A major issue with large-scale infrastructure projects, such as highways or rail transit lines, is that frequently they face community opposition. Depending on which side of the fence one sits on a particular project, such opposition can either consist of heroic defenders of community values fighting valiantly against vested interests and the desctruction of their homes and neighborhoods–or of howling bands of NIMBYs putting their own selfish and parochial interests ahead of the Greater Good™. (Even the acronym NIMBY is generally considered a term of abuse). I’ve been on both sides of this particular fence, and so have you, I’m sure. Three major controversial infrastructure project in the Portland area–one just “suspended” (and likely cancelled, at least for the forseeable future), one which continues full-speed-ahead through the planning process, and one which is already under construction but which has been subject to eleventh-hour attempts to derail it, serve to illustrate the issue quite well.