A reader writes:

I am in WA County and I am disgusted every time I see that train. I did some digging on Trimet's web site and found their October statistics. It took me about ten minutes to come up with this:

- Average weekday boardings (it does not run on Saturday or Sunday) are only 1,430 (page 3), which is 28,600 per month, if you believe their statistics.

- Average cost per rider is $16.66. The highest possible fare is $2.35, which is a loss of $14.31 per rider. Multiply the $14.31 by the total number of riders and the monthly deficit is $409,266 or $4,911,192 loss per year. This is a very low estimate considering you have people that don't pay fares, have monthly passes, doesn't run on holidays, etc.

- These costs are only for "labor, energy, and expendable supplies required to provide transit service and maintain vehicles and plant facilities. Does not include General and Administrative, interest or depreciation" (page 3 footnote). In other words they are not even close to starting to pay down the debt on the WES line or help pay for Trimet overhead! I looked but could not find the debt service on WES.

Now let's let these guys build a light rail to Milwaukee.

It's MILWAUKIE, MIL-WAU-KIE.KIE.K-I-E.

Isn't it a shame that the pioneers of Oregon couldn't spel?

Wait a second? Jack opposes trains? Well this is certainly news to me.

I don't oppose trains -- only stupid ones. I thought MAX to Gresham made sense, back when downtown Portland was the center of everything. MAX to Hillsboro was a bit marginal, but on balance it was rational.

MAX to the airport, MAX on Interstate, MAX to Clackamas, MAX to Milwaukie, and all the streetcars were, and are, stupid.

WES, of course, was beyond stupid.

The OSU tram, south waterfront, WES, the green line, and numerous other recent projects have all gone forward despite vocal opposition. Most of these projects have been a financial bust, and the downturn in our economy has caught most of the blame. Sadly, those public monies could have been spent for so many other needed services.

Yet, we still go forward with more of the same. Milwaukie light rail will get built as well, despite strong oppostion. I don't realy like or dislike trains necessarily, but one has to look closely at the motivations for going forward. Who stands to gain and why? Should all such projects which have such a dramatic impact on the area go to a vote of the people?

It's hard not to keep thinking of that Simpsons episode when the Harold Hill like huckster comes to town...

"Monorail, monorail, monorail..."

Fair enough. Something about this story annoys me though. It feels forced. If the traIn hit a car, it's not the trains fault. It's the cars fault for being on the tracks.

"Something about this story annoys me though. It feels forced. If the traIn hit a car, it's not the trains fault. It's the cars fault for being on the tracks."

It's about the 12 folks on the train and the need to bus them (and the other few dozen that ride WES) for the next week (a couple of mini vans should do it). It's about the fault of the construction cabal diverting $$$$ from things we need (schools, roads, police, etc.) to things we don't (toy trains).

MAX to the airport: Not stupid. Every time I'm on the Red line eastbound I see at least one person or group with a bunch of travel luggage, usually several. And it's only a spur off of the Blue Line anyway.

The others since, though... Meh.

Every time I'm on the Red line eastbound I see at least one person or group with a bunch of travel luggage

How does it make sense to build a very, very large light rail route (at a cost of, what, $200 million?), for "at least one person or group"?

TriMet could have just operated a shuttle bus from Gateway straight to PDX - in fact, they used to, until the Red Line opened. The Red Line was sold to the public as a development tool for the mixed-used development at Cascade Station - except, it was realized, afterwards, it was really stupid to suggest that people would CHOOSE to live right underneath the flight path of runway 28L/10R. So, we got just another strip mall out of it (oh, and the Swedish WalMart full of wood products that are made in China and other southeastern Asian countries.)

