Category: Light Rail

  • The Case for Distance-based Fares

    A piece on Streetsblog makes the policy argument for distance-based transit fares. They actually use Portland’s Fareless Square as part of their argument, apparently unaware of recent history. I generally support this line of argument, at least from a pure policy policy point of view. TriMet has argued that one of the pragmatic reasons for…

  • On the Impending Transformation of Transportation

    Brian Davis is Portland Transport’s newest contributor. Brian is a Transportation Analyst at Lancaster Engineering, a MS Candidate at PSU where his research involves strategies for increasing sustainability in urban freight, and a carfree resident of downtown Portland. Welcome, Brian! – Chris I’m excited to be joining the discussion at Portland Transport at the onset…

  • Fast and Reliable Light Rail in the Netherlands: How they do it, and lessons for Portland

    Zef Wagner is currently in the Netherlands taking a class on sustainable transportation. He will be posting periodically about the Dutch transit system and what lessons we could apply in Portland and elsewhere in the US. One of the first things I noticed about transit after arriving in the Netherlands was how incredibly fast the…

  • Guest Post: A proposal for a downtown rail tunnel

    This guest post is by Portland Transport reader dan w. We are always happy to publish well-written, topical guest posts; contact myself, Chris, or Bob if you are interested.–ES The idea of putting MAX underground through downtown Portland has been around for some time, and I’ve had a concept for a MAX subway that, with…

  • We’re Number 10!

    Transit service is a painful topic right now, but we might want to take a second to remember that relative to a lot of other places, we’re still in a pretty good place (but will never be complacent). The good folks at WalkScore have released a ranking of major metros by their aggregate TransitScore –…