32. Steve, I very happily retract the claim that “most” of the traffic comes from Clackamas County. The fact that nearly half does, and that Portland/Multnomah County are chipping in 10X what Clackamas county is providing, doesn’t give much latitude for Clackamas County residents to complain about what Portland does with cost-savings from reductions in scope of the bridge project.

    As for the sidewalk widths, read what I said again. You’ve missed it.

  33. You’re wrong.

    I’m right! (Boy, this is useful.)

    That isn’t a push poll and it isn’t skewed.

    The questions, answers, and info about the backers and polling firm (nearly one and the same) are there for all to see.

    It doesn’t convince you of what?

    It doesn’t convince me of your original claim, that “The citizenry does not want MAX, period.”

    If you had an independent poll, with questions which weren’t so leading (and conflated), I’d be convinced. With the political push-poll, I’m not convinced.

  34. EngineerScotty Says: If the spread between oil and gas is sufficient, which may be the case going forward, then GTL (gas-to-liquid) may indeed be a cost-effective means of producing liquid fuels.
    JK: How soon you forget – we were talking of the peak oil fallacy and I brought this up as an example of things that happen with high prices.

    Interestingly your link shows a cost of 1.5 B for a 40,000 BBL/day plant. That appears to be a capital cost of about $7 per bbl. Sounds good to me when oil is about 3 times the cost of gas per energy unit. It also says that their cost is about $1.50/gal. That is probably the long term upper limit in oil price with today’s gas prices.

    Bottom line: GOOD NEWS! – the upper limit on the price of diesel is about $1.50-$2.00/gal depending on natural gas prices. (Of course prices can spike until conversion plants are on-line in adequate quantities.)

    EngineerScotty Says: …it would take dozens of GTL plants to come close to approaching the current fuel needs of modern society.
    JK: Red herring. It takes dozens of electric plants to supply our needs. It takes dozens of phone centers. It takes dozens of water plants. SO WHAT?

    EngineerScotty Says: JK: Hence the reason to convert to gasolene, or perhaps just octane.
    Or develop more CNG infrastructure.
    JK: Which will be cheaper?

    EngineerScotty Says: And with lots of transit. If you want to make us more like Europe in terms of land use and energy policy, I’d be happy to join you in that endeavor.
    JK: Again European transit is rapidly losing market share. And their land use is more F**ked than Oregon’s

    EngineerScotty Says: Welcome aboard, comrade. :)
    JK: Telling of you politics?

    EngineerScotty Says: What you’ve just said is “we can solve problems with parking by dedicating more space to parking”, which is what we do now and what causes all the trouble in the first place.
    JK: What trouble? You just park in the big Walmart lot. Or the big Costco lot or Winco. The only parking problem is in the dense areas, which are so obsolete, they are generally recieving massive subsidies from the outer areas just to keep them barely viable. Like Portland center is really a government center with a bit of health srevices.

    EngineerScotty Says: But the congestion problems found in large cities are generally caused by suburbanites trying to get in or out at the same time, not by the residents thereof.
    JK: Why would suburbanites want to go to the congested city center? That’s not where most jobs are anymore. Or the better stores. (Lots of panhandlers, though.)

    EngineerScotty Says: I said it’s higher than here, and quality transit is readily available. JK: Again European transit is dying fast.

    EngineerScotty Says: … in the long term the agency would benefit from a combination of higher energy prices but more customers. TriMet’s biggest expense is labor, not fuel.
    JK: Why would raising Trimet’s fuel cost help them? Its not as if there will be any long term increase in new riders.

    EngineerScotty Says: What matters is not the age of the trend, but the factors which drive the trend. Many factors not present 100 years ago are now present.
    JK: Factors? Lets see:
    *Transit is still slower than driving.
    *Transit is still less convenient than driving.
    *Transit still costs a lot more than driving, especially after one gets a car for the above reasons.
    Admittedly there are Some New Factors:
    * Our cities are less concentrated in the core area now.
    * Cars have gotten more energy efficient.
    * Transit has gotten less energy efficient.
    * Cars have gotten cheaper.
    * Crime associated with transit has increased.

    EngineerScotty Says: Some will. Some won’t. We don’t need 100% abandonment of driving to justify alternatives.
    JK: You need to increase transit ridership by about 5 times without increasing expenses to make it sustainable.

    EngineerScotty Says: NYC runs its subways 24/7; Chicago is simply corrupt as hell, and NYC was listed twice. :) OTOH, Hong Kong has privately run transit ops which actually make money.
    JK: Net result: density and size didn’t make much improvement in the real world. And if NYC is listed twice, it’s in the source twice.

