Go by Streetcar! Let's slash all bus service! Rail is the best!
(syc!)

Take a look at Max as it leaves Clackamas Town Center sometime. Wasted space is an understatement.

It kills me that this duplicates the 6 all along the east side. If you turned those every 18 minute streetcars into 6's it'd go a long ways towards restoring true frequent service on that line-and better serve the same central east side area. At least even Trimet recognizes what a joke the streetcar is and is going to expand bus service on this same corridor.

(In fairness the first week after it opens isn't the best judgement of a transit line.)

Yes, but when is it going to get any better? And how many more tens of millions of tax dollars is it going to take to put some butts in those very expensive seats? Portland's financial future is toast.

Is that the correct color, orange?
At night, orange and black looks like Halloween, fits right in with trick or treat!

I jumped aboard the new Streetcar, paid my Buck and rode from the Pearl to LLoyd Center to buy something at Macey's. Lloyd Center was as deserted as I have seen it since the weeks after 9/11. I then reboarded and went to the end of the line at the Opera and OMSI and back to the Pearl. I enjoyed it.

Considering that OMSI closes at 5:30 pm this is shocking indeed.

Reminiscent of photos taken of the “Red Car” fleet during Huntington’s real-estate adventure.

The cars will be orange until Gustafson finds a few suckers to "sponsor a streetcar" and plaster them with graphics. A more appropriate base color would have been red.

I guess I won't be driving on Grand or MLK anymore....
Mission accomplished for the car haters. It's off to Washington Square for me!

I guess I won't be driving on Grand or MLK anymore....

Thank you!

I just saw the streetcar heading to OMSI - it was empty. There was 1 person waiting at the stop near Multnomah St.

"I guess I won't be driving on Grand or MLK anymore...."

I was worried that the streetcar would tie up traffic on Grand or MLK, but fortunately the streetcar runs so infrequently that that won't be a problem.

Of course, the tracks are out there 24x7 to crash bicycle riders - particularly where the tracks sinuously move from one lane to another, like on Broadway. It's going to be a real mess once the rain starts...

It's a jobs program.
Public relations, Planners, consultants, facilitators, engineers, architects, contruction, campaigns, on and on.

It doesn't matter if it doesn't work well for transit.

Go by WES!

As for the 10s of millions.

The southwest corridor is devouring $10 million planning plans that voters never asked for and would never approve.

All around the region similar planning shews through millions upon millions.
All justified by agencies and bureaucrats who's over paid jobs depend upon layers of tax funded public deceit and a lazy media lapping it all up.

I observed 8 trains yesterday MLK and Grand Ave from about 7am-2pm my highest number of riders was 7 about 12:30 in front of Sheridan Fruit on MLK.
Just watched a south bound on MLK and SE Ash 8:15 this am 6 riders. Yep go by train.

We could buy individual private cab rides for these folks cheaper.

I love how you think they care.

You folks haven't picked up on the plan ?
Give Trimet a year or three and they will decree that the 6 bus will no longer run along that same route, it will stop short at a trolley station and you well get the privilege of transferring and enjoying ridding it instead.

"It's a jobs program."

To be more accurate, its transit oriented development. Basically developer inducements.

Except that the streetcar doesn't actually induce development. The "transit-oriented development" will now require additional subsidies.

Why is the city in the development business?

To be more accurate, its transit oriented development. Basically developer inducements.

No, no, no. The proper planner-speak term is "development-oriented transit". This is the streetcar, after all.

Considering that OMSI closes at 5:30 pm this is shocking indeed.

How profound! This comment truly vindicates the streetcar.

the 6 bus will no longer run along that same route, it will stop short at a trolley station and you well get the privilege of transferring and enjoying ridding it instead.

And the revenue from those riders will be fully apportioned to the Streetcar, so that TriMet can again claim that bus service is too expensive and thus it must be cut or fares increased and that it can't be bothered to replace buses that are 20+ years old when the lifespan of said bus was 12 years old.