I agree - the Blue Line made sense. The eastside line was cost-effective (compared to the other light rail lines), did not displace other modes of transport (the loss of two lanes of Burnside was easily absorbed by the multiple other arterials that parallel Burnside) and does a good job of moving people. The westside line used an abandoned railroad ROW between Beaverton and Hillsboro, although it came at a high cost for the tunnel (although the tunnel has come in very handy for our region) and it encouraged urban sprawl and resulted in one failed development project (Round at Beaverton) and created a "transit oriented development" that failed in its basic premise (Orenco) but succeeded as a development centered around Cornell Road/Cornelius Pass Road.

Has anybody ever investigated as to what TriMet spends in keeping reserve drivers and buses at ready to cover the many Rail Fails?

Oh yes, what about PCC's fleet of campus-to-campus buses. Dark tinted bus windows are frequently used to conceal a lack of ridership.

Erik:

The original plan for the Blue Line, as I understand it, was for a non-stop dedicated busway on the Banfield between Lloyd Center and Gateway. However, because of the advocacy of Jim Howell and Ray Polani - who are both hobbyist rail enthusiasts - we ended up with an all-stop MAX line instead. IMO, the busway concept would have done a far better job of serving East County and the Airport.

Trimet could have run premium fare express buses to the airport utilizing this busway with space for luggage so that we would not have the problem of passengers blocking multiple seats on the MAX with their bags.

But because some individuals decided to "put their hobby in the streets," we are now stuck with the slow and inflexible MAX.

The Red line was built by Bechtel and other private interests in exchange for TOD rights at the "Cascade Station" site. One minor issue cropped up that none of the "planners" had apparently considered, as Erik points out: except, it was realized, afterwards, it was really stupid to suggest that people would CHOOSE to live right underneath the flight path of runway 28L/10R.

Thus, the land sat vacant for about a decade, though trains dutifully stopped and opened their doors at this nonexistent station. Once, a coyote boarded and took a window seat. Eventually, the City Council decided to just re-zone the land to allow big-box development and some 2000 parking spaces.

IKEA and Best Buy quickly moved in. That whole "urban village" thing just never panned out.

What I dont get is how they couldnt stop the WES before hitting the car. Its one car. I know its still heavy, but it cant take that long.

This is the BEST example of why I've been saying all along that rail for passengers (any kind of passenger rail) is stupid. So there is an accident and then what, well, no one is able to move (using those tracks) until the tracks are cleared and repaired. Now let's suppose it's one of the new 'high speed rail' lines that President Pookie and the rail heads want to run. There is an accident, and like with WES, nobody goes ANY PLACE. However with planes, we merely divert you to another airport. With roads we merely detour you around the accident. With trains, you sit (oh, except for buses which use the roads, etc) - no trains are fine for goods that don't have to get there in a quick hurry. For passenger travel, they run a very poor third to the other major forms of transportation.

native oregonian:

What you said is true; however, for heavy volume corridors like Portland-Seattle-Vancouver BC, a rail passenger line is desirable, despite the inherent inflexibility. The benefits in this particular case vastly outweigh the disadvantages.

Please note that this does NOT apply to Portland-Eugene, which the rail heads are pushing for expanded high speed service.

"however, for heavy volume corridors like Portland-Seattle-Vancouver BC, a rail passenger line is desirable, despite the inherent inflexibility. The benefits in this particular case vastly outweigh the disadvantages."

Sorry but that's a whopper. The high cost and heavy subsidiy for AMTRAK makes it a boongoggle.

Luxury buses would be far preferable at a fraction of the cost.

Cascade Station sat for years because the vision was a ped/bike/transit mini-city
with a prohibition of anything resembling a BIG BOX strip mall.

Not it's a BIG BOX strip mall that the taxpayers needlessly subsidized with 100s of millions.

Yet TriMet gives MAX credit for spurring the entire develepment.

Native Oregonian: Now let's suppose it's one of the new 'high speed rail' lines that President Pookie and the rail heads want to run. There is an accident, and like with WES, nobody goes ANY PLACE. However with planes, we merely divert you to another airport. With roads we merely detour you around the accident. With trains, you sit

Well...that's not entirely correct.