    EngineerScotty Says:The problem is that you’re a) conflating public costs with user costs; and
    JK: Well, duhh! Transit is mostly a public cost. Cars are mostly a private cost.

    EngineerScotty Says: Just because TriMet spends $400 million a year in ops expense (some of it recovered at the farebox) to provide 100 million trips, doesn’t mean each additional rider costs the agency another $4.
    JK: How is this relevant? And the next 100 million trips will still cost a bunch. Maybe only $300 million, requiring only a $240 million increase in taxes.

    EngineerScotty Says: Ignoring the current recession–Portland’s transit ridership has skyrocketed in the past twenty five years.
    JK: Yeah, right in step with the population increase for about a static market share.

    EngineerScotty Says: You were told? By whom?
    JK: Not relevant. The only relevant thing is the information – was I told correctly?

    EngineerScotty Says: Oh, please. Bubbles happen in all sorts of markets, many without regulations such as land-use laws.
    JK: Sorry, as Klugman says (or implies): bubbles cannot happen with unconstrained supply PERIOD

    EngineerScotty Says: Bubbles only require an environment of rising prices, …
    JK: And tell us how that can happen with plentiful supply?

    EngineerScotty Says: Not if the system is fully built out.
    JK: Oh, give us a beak from the mantra of keep pouring money down the transit hole, claiming it will eventually work someday, all we need to do is keep doing the same, unsuccessful, thing harder.

    EngineerScotty Says: You don’t have to have full trains everywhere 24/7. You just need enough to compensate for the empty trains late at night.
    JK: It doesn’t work in our big dense cities, why do you think it will work anywhere?

    EngineerScotty Says: They do save energy; the debate centers on whether the reduction in fuel costs justifies the additional capital cost.
    JK: No, our debate is over energy saving, not the cost. Hybrid is helping cars a lot and buses not much. So they would not be expected to tip the balance – in a hybrid world, cars will be much more efficient than transit.

    EngineerScotty Says: this is why all modern train locomotives are diesel-electric, not direct-drive diesel.
    JK: Err, there is a difference between diesel electric and hybrids. Hybrids recapture stopping energy in batteries. Diesel electrics use electric merely as a transmission (gear box), no storage.

    EngineerScotty Says: As if cars don’t start and stop numerous times on trips?
    JK: The only reason a car stops every other block or so is if they are stuck behind a bus!

    EngineerScotty Says: Certainly, there are oil-producing areas off limits due to environmental reasons, but in many cases there’s good reason for that.
    JK: You mean like the barren wasteland next to the currently producing North Slope that is believed to have more oil than the North Slope and is off limits due to propragands by the greens?

    Thanks
    JK

  35. Bob,

    How are the actual poll and questions skewed. Deriding those who posed the questions is meaningless.

    “The questions, answers, and info about the backers and polling firm (nearly one and the same) are there for all to see.”

    The questions are as plain as the nose on your face.

    How could they have been more simple?

    The only point you’ve even raised is the MLR/pay for it combined question which you seem to think qualifies as pushing.

    Suppose those were two questions. The results would have been no different.

    Or do you think if people thought it was free they would want it? :)

    And this matter of “convincing” you.

    It need not be conclusive or totally convincing to YOU in order for it to be a strong indication.

    And it is consistent with an actual election and the county vote on the TriMet levy.

    Every indication shows that a super majority of Clackamas residents do not want MAX. And they do not want to pay for it.
    Your ‘re pretending otherwise because of what?

    If you had any poll or vote you wouldn’t appear so biased and obfuscating.

    The there is the rest of the story you ignore.

    No real answer on why the Sellwood Bridge needs the looney two-12 foot sidewalks.
    The horrific financing schemes and the lack of any existing station/development example worth repeating in Milwaukie.

    How about the Lents station? Lovely.

  36. Does this poll break things down further? I care less what a bunch of “Clackamas County” residents want than people who actually live in Milwaukie.

  37. Good reference, Bob:

    “The people of the Arctic have survived in one of the world’s harshest climates through our ability to adapt. We adapted to the discovery of oil in our traditional homeland by forming the North Slope Borough. Our borough has offered local residents a chance to help manage our lands and participate in the benefits of the oil boom. Through the borough, we have been able to enjoy the advantages of the modern world at the same time as we protect the subsistence values we hold dear.”

  38. Aaron,

    “Does this poll break things down further?”

    Like how? They were three simple questions.

    No one claimed or suggested it was flawless of 100% accurate. It is what it is.

    They selected 25,000 voters that matched the recent registration and voting patterns.

    They robo called the 25,000 and got around 1200 respondents. More were democrats than other.

    Milwaukie is part of the bunch of “Clackamas County” residents yo don’t care about.

