"The Barbur Experience". Now that's funny.

When they say, "The Barbur Experience"...what they MEAN is, "Taxpayer Haircut".

In the 6 years that I've lived here, it feels like Portland is going backwards in their mass-transit investments. Killed off fareless square, cut back on bus routes and now the expensive east-side street car extension that doesn't serve our close in dense residential neighborhoods.

I recently went back to Washington DC and hopped on the DC Circulator for several rides.

http://www.dccirculator.com/

Attractive, cheap, easy. Something that Portland could really implement with little cost. (Although the website does have a link to a streetcar initiative which seems counterintuitive considering how jammed the streets of DC already are).

My 9 bus route received a stay of execution - but methinks that TRIMET will kill it off because it has that pretty (expensive) street car that may someday be running on the Broadway bridge. How over-schedule is that project, anyways?

FROM the PORTLAND PLAN:

"Infrastructure
In coming decades, the City must invest in freight
mobility improvements as well as transportation
demand management (reducing auto travel by
increased use of transit, telecommuting, bicycling
and walking) to help support job growth across
all industries."

TRANSLATION: Demand management means state socialism and you'd better freak'n get used to it all you liberty lovers.

Fortunately, pushback is starting on the west side, and earlier in the process than occurred in Clackistan.

I’ve seen these “surveys” a number of times. Priorities such as police, fire, and infrastructure repair always rate very high. Other considerations such as bike lanes, crossing lanes, and rail lines will usually get a pretty good response too, even support. I mean, if it helps us all get around more easily then why not, right? But they never ever ask if people would choose the rail and new bike lanes if it means that public safety services and/or other infrastructure budgets would be jeopardized. They never explain the entire cost to the public, nor the long term impact on these basic services. I'm pretty sure they don’t want to hear the answer to that survey.

GAWD-THE BARBUR EXPERIENCE!?

How bout the wretched convulsive experience I have every time I read that junk.

Ahhh, the wonderful nature of a one track mind (pun somewhat intended). As we've seen on a consistant basis, never let facts, reality and common sense get in the way of ideology.

"Infrastructure
In coming decades, the City must invest in freight mobility improvements as well as transportation demand management (reducing auto travel by increased use of transit, telecommuting, bicycling and walking) to help support job growth across
all industries."

Translation: the City grudgingly admits that it is necessary for trucks to be able to cross Portland, but it is going to figure out how to let trucks cross Portland, while prohibiting cars from doing so.

The LRMs (Light Rail Mafia) may lose this round. Barbur Blvd is too important to a LARGE NUMBER of well healed commuters who won't tolerate reduced automotive lanes.

And I doubt they could afford to buy up the new right-of-ways that would be necessary to keep four lanes of thru traffic while adding MAX.

Gibby, you've got it in one. We're going through the same thing in Dallas right now, and the research pretty much begins and ends with stating "Well, you know, people would like to see this." I understand: I'd like a manned mission to Jupiter to explore Europa's global ocean, but I also understand that the money to make this happen won't just magically appear, and that someone's going to have to manage that mission when I get bored and look at other bright shiny objects.

They cannot maintain and secure the existing rail they have, and they want more that's going to be unmaintainable and prone to crime? I like what Barbur currently is, the last thing it needs is a felony train to the burbs.

Maybe this is less about light rail and transportation needs and more about declaring war on the suburbs.

I second Al's sentiment of nausea. Barbur Blvd is fine--form follows function. If anything, it could use more function. I'm glad to see the rebellion is starting to get going in The WC already. Momentum is on our side. Now if we could get that Westside Bypass built . . .

More trees, safer crossings, sidewalks, restaurants, retail, traffic safety...is MAX the only way to get all that???

Michelle: More trees, safer crossings, sidewalks, restaurants, retail, traffic safety...is MAX the only way to get all that???
JK: Its all Orewllian NewSpeak:

More trees, Light rail cut down dozens of trees on SW just a few months age.

safer crossings, Yep. They block off most of them. See http://www.portlandfacts.com/transit/peds-i.htm

sidewalks, IBID

restaurants, Just look at al the wonderful restaurants that sprung up in Rockwood!

retail, Look at all the improvements to Rockwood Fred Meyer. NOT - they tore it down.

traffic safety MAX decreases safety by killing at a higher rate than buses and twice the rate of cars. See portlandfacts.com/transit/maxsafetychart.html

Thanks
JK

4 petitions have been filed now, involving Tigard, King City, Sherwood, and Tualatin.

It looks as though the game is on in the west side.

I'm starting to think that I was wrong when I assumed the sustainability crowd was just a few morons with loose screws. I'm not starting to accept the fact that these people are serious and that they have an agenda to take control. They want to control our lives, what we drive, what we wear, what we eat and where we live. It seems as though they are very serious about restricting everyone's freedom.

I guess I'll have to start taking this threat a lot more seriously than I have in the past. After reading this blog for a couple of years and just kind of laughing at the stupidity of Sam, Susan, Metro, Tri-Met, etc., I'm now starting to see that it is a pattern and a threat. It is like a hoard of zombies. You can vote no and they keep coming. Take away their tax money and they find more. Pass a ballot measure and they find a way to void it.

Brain dead zombies oozing everywhere leaving light rail, street cars, crime, garbage, and lower property values behind them.

It's all in the interpretation. Whenever these clowns put out a survey or have an open house and gather public opinions, the questions are framed in the most vague way so that you are forced to say yes, not knowing how it's going to be used. But every time, the result is a summary of public opinion that translates "improved transit" into "rail transit"; "shops and restaurants" are code for taking over roads and parking spaces to create a vibrant community, blah blah blah.