Let's use the Portland-Seattle hypothetical example. Yes, there have been a number of instances where the BNSF mainline was closed (flooding in Chehalis, landslides near Tacoma, derailments) - and you are correct - there are no detour routes that Amtrak, or BNSF and UP freight trains, can take. WSDOT is working on the Point Defiance Bypass, which will allow Amtrak and Sounder trains to travel south from Tacoma to Lynnwood, Fort Lewis, and Olympia which will reduce rail congestion and allow Amtrak trains to bypass the track along the southern edge of Puget Sound which is very suspectible to landslides. (Of course this comes at the expense of eliminating the most scenic portion of the ride.)

That said - a few years ago during the Chehalis floods, I-5 was also impacted and for awhile there were no detour routes available - eventually, routes were opened for automobiles but not trucks. Trucks that wanted to get around had very lengthy detours (i.e. going to Yakima!!!!!!)

Now let's talk about air - Horizon can't just decide to detour their shuttle flights to Boeing Field, or Payne Field - Horizon has no ground staff to service the aircraft, no way to board and deboard passengers...simply put they would not put a plane down unless it was a last ditch emergency. They would more likely turn the plane around and land it in Portland.

Likewise - Horizon, nor any other airline, is not going to land their plane in Hillsboro, or McMinnville, or Salem, for that matter, unless it were a life and death emergency (i.e. the plane is out of fuel/major mechanical failure prevents it from going to PDX even with a declared emergency). In most cases, if PDX were unavailable they'd turn around. Eugene is the closest realistic diversion airport from the south, and Sea-Tac to the north. That might not be a problem if you're coming from Europe or the Eastern U.S., but if you're flying a short-hop - air simply is overkill.

The Amtrak Cascades route from Portland to Seattle does make sense; albeit I sympathize with your view that it is still too costly per passenger (keep in mind that Amtrak's official cost subsidy considers that Oregon/Washington state funding is "revenue" and not additional subsidy.) I wonder if separating it out and running it as a stand-alone service, and contracting the operations out to BNSF would make sense and reduce costs -- in fact, BNSF operates the Sound Transit commuter trains between Tacoma, Seattle and Everett (Amtrak provides maintenance for the locomotives and cars).

Portland-Eugene, on the other hand, makes absolutely no sense. ODOT insists that it must use the "Oregon Electric Line" as it's cheaper than the Union Pacific mainline; even though the UP line already hosts six passenger trains a day, is maintained to 70 MPH top speed, has existing stations and signals - while the OE line would need to be completely rebuilt like WES' track was. The OE line also runs down the middle of the street in Salem, Albany, Harrisburg and Junction City - you can't run "high speed rail" down the middle of a residential street!

What is this "pay down the debt" you speak of? Reducing outstanding liabilities is only for the little people: Tri-Met just issues new bonds to pay off the old bonds. Or they divert revenue from something that's cash-flow positive to a stinker like WES.

Just like Sam/Rand did with the old $27 million worth of debt on the last PGE Park remodel (the one that made it the best minor league ballpark on the west coast).

Can't readily buy-in on the 1400 "boardings" a day. I had to ride it last week: there were 28 passengers on the 7 AM run to Wilsonville, and only 3 of us on the 4 PM back to Tigard. Only 16 trains a day...it does not pencil out, unless lots of folks ride from BeBurg to the Nimbus station.

And I use the Red Line to the airport.

I guess the good news is that they needed a bus (well, actually a Club Wagon would have been big enough) to evacuate the passengers.

And it should be noted...that Amtrak service between Portland and Seattle was suspended on Saturday on account of mudslides north of Kelso.

It appeared that service was to have been suspended through Monday but today, Amtrak is reporting trains are running normally.

Unfortunately, it is not an isolated incident -- the railroad line runs through a number of areas prone to mudslides, and this happens several times a year.

"It's hard not to keep thinking of that Simpsons episode when the Harold Hill like huckster comes to town..."

Best line of that song: "What about us braindead slobs? You'll be given cushy jobs!"