    And suppose a poll showed Milwaukie itself does not want MAX?

    What then? Better yet don’t you think it is a little suspicious there has been no poll by Metro or TriMet?

    You guys sure are struggling with this. You so bad want to believe you have public support.

    How about a public vote? Suppose there was one tomorrow and it showed Milwaukie and the county do not want MAX by a big margin.

    What’s your pitch then?

    And why don’t any of you supporters point to what you want repeated with Milwaukie Light Rail. We have multiple lines and decades of experimenting.

    WES is a travesty, the Green Line was built in the wrong place, Metro said their TOD investment approach is not effective and now they trying to raid more state money for MLR and seeking 10 year tax abatements for the commercial parts of TODs.

    They wasted $150 million on the CRC and the crazy Sellwood Bridge design is beyond any explanation.

  39. I didn’t mean further prompts in that regard Steve — I was just curious what sort of demographic/geographic/ancillary/whatever information was also recorded that could provide insight? I would imagine they know what city the person they’re calling lives in?

  40. Ron –

    I know the locals are involved in oil extraction. The point of the reference is that JK referred to the area (nearby) as a “barren wasteland”. The fact that people (and wildlife) have lived there for centuries seems relevant to me.

    As for Steve’s thrice-repeated questions about the sidewalks, bike lanes, and Americans for Prosperity internal push-poll, I have already answered those questions and will not keep on repeating the answers just because Steve keeps repeating himself.

  41. (And I do indeed realize that Milwaukie happens to be inside Clackamas county. Thanks for reminding me. But Clackamas county is large and I’d expect someone living in Government Camp to perhaps not be as excited about MLR than someone living near the proposed line. And I personally wouldn’t care about their opinion as much either.)

  42. I would have to agree with Steve that it’s unfair to call the Action Solutions poll a “push-poll”. As I understand the term, a “push-poll” isn’t a real poll; but campaign talking points (often ones which are utterly disreputable) presented as questions on current events asked by “independent” pollsters. The purpose of a push-poll isn’t research, it’s to portray dubious (or flat-out false) assertions as fact by treating them if they are legitimate issues of controversy.

    Were this a push-pull in this sense, the questions would be things like “do you support Metro’s socialist plot to outlaw the automobile and build light rail lines everywhere”. No results would be announced (and in many cases, no answers to the questions even recorded), and the sponsors of the “poll” would do their best to disguise any involvement. Steve and other advocates wouldn’t be here trumpeting about the results of a true push-poll–were one alleged to have occurred, they’d be denying knowing anything about it.

    That said, there is good cause to doubt the accuracy of the poll; polls conducted by political operatives (which Action Solutions certainly is) are seldom reliable. It’s a common political tactic to release polls purporting to demonstrate public support for a given position, but conduct the polling with a thumb on the scale. (There are many ways to steer the response in the desired direction without resorting to out-and-out fabrication or intellectual dishonesty). Unlike true push-polling, which is considered “out of bounds” in US politics (a state of affairs which puzzles me, as things I consider far worse are considered business as usual), polling designed to influence rather than measure public opinion is widely considered a legitimate political tactic. If that’s what Action Solutions and their clients were up to, more power to them.

    But the polling methodology is a bit suspect, for the reasons stated. Which is OK–Steve is perfectly welcome to cite the poll; but others have legitimate grounds to be skeptical of it. The local media, which has been giving quite a bit of coverage to MLR and the Sellwood Bridge, has pretty much ignored the poll results–despite the absence of any polling data from any other source. It could be due to “liberal” bias (though I’d hardly call either the Oregonian or any of the local TV news outfits liberal), or it could be that reporters and editors are skeptical of the value of polls conducted by political operatives.

    We report, you decide. :)

  43. Scotty is correct that it is not a true “push-poll” in that it was not designed to push/offend people to take a particular action via deception, without regard for actually recording results, etc. I was sloppy with the term. I was using it loosely to reflect the fact that the questions were designed to “push” the respondent to lean toward a particular answer. That’s not really a “push-poll”, it’s just slanted questions in a politically-motivated poll. I retract the use of “push-poll”, the rest of my criticism of the poll stands.

  44. “I was using it loosely to reflect the fact that the questions were designed to “push” the respondent to lean toward a particular answer”

    Bob,
    What is it with those simple straight up questions that make them “designed to push the repondent to lean”?
    IMO your embellishments are really closer to fabrications.

    Now you’re saying “Ok so it wasn’t really a push poll, but it’s still a poll that pushes.
    Huh?
    That’s rich.

    So how would any of you have altered those questions?

    Or are there no questions that can be asked?

    As for the press ignoring the poll, too true.