How many shops and restaurants can this society use? Doesn't anybody work anymore? Or is everyone on the dole and looking for a way to spend their leisure in style? None of this seems like a real world where real people work, where real cars break down, where real people get sick, and where the future has never been able to be controlled by mere humans. They will only bankrupt us and leave a horrible mess behind. Some East cost cities have never recovered from the designs of their social planners. That will be Portland.

Four initiative petitions were filed Friday in Tigard, Tualatin, King City and Sherwood that could, if approved, force a public vote on financing for any new rail systems in those suburban cities.

The petitions are similar to two filed in Clackamas County and Milwaukie that could require county officials to back off providing funding for a new $1.49 billion light-rail system there.

The petitioners, who are unhappy with the way TriMet and Metro are focusing transit dollars on rail systems throughout the region, hope to put the issues on the Sept. 13 special election ballot.

“Tri-Met is in the process of spending $10 million planning to build a light-rail line down Barbur Boulevard all the way to Sherwood,” said Art Crino, chief petitioner for the Tigard measure. “We just want to make sure that light rail only comes through our towns if the citizens approve of it.”

In addition to Crino in Tigard, other chief petitioners are Billie Reynolds (King City) Doug Davina (Sherwood) and Aaron Crowley (Tualatin).

Volunteers will gather signatures for the measures. The chief petitioners are confident that sufficient numbers of signatures can be gathered to qualify for the September ballot.

http://www.theregalcourier.com/news/story.php?story_id=133254457827778200

Andy, the four city Petitions are timely, and I believe will have a significant impact that CoP, TriMet, Metro will not be able to avoid.

Having the right to vote on whether the taxpayers should spend $2 Billion on this dream is sensible, and democratic, even though Metro Commissioner Carl Hostica who represents these four cities stated it would be "undemocratic". If he thinks it is "undemocratic" that an individual city doesn't want to buy in, then he should ask the Metro Commission to put the idea up for a vote before another $10 Million is spent on planning. But he won't because Metro knows the answer. Citzens have

Computer glitch.

Citizens of these four cities will prevail in a timely manner where the results will demonstrate to the Feds that mass transit isn't wanted on Barbur and 99, which is a requirement to acquire federal funding.

If anyone doubts that the "fix" is in, they ought to know that the Portland planner type heading up the "Barbur Corridor Pl;an" was selected by a panel on which the SWNI President (and PBOT Budget Advisory Committee member) Marianne Fitzgerald was one of the three folks selecting the lead planner, Jay Sugnet. The other folks on the selection group were PDX planning and Transportation bureaucrats.

Then, when the citizens / "stakeholder" "Community Working Group" group was selected, Fitzgerald and lead planner, Jay Sugnet, carefully skewed the advisory group selection to exclude those who questioned rail, preferring more bus service.

Portland - the city that works you over and over and over.

Barbur Corridor Plan is erroneous; its Barbur Concept Plan.

Occupy Barbur!!

As someone that leased commercial space at the busy intersection of Barbur Blvd. and Hamilton St. for six years, and had a second floor view of that intersection; I can honestly say that these planner DOU**EBAGS have no idea how heavy traffic already is on Barbur. Virtually every weekday from about 3:15 until well after 6:00 P.M. there is at least a 1-2 block backup of traffic at the intersection. I fail to see how reducing traffic lanes on Barbur will improve anything at all. And don't even get me started on how heavily traveled the street is when there is an accident on I-5.

The formula for the "fix" is shop worn already.
...and yet they continue.
They depend on people coming to the meetings to be polite and respectful, however the set up is anything but respectful.
How do they plan to pay for this one?
A "halo" LID?

will demonstrate to the Feds that mass transit isn't wanted on Barbur and 99

More correctly, light-rail transit is not wanted on Barbur (another aspect of the MAX mindscrew, that those who are anti-MAX are "anti-transit"). Inexpensive and effective bus service on that corridor has and will always be welcome, especially the 94x, one of the few express buses TrainMet still runs that will undoubtedly be cancelled if the ultra-slow crime train gets built.

Light rail if it "has" to be done ought to be on an alternative route, not in place of a highway!!
I imagine just cheaper to do by taking highway space/land. It just seems to me that these highway designations could not be allowed to be used this way. What if we had an emergency in our city and vehicles/people needed to come in to help or people needed to leave? Maybe they don't care, we already would have instant gridlock. This route with express buses would be far more effective.

We so need a moratorium until we get some adults in charge. At the rate we are going, that would turn into one very long moratorium.

It is possible that the "mindscrew" has become so ubiquitous
that desensitization to the process has taken place?

Of course there are some who refuse this kind of treatment.

Perhaps the planners and their followers have even been desensitized to the harm the "mindscrewing" has brought to our community, or do they full well know "the process?"

The harm is not only in the plans but in the treatment of the citizenry which is clearly an abuse of democracy.

How many more "the fix is in place" projects can this metro area tolerate?

"The Fix is in." That is the true Portland Motto.

"The Fix is In" is not today's reality, even though we might think it is after 35 years of Planners intentionally misinterpreting citizens input on lightrail and the misuse of urban renewal to achieve it.

Clackamas Co. and its cities are challenging the Fix. And now Washington Co. is joining in. And maybe Multnomah Co. will be next. The earnestness of these citizens is amazing even though the media has been demonizing their efforts. Soon there will be bona fide electoral challenges to many of races to help challenge the agenda. It will take time.

I am on a couple of "survey" lists and regularly get surveys from Metro that I cannot even complete. They offer several answers to each question but mostly they are ONLY answers that match their agenda. They don't even include a "none of the above" option so I can continue on with the next question. The surveys are a farce.