Month: December 2011

  • Anti-LRT activists in Clackamas County seek Milwaukie MAX referendum

    The Oregonian’s Molly Harbarger reports that a group of activists in Clackamas County, opposed to the Milwaukie MAX project, is seeking to place a referendum on the ballot to prevent the county from contributing any money to “finance, design, construct or operate” the project. The petition, approved by the Board of Commissioners, will be reviewed…

  • Downtown Neighborhood Association Makes Case for Retaining Free Streetcar

    Daniel Friedman, writing on behalf of the Downtown Neighborhood Association, has an op-ed piece in today’s Tribune, arguing to keep the Streetcar in Free Rail Zone. The core of the argument is that downtown has unique characteristics that support a unique fare structure. Here are the four main bullets: Most of the people who live…

  • The Non-intuitive Math of the Lake Oswego Streetcar

    This morning the Oregonian editorialized against further development of the Lake Oswego to Portland streetcar project, citing the cost. That’s the new cost estimate of $208M (not including the value of the right-of-way we already own), not the $400M+ estimate that came out of the last round of the NEPA process. Without getting into an…

  • Help for Transit?

    According to T4America, there are a pair of bills in the House and Senate that would provide flexibility to allow transit agencies to use some of their formula funds for operations. How might TriMet apply this? I’m not entirely up-to-speed on the TriMet budget. How do the section 5307 funds get spent today? Bus purchases?…

  • More on the “panic stop” incident

    Joseph Rose has more information about a TriMet passenger who was injured in the “panic stop” incident earlier this month. As you probably have heard, on December 2nd, a bike darted directly in front of the #9 bus, which was standing-room only, forcing the driver to panic-stop. The driver narrowly avoided missing the cyclist, who…