    An editor from the Tribune even inquired when he saw menton of it in comments and requested it prior to reporting on it. They got the whole thing and sat on it.

    The same press didn’t mind repeatedly reporting, with no proof, Peterson’s claim that she had more county support for the fee when emails were considered.

    The Oregonian never covered Allen Alley’s call for the halt to MLR.

    They just pick and choose what to acknowledge and report.imilar to here where straight up

  45. Also, Steve, your last sentence was garbled. If you were claiming that this site is biased, guilty as charged–quoting from the ruled; “This site HAS a point of view, generally supportive of transit and compact development, and efforts to reduce VMT (vehicles miles traveled), including as a strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

    The editorial bias of The Oregonian seems to be pro-business, albeit more libertarian recently than before–at any rate, the O has also endorsed the project. Whether you think this slants their news coverage, is up to you.

    I frequently don’t like some of their positions either, FWIW.

  46. Since Scotty has shown just how easy it is to Google things, I thought I would follow up on something that JK wrote yesterday about Rex Burkholder.

    Scotty was questioning JK’s dismissals about Peak Oil… here’s Scotty’s comment:

    What do you think “Peak Oil” means, anyway–that society turns into a Mad Max movie as civilization collapses due to an abrupt and complete withdrawal of petroleum?

    And here’s what JK wrote back:

    A lot of people do! Ask Rex Burkholder – last time I talked to him, he thought oil production would come to a halt in a few years. I have debated others with the same viewpoint. (Emphasis added)

    That’s rather astonishing, if true.

    So, I decided to use The Google machine to find out if Rex has actually said anything on the record, at length, about Peak Oil. Here’s what I found:

    Peak oil simply describes the point in time when oil production starts to decline. In the US, this happened in the mid seventies. There is debate whether this has happened or when it will happen globally but all agree that this will occur within the next 30 or so years at the latest. Does this mean oil will disappear? No. It does mean that oil (and natural gas, too) will become more and more expensive. It is clear that in a country that consumes 25% of the world’s oil (with 5% of the population), there will be major shocks to our economy and major changes needed in how we move, where we get our food and other goods from and in how our cities need to be designed. (Emphasis added)

    That’s Rex’s formal, public position, and it’s part of a longer article on the topic. And where did I find this gem? Why, he wrote it right here on Portland Transport, five years ago.

  47. (I note that Rex committed a bit of a rhetorical sin there by saying “all agree”, similar to claiming “the citizenry” support or oppose something, when it is more appropriate to provide context, speak of “majorities” or “pluralities”, etc. Everyone knows that nobody agrees on anything.)

  48. Sorry Bob,
    I was relating a in person conversion and stand by what I said.

    I do note that frequently politicians say different things at different times.

    Heck, maybe he even learned something from me!

    PS: Isn’t “peak gas” on its way to being reversed with fracking?

    Just to set Rex straight: oil is produced to sell, not to store, therefore production numbers represent ONLY demand, not ability to produce.

    Thanks
    JK

  49. Scotty,

    “Uh, Google found this article on the very subject from the Oregonian in about two seconds.”

    Well that went exactly how I thought it would.
    I fully expected you to find that.
    I knew Mapes had a political blod about Alley.

    The Oregonian did not report it and gave it no ink. A major gubinatorial candidate calling for the halt to the biggest project in Oregon history and the Oregon didn’t report it. But they have Mapes blog about it so they can claim they didn’t
    censor it.

    As for the garbled stuff, no idea, it was left over editting I didn’t see when I posted.

    Bob,
    Your word games are too funny.
    “All agree” is not even close to “the citizenry”.

    Saying the “citizenry doesn’t want MAX” obviously does not mean or even suggest or infer every citizen or “all”.

    Games.

  50. The blog is under the paper’s byline and appears on their site, and Mapes is an Oregonian reporter–what more do you want? It’s harder to search for print-only articles with search engines, obviously :), but the Oregonian publishes quite a bit of content only on the online edition. And yes, many reporters operate blogs on the o-live site. Newsprint is expensive, digital ink is almost free–this is the direction of the newspaper industry.

    The Oregonian‘s print edition (which I still subscribe to, mostly out of pity I guess) is getting slimmer and slimmer each month–and more and more content is not making it to the dead tree edition. How the editors decide which content goes to the presses and which does not, I’ve no idea (and I suspect, neither do you).

    At any rate, I won’t argue with you if you wish to claim that Alley’s remarks weren’t covered in the paper’s print edition. But I consider material which is published at o-live, and written under an Oregonian byline by an Oregonian reporter or columnist, to be “covered by the Oregonian“. (This distinction doesn’t extent to the forum comments–I notice that JK commented extensively on this article; nor, for that matter, to “letters to the editor” published in print). You’re welcome to disagree, of course; and beyond this comment I have better things to do than debate the merits of the O‘s online vs print offerings.

