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A Primer on Trip Generation
As a key factor in determining rates for Portland’s proposed street utility fee, the Institute of Transportation Engineers’ (ITE, henceforth) Trip Generation Manual has gotten a lot of love lately among local transportation wonks. It is worthwhile, then, to take a quick trip through the weeds of the manual to better understand where the opportunities […]
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I Have Some Good Ideas for that Other $850
Joseph Rose is reporting on a survey indicating that Oregon is among the lowest cost states to own a motor vehicle. Among the cost differentials, an average of $157 in taxes and fees compared to $1,058 nationally. Imagine how many sidewalks we could build with that other $850/car…
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Breaking down the economics of bus vs MAX
There’s been a bunch of stuff in the comments of the SW Corridor: Transportation Bundles article about the relative (operational) efficiencies of bus versus light rail. The discussion mirrors a debate that occurs in the wider community. Two dueling theories are commonly articulated:
- That MAX is more efficient, operationally, than bus–that in busy corridors, it can move far more people than can the equivalent number of busses, and requires a lot less subsidy. TriMet frequently articulates this position in its public messaging.
- That MAX is economically inefficient–an unwise investment at best, and a rip-off at worst; diverting resources from (and starving) the bus system, and a major contributor to the agency’s budget problems. Many agency critics make this charge–ranging from conservative/libertarians broadly opposed to any capital investment in transit, to poverty advocates on the left, to “good government” types suspicious of any large capital expenditure, to many in ATU757, to riders of “marginal” bus routes whose service is imperilled by the agency’s budget woes.