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Burnside Transportation and Urban Design Plan
Over at commissionersam.com the Commish is blogging about controversy over the Burnside Couplet plan. I urge readers to attend the Town Hall mentioned to learn more about the project and put your views on record. As neighborhood transportation chair in Northwest Portland I had the opportunity to participate in two year-plus-long planning processes around the…
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Enhanced Hybrids in Austin
Jerry passes along the following: On August 22, the City of Austin launched its “Plug-In Austin” campaign, a community-wide push to promote mass production of plug-in hybrid vehicles that combine the gas-electric hybrid technology with a larger battery that can be recharged through a standard wall socket. Alliance Associate Austin Energy has donated $1 million…
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Incremental Cost of Building Freeways and Exporting Portland’s Road Fees
I would like to explore to issues related to cost of building freeway lanes, the benefits to the transportation system, and who pays. 1) The incremental costs of building out of congestion is inefficient and serves only a small number of people, making the cost per user extremely high. 2) Personally, I rarely sit in…
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300 Miles of Tram Tracks
Commissioner Sam Adams, just back from Melbourne, talks about their 300 miles of tram tracks (compared to our soon-to-be 8 miles of Streetcar tracks here) over at this blog. [Post comments over there, not here.]
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TriMet Grapples with Energy Costs
TriMet’s board has adopted a corrective action plan to deal with increased diesel fuel costs (about $5M over budget for the year). In addition to conservation measures, the plan includes a 15 cent fare increase… On a more hopeful note, in conjunction with the Bonneville Power Administration, TriMet has installed a fuel cell at its…