  51. Come on Scotty.
    “What more do you want”???

    It wasn’t even covered in the online news.

    Limiting coverage to “Mapes on politics” online political blog was obviously a deliberate supressing of the story and for all intent and purposes was not covering it at all.

    The idea that it was not ink worthy in a money concience call is ludicrous.

    Frankly I’m amazed you actually pitched that.
    Do you honestly think it could have been an affordability decision?

    There is noting to argue about. The O did what it did.

    Getting back to polling. Why hasn’t TriMet, Metro or Clackamas County polled?
    The same reason they want no voting.

    What if we wait?

    If one collects the totality of the “Apples and oranges put together to make an unreasonable number” flaws in MLR it is a horrific project and no brainer to stop.
    TriMet’s recent pursuit of $20 million more from ODOT, their finding $1 million laying around to give to SoWa greenway and the bill to give 10 year property tax abatments to commercial parts of TODs is evidence of runaway chaos.

    What propelled you to come up with this thread anyway?

    I suspect you knwo this project has a stench never smelled before.

  52. Well, there’s also this article, which mentions the issue (though not focusing on it exclusively). I don’t know if it appeared in print, but it’s not in the blogs section of o-live.

    But again–a lot of comment that use to be written and formatted as articles is now in the reporters’ blogs. This is the 21st century, after all–blogs (whether associated with a newspaper, like those of Jeff Mapes or Joseph Rose, or independent, like the one you are reading now) are an important part of the news/commentary landscape. Institutional newspapers no longer have monopolies on local classified advertising with which to subsidize massive news-gathering operations.

    Whether that represents a deliberate decision by the editorial staff to exclude from the “mainline” paper news/opinions they disagree with–a charge which I’m sure the paper’s editors would consider a very serious one–I have no idea. And again, neither do you. Calling it an “obviously a deliberate attempt to suppress the story” when their are other explanations (such as “most readers don’t give a rip, so we’d rather use the newsprint to cover a pie-eating contest in Gresham”) which are perfectly satisfactory, seems to be a stretch. The paper’s coverage of the gubernatorial primaries was piss-poor in every facet, so a failure to cover a particular candidate’s position on a particular issue (in the print edition) to the satisfaction of activists who care about said issue, isn’t surprising.

    The paper opposed 26-117, so it’s not as though its in the tank for transit.

    Getting back to polling. Why hasn’t TriMet, Metro or Clackamas County polled? The same reason they want no voting.

    Are you suggesting that government agencies have a duty to commission polls on public issues prior to voting on them? That isn’t generally how representative democracy works, Steve. (After all, Chris Christie didn’t commission a poll before killing off the ARC tunnel project–as transit advocate Yonah Freemark dourly noted in lamenting this decisions, “elections have consequences“). One of the consequences is that the winners have the right to implement their agenda for as long as they hold the seat. Conservatives such as yourself should feel fortunate that many democrats in Congress don’t quite understand this principle, and flee in terror from controversial issues whenever an adverse poll is waved in their face. Fortunately, local progressive pols have a better understanding of how politics works than many DC pols, who view policy as a means of getting (re)-elected, rather than elections and politics as a means of implementing policy.

    At any rate, polls are usually commissioned by candidates, media organizations, or political operatives–and quality polls are expensive to conduct. And governments in Oregon, if they want to delegate politically contentious decisions to voters, already have a better means to do that than commissioning a poll as a means of sticking their fingers in the air–it’s called a referendum.

    What propelled you to come up with this thread anyway? I suspect you know this project has a stench never smelled before.

    I suspect it’s because I happen to consider examining issues from different perspectives to be an important exercise for numerous reasons. It promotes discussions. It allows for me (and others) to sharpen our ideas in the crucible of debate. It also makes this blog more compelling–were this blog little more than a pro-transit propaganda site with little useful discussion or given-and-take, I wouldn’t be here, either as a contributor or a commenter (and probably not even as a regular reader).

    Also, given the aforementioned decline in the newspaper business, the blogosphere is increasingly becoming important a source of news and analysis, particularly on issues which are not very sexy. This isn’t anywhere near the first time this blog has covered “bad news”, contrary opinions, or invited debate on the issue.

    You’re here, after all.

  53. That obscure mention by Mapes coverage does not make.

    Why can’t you just admit it that the Oregonian suppressed the major candidate news?

    All that filler on blogs and the new media doesn’t explain the suppression.

    There is no other explaination but a deliberate decision by the editorial staff to exclude from the “mainline” paper news/opinions they disagree with.

    If you don’t think that occurs you’d be wrong.

    I have seen many examples and even have a long time journalist at the O admitting they were ordered by editors to do just that.

    Your ginned up excuse excuse of (such as “most readers don’t give a rip, so we’d rather use the newsprint to cover a pie-eating contest in Gresham”) is really weak.
    The contentious issue of MLR with the 1.5 Billion dollar price tag made Alley’s press release a fairly big story that certainly would have interested readers far more than much of the content that made it to print.

    The paper’s singular and out of the norm opposition to 26-117, does not county the reality of their being in the tank for trimet.

    Government agencies, especially Metro conduct surveys all the time.

    What game are you playing now?

    Our local progressive pols have a better understanding of how to connive and deceive the public. Resulting in MAX lines built in wrong places and $150 million wasted on CRC strudy.

    They’ve misrepresented rail projects for years, distorted their TOD and UR schemes and perpetrated great fraud and waste.

    Only this past summer has there been some acknowledgement of the failures, yet more of the same is being pushed harder than ever.

    Listening to the rhetoric pushing the LO Streetcar is a stark demonstration of a corrupted and worsening system.

    My own city Tualatin, like many others, has conducted surveys and traffic always comes in as the number one target to remedy. And not with WES or LRT on 99. Second at 8% was not sure. The Clackamas County McLoughlin Area Plan survey showed their priority to be public safety and local concerns. No MLR or other regional visions.

    Other jurisdictions have regularly conducted surveys as you well know.

    I think your conscience knows MLR is a crisis in the making.

    But I guess you think Milwaukie will benefit from a MAX Lents Station in town?

  54. I’m sorry – What is the problem with the Lents MAX station and why is it being used as a pejorative concept?

    All four of the light rail stations in Lents are well developed and pleasant, with the exception of a little litter.

  55. Steve, your usual MO is showing. People disagree, that doesn’t mean you have to call out someone’s personal integrity every time. Once again, knock it off.

    Why can’t you just admit it
    There is no other explaination
    Your ginned up excuse excuse
    What game are you playing now?
    I think your conscience knows

    and earlier…

    Your ‘re pretending otherwise because of what?
    If you had any poll or vote you wouldn’t appear so biased and obfuscating.
    The there is the rest of the story you ignore.
    You so bad want to believe
    your embellishments are really closer to fabrications.
    Your word games are too funny.
    Games.
    Frankly I’m amazed you actually pitched that.
    Do you honestly think
    There is noting to argue about.
    What propelled you to come up with this thread anyway?
    I suspect you knwo

    And that’s just from this thread.

    I know it is feasibly possible for you to carry on a factual discussion without casting suspicion upon those whom you view as your opponents, because I’ve seen you do it.

    So shape up or take your derision elsewhere.

  56. Steve answered my “Milwaukie MAX has so much in its favor, I can’t see how any delay makes sense,” with:

    “There is nothing but the usual hyped concepts and theories that favor MLR. The cost, financing and widepsread detrimental impacts are horrific.”

    The usual hyped concepts include OMSI, South Waterfront, Eastside development jobs, housing, commercial space, sidewalks, parks, better access to SE, Milwaukie, Oak Grove, Green Line, eastside streetcar line connection. Talk now is Streetcar on Sellwood Bridge, eventually to the MAX line?
    Lk Oswego rail bridge shuttle to Milwaukie MAX?

    Milwaukie MAX indeed has a lot going for it.
    It’s a “falsehood” to say these “usual concepts and theories” are all “hyped”, Steve, et al.

    The CRC is at least 2 years behind schedule. Some CRC funds should go to Milwaukie MAX. The time to spend the construction money is now, on what looks like another great Portland project. Metro got this one totally right and earns kudos.

  57. That obscure mention by Mapes coverage does not make.

    So says you.

    Why can’t you just admit it that the Oregonian suppressed the major candidate news? All that filler on blogs and the new media doesn’t explain the suppression. There is no other explaination but a deliberate decision by the editorial staff to exclude from the “mainline” paper news/opinions they disagree with.

    Repeating an allegation doesn’t make it true.

    If you don’t think that occurs you’d be wrong.

    I’m sure it does. We progressives can cite chapter and verse of how our views are not accurately represented in the media–and our list would surely dwarf yours, especially in the national context. (Progressive viewpoints get better play in Portland, obviously, but the notion that transit is a Marxist plot frequently appears under the masthead of many US newspapers).

    Anyway, this divergence into media criticism is detracting from the topic of the post.

    Government agencies, especially Metro conduct surveys all the time.

    Usually on the topic of priorities and fundamentals (questions such as “what’s important to you”, as you note); done as part of early planning; far less often on finished matters up for a vote. And even if it is done sometimes; there’s no obligation (legal or otherwise) for such polls to be conducted every time a proposed decision is unpopular or controversial–that’s why we have elections. (And citizen referendums, for matters that can’t wait).

    Lynne Peterson will be up for re-election in ’12; I’d say you have some work to do.

  58. I can’t read through all the comments here but I personally always come back to the same theme;

    We can’t keep going what we have right now!

    If you can’t keep going what you already have going then there is absolutely no justification for adding anything! Especially when local resources are going to be required to run these new federal adventures.

    This is a nutshell is what is wrong with this country and why we are headed for a big fall.

    The shell game that is called the federal government is headed into a cataclysm that will dwarf the depression.

    My hope that this will be a slow very gradual decline so that I may be dead and gone by the time it actually happens.

    But really, is it necessary to be an economics major to see that printing paper and calling it money does not mean that it has value?

    To build while you cut is an affront to common sense and from where I sit it seems like a despicable endeavor to even be thinking about.

    Anybody with a brain understands that the Trimet capital projects division is in charge of all of Trimet. And all this money comes in and keeps all these big shots in big money jobs.

    That money gets filtered throughout the various government bureaucracies, keeping the whole boat afloat.

    I just came back from Phoenix and was looking at some of the anti light rail stuff there, sounds very familiar:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRD3o578lhQ&NR=1&feature=fvwp

    It’s a good ole boys club and the good ole boys get so much out of these capital projects that there is no chance of them saying no!

    They hold the wheels of power, they have ‘corporatized’ the government.

  59. But really, is it necessary to be an economics major to see that printing paper and calling it money does not mean that it has value?

    And inflation is already on the rise in other countries and for many of our own consumer items as well. While it is true that you need to make investments in a timely fashion, and sometimes that is when it also seems hard to do, I think our investment strategy needs to be re-thought. It’s also true that when one component of your strategy gets too expensive—you search for a substitute that is affordable.

  60. The economic crisis we face now stems from a multitude of problems that have arisen, especially over the last decade, but also from 30 years of “trickle down” theory. However, the risk of high inflation is not one of those problems. (That’s from 2009, Krugman has provided updates via assorted columns since then, but that’s a good place to start.)

    As for what the Tea Party has to do with Libertarianism (capital L or otherwise), I leave that to Tea Party survey respondents to tell us.

  61. Tea Party / AFP / 912 / We the people / Libertarian

    Those things are not the same, JK; and anyone who considers themselves a principled Libertarian ought to run, run away from the Tea Parties. Likewise for union guys like Al–these are not your friends.

    Now that the GOP has gotten back the House, have we seen any serious Republican-led initiatives to address the structural economic problems facing the nation? No–all we’ve seen so far is a symbolic and DOA “attempt” to repeal the Affordable Care Act; a laughable debt reduction proposal which goes after certain types of discretionary spending (including transit and HSR) unpopular with conservatives, but which doesn’t touch any of the big-ticket items in the Federal budget (broad-based entitlements like SS and Medicare, and military spending) or admit consideration of raising additional revenue, and a noxious proposal from Newt Gingrich to permit states to fo bankrupt and abrogate their pension responsibilities. (Under Newt’s proposal, only pension debt would be discharged; bondholders and other institutional creditors would still get paid). Instead, the past week or so has seen the House focus on cultural hot-button issues like abortion.

    (Perhaps its unfair to sweep the abortion question under the rug in this fashion, as for many conservatives abortion is literally a matter of life and death. That said, issues like war and poverty and torture and such are considered given high moral significance by progressives; and many conservatives mock the moral views of the left as ridiculous and simple-minded bleeding heart liberalism, unworthy of serious debate. I think that the habit of both sides have of treating the other sides’ moral objections as fixations on the trivial to be scorned, is one reason for the level of nastiness in US politics).

    Inflation is already on the rise in other countries

    Inflation is generally not a global phenomenon. It can be, certainly, but not always, and not today. Inflation is a big problem in Australia, for instance; but inflation is pretty close to zero in the US at this point. There are different ways to measure it, however, and the prices of different types of commodity and service frequently move independently.

    The US government maintains a target inflation rate of 2% a year or thereabouts. At that rate, long-term hoarding of cash is an unwise thing to do, but cash still maintains its function as a store of value in the short-to-medium term. It’s not hard to beat the inflation rate with prudent investments. At zero inflation (or during deflation), hoarding of cash becomes a problem; at rates much higher than the target (especially anywhere north of 10% or so), the vitality of the economy starts to evaporate, like air out of a tire with a nail in the treads. In either case, the availability of money to facilitate economic transactions decreases (due to either hoarding or loss of value), which works about as well as running an engine that’s leaking oil.

    One good indicator of the health of an economy is whether changes in prices lead or lag changes in wages. If prices are rising faster than wages do (or wages falling faster than prices), the result is often–at least from the point of view of the common man–a recession. We have that situation today in the US in many ways; unemployment and outsourcing have continually put downward pressure on wages, but there hasn’t been a corresponding decrease in prices. (This is one reason, I suspect, why Wall Street is doing so well; they’ve been able to reduce costs quite a bit with outsourcing and productivity improvements, but sales and revenue have returned to near pre-crash values). Given that state of affairs–the wealthy making tons of money, unemployment still around ten percent in many parts of the country, and crumbling infrastructure, funding infrastructure improvements with a surtax on the wealthy (or via some moderate inflation of the dollar brought about by increasing the money supply, which will have a similar affect) seems to me to be a reasonably good idea.

  62. Those things are not the same, JK; and anyone who considers themselves a principled Libertarian ought to run, run away from the Tea Parties. Likewise for union guys like Al–these are not your friends.

    Maybe he should have put blue dogs in there, too.

  63. The phrase “Blue Dog democrat” has shifted over the years. In the past it generally referred to Democrats who were socially conservative, but economically liberal, particularly on issues of labor and trade–Blue Dogs often came from rural districts with a strong union presence.

    Nowadays, many Blue Dogs don’t support the Democratic party agenda on social OR economic issues.

  64. Just a friendly warning that in my experience there are few greater opportunities to offend people than trying to apply group labels to them. Let’s keep to the policies and try to avoid worrying about ideological labels.

  65. Depends on the label, of course. Many people happily self-identify with various labels, including the names of political parties, factions thereof, etc… though it often depends on who’s doing the talking. And there are more than a few labels (“teahadists”, for example) that only exist as terms of abuse.

  66. Scotty,
    If you are concerned about “crumbling infrastructure” why do you not object to the $1.5 billion Milwaukie Light Rail devouring 100s of millions directly from crumbling infrastructure funding?

    I sometimes get the impression that your side just doesn’t understand where the money comes from or how identical it is to the many years of deferring the crumbling Sellwood Bridge in favor of shinny new stuff.

    But then you have to know.

    So in the absense of any explanation I am left presuming your motivations.

  67. Steve,

    The Sellwood’s getting replaced, regardless of whether or not MLR gets built.

    And I know very well where the money comes from. (And in many cases, the money for different types of project comes from different pots. In theory, money is fungible. In practice, when Uncle Sam gets involved, it’s not).

    At any rate, I don’t much care for your framing of “shiny new stuff” vs “replacing crumbling infrastructure”. Some of us prefer the framing of “developing and maintaining adequate infrastructure” vs “tax cuts for the wealthy”.

    You can presume all you like about my motivations. I can likewise presume about yours, but I consider such discussions inappropriate, and a direction which rather quickly can lead one into a position of violating site rules.

  68. Scotty,

    Yes the Sellwood bridge is getting replaced despite the MLR.

    The lesson and relevancy is why it was neglected for so many years. Which is identical to the choices made to fund MLR.

    No there is nothing to be gained by discussing motivations.

    I was pointing out that your avoidance of recognizing & acknowledging where the money comes from leaves one no other choice but to presume.

    You provided another example of the problem..

    First you state “I know very well where the money comes from”.

    Then proceed to avoid any focus on the actual specific “pots of money”. You and yours have expressed some limited discomfort with TriMet bonding against future payroll but avoid any additional considerations or commentary that challenges the fiscal legitimacy of that and the rest of the pots.

    Here again I am left to presume. In this case, that for whatever reason or motivation, that you are purposefully distancing yourself from the reality that the “pots” are desperately needed for existing services and infrastructure.

    You won’t even acknowledge that much of it is indeed fungible in practice.

    You say you “don’t much care for [my] framing of “shiny new stuff” vs “replacing crumbling infrastructure”.

    Is it “framing” or reality that has MLR taking $202 million from Metro’s entirely fungible future flex funds that would otherwise go to maintaining our crumbling infrastructure?

    Is it “framing” that has TriMet bonding $63 million against an operation’s revenue stream that is already insufficient?

    Is it “framing” that commits the fungible $400 million in lottery profits to MLR?

    It’s been extraordinarily obvious we do not have the money available. You can blame the shortage on tax cuts for the wealthy or wars or any other cause.

    But in reality, choices have been made to take existing funding meant for other needs and spend it on shiny new stuff. Knowing full well that tremendous shortages would result.

Leave a Reply to Steve S. Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *