"""The total project cost could be $40 million"""

More like $55 million and that aint the last "piece".

And this isn't news to us who have been warning of the "other stuff" the city isn't talking about. And theres a hell of a lot more coming.

The north entry portal and south entry portal along with the other road projects will push the budget further out of reach of the original budget, TIF funds and "feasibility".
The I-5 ped/bike overpass is now anticipated to cost over $8 million.
The 1999 plan budgeted $1.6 million.
The park same story. 100s % over budget across the board.
The greenway, same story.
Another little secret is the current spending fiasco is only for the SoWa central district. A part of the SoWa plan yet it has already devoured ALL of the funding for ALL of the SoWa.
The bailout of this terribly unfeasible Urban Renewal plan will grow to be diverting many more millions from every basic service insight.

The city will continue releasing incrementally the cost expansions of this boondoggle while hiding the cumulative talley and updated projections.

It is staggering to know that the PDC staff put together the 1999 SoWa plan,
called it "feasible" and recommended approval to their commission and city hall.

Today we know that literally every number they used to determine "feasibility" was either concocted or a fantasy.

Is this all it takes to advance a project?
A BS agency?

Steve:

Rather than wait for them to update their budget, why not add up all the known City expenditures and make your own.

Granted, it's their job, not yours. But I don't believe they want those totals to come out just yet. Ever.

Big Pipe flips his vote on 'no more city money'and he misses a call-out here? Those Bus kids are in your head.

"""Steve:
Rather than wait for them to update their budget, why not add up all the known City expenditures and make your own."""

Some of us have attempted to do so but the PDC refuses to hand over requested information.

There is no mystery here folks.

The city is indeed corrupt and public officials are truly covering up and withholding vital and damning information.

Didn't the TRAM cease being characterized as a "transportation" project? (Dreamy notions of BioJobs having faded into distant memory, like SciFiJobs.) If so, shouldn't there be another budget shuffle of the way things were? (Freeing up that TRAM money for use on the RAMP. Or would the Linchpin reignite the lust and passion from the recent past, along with the sour taste of betrayal.)

Meanwhile, Tram Adams is busy concocting a scheme whereby he can claim that Hawthorne business merchants agree with his plan to line the street with parking meters. (As an experiment, walk along Hawthorne from SE 34th to 39th and tell me the name of ONE business that does NOT have a "No parking meters on Hawthorne!" sign in its window. Bet you won't be able to.)

When it comes time to give millions of dollars to yuppies in half million dollar condos, the city always finds a way. When it comes time to screw over long-time residents...sadly, the city always finds a way.

Our esteemed host seems to be in favor of Macadam Avenue as a traffic sewer, instead of a civilized city street.

That's "Mt. Hood Expressway" logic.

Matilda
Our esteemed host can speak for himself
but whatever you perceive as happening on North Macadam/SoWa has you speaking planners groupie talk without the slightest understanding of the issue.

You are so ignorant on this issue you appear to believe the city is choosing civilization over sewers.

You could not be more duped and misinformed.

Even on sewers you have no clue about the
City's long neglected sewer system problems around the Macadam area with chronic spills and perpetual dilapidated piping.

At the last NM URAC meeting, PDOT staff (Greg Jones and Bill Hoffman) both said the proposed overhead I-5 off-ramp onto Macadam would likely exceed the $40M price tag. Who will make up the difference? You, the taxpayers again.

At last nights South Portland (CTLH) Neighborhood meeting it was announced that the $40M Greenway (unfunded) had some of its preliminary funding pulled by the Parks Bureau for other more urgent city projects.

Also, the pedestrian bridge over I-5/Macadam will likely exceed $8M (formerly $1.6M) as reported in the URAC meeting. It is also underfunded with no dollars committed for remaining balance while PDC staff goes searching. Watch your pocket book, Taxpayers.

The South and North Portal Transportation projects are not even funded. Gridlock.

It is time for a moratorium like Hayden Island-infrastructure after the fact is illegal.

I think they need a new I5 / Front / Macadam / 26 interchange whether or not SoWa existed.

I hate to tell all you people - but more people use that interchange than just the SoWa condo owners. As a person who used the interchange every day at least three times, I would support the $15million or even more to make it better - EVEN WITHOUT A SINGLE ADDED CAR FROM SoWa!!!!

And what the hell - do you guys LIKE raw sewage or something? Did you know that Portland had one of the most advanced sewer systems when it was originally built? But then NOTHING WAS DONE TO IT for like 100 years... So now it is decrepit and can't handle the city that grew around it.

We need somewhere for our crap to go when we flush - and it can't be the river...

I just hope they finish the sewer work on W Burnside soon, so that can be repaved. You need a 4x4 with high ground clearance to make it over that road....

Some people are just so anti-progress it is sad. Things cost money. Thats just the way it is. Portland is a kick ass city....

If you oppose parking meters on Hawthorne - write letters and make phone calls. I personally think that there should be parking meters almost everywhere. People need to understand that cars cost money - infrastructure is not free. But to be fair the meters need to be EVEERYWHERE. They put them on Hawthorne - they need them on Division, NW 23rd and 21st, Freemont, Alberta, Bellmont, Mississippi, SE Milwaukie, everywhere. Then to do that they will need to impliment residential parking permits so that people don't just park in the residential streets to avoid the meters... It is a big task to do fairly.

What is a "traffic sewer?"

Is that main arterial that efficiently moves cars? Is that a road or highway that doesn't apologize for what it is?

Our Smart Growth overlords seem hell-bent on turning every street capable of carrying lots of traffic volume into boulevards. I suppose that is truly "civilized" when cars are crawling at pedestrian pace.

In Lake Oswego, along Country Club Road, the city is right now installing what appear to be several medians in the center lane. Each will of course have planter beds, blooming flowers, trees, etc.

Is that really the top priority? Tear up a perfectly good street that moves cars very, very efficiently, and plant vegetation in the middle of it? Why?

Perhaps so forevermore we need public employees to maintain, water, replant, and fertilize?

Meanwhile traffic crawls all over the city and we inch ever further into economic obscurity. A great place to retire or be a government employee- a horrble place to try to produce anything or try to transport it.

VR, the proposed fly-over off-ramp from I-5 to Macadam has nothing to do with the "interchange" off-ramp to the North onto Front Ave., etc. that you speak of.

It is a ramp placed right at the existing on-grade off ramp from 5 to Macadam. It is designed to merely get vehicles from 5 to the right hand side of Macadam so that there is no cross-over, lane switching so that vehicles can make right-hand turns into North Macadam more safely. It won't directly affect your exit trips farther north by making it better.

Expect $55M for the job that is mostly benefiting NM. I am not against progress, just the allocation of who pays for it.

People need to understand that cars cost money - infrastructure is not free.

Indeed. That is why we pay taxes. Only a lot of it goes to PDC and Metro, where they figure out creative ways to build white elephant hotels at the Convention Center and devise create ways to trade air from the Lloyd District to build fancy condo towers across town.

They put them on Hawthorne - they need them on Division, NW 23rd and 21st, Freemont, Alberta, Bellmont, Mississippi, SE Milwaukie, everywhere. Then to do that they will need to impliment residential parking permits so that people don't just park in the residential streets to avoid the meters... It is a big task to do fairly.

Why not just build a free city tram to the suburban malls while we're at it?

Jack, why don't you start a living Donations Chart for the SoWa district on your front page; similar to the thermometer-type charts that tally capital campaign donations. This could update with each revealing of money thrown at the district. I'd love to see these developments visually documented in this way.

traffic sewer

There you have it, folks. If you're one of the people who commute to downtown Portland on Macadam Avenue, as many have for decades, the Portland State Urban Planning overlords now deem you to be excrement.

I'm thinking I missed this news item some time back. When did Portland shrink its city limits to include only downtown and inner city? I'm starting to feel more aligned with Gresham for all the attention we get on the east side compared with, oh, say condo towers and Macadam.

Oh, wait, city officials did say the loved 82nd Ave. Let's see. I've been around 37 years, so maybe in 37 more, they'll reach 122nd and maybe actually do some investment on 82nd. Silly me that I believe the Portland Development Commission should invest in the entire city.

If would be one of the poor unfortunate souls commuting via Macadam. Sorry Sam, mass transit doesn’t work for me due to job requirements. Besides I would rather sit stalled by congestion in my car then on a bus. Alas, Macadam is the least of my problems. Try getting into downtown without the use of Front..er, Natio, and then have various other north bound options experiencing construction delays. I look on the bright side. I work in the city at least I don’t have to live or pay taxes there.

yea, jeez its hard to keep up with these costs.

does this ramp fall inside or outside of sam's $170 extra ticket transportation fund? anyone?

its silly that these numbers aren't kept in one place for everyone to examine.

Rob:

I know which off-ramp it is. And it is indeed part of that whole interchange. An interchange is the sum of all of the on/ramps off/ramps that connect the system together at a specific location.

And yes, that off-ramp is the one I use as I currently have to use the one there now, to get from 5 NB to the Ross Island bridge - 26 EB.

Right now the crossover is terrible, and I am almost always nearly hit by someone on NB Macadam who doesn't stop at the light when the left hand side from I5 has the green and the right hand side has the red. In addition the crisscross to the I5 onramp is crazy.

And this site leads also into downtown via the 1st/Arthur area and connects to Front there too.

Again, I make my way through this area from I5 NB to 26 EB, from 26 WB to downtown, from downtown to 26EB and from I5 into downton - several times a day. I know the area intimately.

With or without the SoWa development - this area needs traffic improvement. I mean you loop around three times through a residential area past two stopsigns and up a steep hill - to make a simple right turn from I5 NB to 26 WB...

And sorry about my sewer comments, I mistook "Traffic Sewer" as a complaint about all the recent sewer work that has been going on along Front / Macadam / 26 and other spots in that area...

VR,

Did you know that part of the "plan" for SOWhAt is to eliminate that south side feeder onto eastbound Ross Island Bridge? Yes they are actually going to decrease the number of ways you can get onto the Ross Island Bridge. So you won't be looping through Lair Hill any more but you will be backed up even further away from the Bridge in that lovely evening commute.

I ain't goin' to apologize for using the term "traffic sewer," cuz that's exactly what they are. They destroy the soul of cities - they've destroyed the soul of most of the cities in the U.S. today, and they were busy destroying the soul of this city too until some people, starting with the hated Mr. Goldschmidt, started standing and lying down in the middle of the street.

Read a great book, "The Power Broker

I don't want that for Portland. It's too bad some on this site apparently do.

"The Power Broker," by the way, is a great book about Robert Moses, the urban planner who almost destroyed New York City with his new freeways and expressways.

Now THERE was an "urban planning overlord!"

Ah, well. The "hated Mr. Goldschmidt" was, is, and will always be - a pedophile.

While in orifice, he managed to accomplish some amazing things. Killing the Mt. Hood freeway, diverting billions of transport dollars into trains and trams - yes, we owe him a great deal.

While I'd like to personally share my thanks with him, he seems to have become a bit reclusive.

However, his legacy of enforced gridlock lives on.

How many miles of "sand and gravel" streets could have been paved for $15 million?

Sorry Portland: you should have made campaign contributions in the same amounts as Homer et al.

VR: Hilsy's post applies to the proposed South Portland Transportation Study that was executed in the late 1970s, but never funded. It is mentioned in the SoWhat Plan but it is not one of the identified, to be executed transportation projects. CTLH (South Portland) Neighborhood Ass. participated in the Study and has long advocated for its implementation. It would help connect the west to the east in the Corbett/Lair Hill neighbors that are extremely isolated by the south beginnings of Naito/Front Ave.

The S.P.T.Study with all the realignment, Naito reconfiguration, changes to the entrance to Ross Island Bridge, etc. has not had a absolute defined cost because the designs have been all over the board. But usually $100M to $150M has been used. And that is not in the $170M Sam Adams has defined for transportation projects in NM that are unfunded.

There is controversy to the Plan from many southwest neighborhoods because Barbur connects conveniently to Front going north. This would be restricted to a two lane street with boulevard treatment with cross-over streets. Many commuters and commerce traffic want that connection to continue, and not be forced to continue to SW 4th. And this makes sense. Hilsy is right that your trip description would be terminated by the Study's implementation.

What is becoming obvious but not dealt with by PDOT/ODOT, is that we with increased density, etc., forcing all the regions N/S traffic through a "pin-hole" that is South Portland, we have "dooms day" coming.

In regards to your recent post, as I posted above yours, there are two identified I-5 "interchanges", not one as you infer: the one where I-5 has an exit directly onto Macadam going north, is 1200 ft to the north on I-5, that exit from the right lanes that go either to 405 (Beaverton) or directly onto Naito/Front.

Sorry for the poor english above. Should have proofread.

AND has anyone besides me had to get off Macadam on to I-5 north ramp to go across the river??? There is now a rather large cement barrier/lump that prevents merging on to the ramp until the last possible moment.
Seems pretty unsafe to me, unless you drive a hummer...
I guess we are all just supposed to end up in SoWhAt no matter what.

Read a great book, "The Power Broker worked to destroy New York City with expressways and new roads.

I don't want that for Portland. It's too bad some on this site apparently
do.

No, we just don't want to pay $1 billion for Homer Williams's condos any more.

BTW, once Moses's Marquam Bridge wrecked the Lair Hill/South Auditorium area, the high-rise residential towers were built. They stink, they've alway stunk, and now we're building more of the same.

Robert Moses would love SoWhat.

VR If you oppose parking meters on Hawthorne - write letters and make phone calls. I personally think that there should be parking meters almost everywhere. People need to understand that cars cost money - infrastructure is not free.
JK: Right. Like most incredibly useful things, cars cost money. Unlike transit, they pretty much pay their own way through user fees. Transit relies on the taxpayer for about 80% of its costs. Every time you pay $2 for a Trimet ride, the taxpayer is paying another $8 of your ride that actually costs around $10. Aren’t you glad that you can sponge off of the taxpayers?

VR But to be fair the meters need to be EVEERYWHERE. They put them on Hawthorne - they need them on Division, NW 23rd and 21st, Freemont, Alberta, Bellmont, Mississippi, SE Milwaukie, everywhere.
JK: Of course, this is another step in Metro’s plan to gradually increase the cost of driving so that people will give up driving and move to mass transit. Unfortunately, the Metro planners are too stupid to realize that cars use less energy than buses, pollute less and cost less.
See Table 2.10 of TRANSPORTATION ENERGY DATA BOOK: EDITION 25-2006.
( http://cta.ornl.gov/data/tedb25/Edition25_Full_Doc.pdf )

VR Then to do that they will need to impairment residential parking permits so that people don't just park in the residential streets to avoid the meters... It is a big task to do fairly.
JK: You forgot to mention that the permits will cost money. The city will be forcing you to pay money to park in front of your house ON LAND THAT YOU OWN!! (bet you didn’t know that you own the street in front of your house to the center line)

Thanks
JK

Well, Senor Karlock, you appear to be the first person in a long time to actually claim that cars "pretty much pay their own way through user fees."

That's why we have a multi-billion dollar list of road improvements needed to allow all those "paying their own way" cars - with no funding source in sight. Were you one of the 13% of voters who said "yes" to the proposed gas tax hike several years ago?

That's why we have neighborhoods like Lair Hill that were destroyed by facilities needed for all those "paying their own way" cars. Just like you would have destroyed the Hawthorne neighborhood with your Mt. Hood Expressway (I assume you think the expressway would have been a great idea).

Or maybe you're one of those McIntyre types who says the whole problem could be eliminated by "cutting bureaucatic fat?"

Regards,

Matilda

Matilda Well, Senor Karlock, you appear to be the first person in a long time to actually claim that cars "pretty much pay their own way through user fees."
JK: No, I’m not. And they do. And transit is basically welfare. (Actually transit’s real, not stated, purpose to support downtown financial interests.)

Matilda That's why we have a multi-billion dollar list of road improvements needed to allow all those "paying their own way" cars - with no funding source in sight. Were you one of the 13% of voters who said "yes" to the proposed gas tax hike several years ago?
JK: Look at the list of what they actually spend money on. Portland/Oregon quit adding needed capacity to our road system years ago. Since then they are just adding bikie lanes, extended curbs, boulevards, speed bumps and other things to increase congestion. Until they are ready to spend money on solving real problems and increasing capacity they get no support from me.

Matilda That's why we have neighborhoods like Lair Hill that were destroyed by facilities needed for all those "paying their own way" cars.
JK: Destroyed? How? By the way how do you like Homer’s new new condo farm?

Matilda Just like you would have destroyed the Hawthorne neighborhood with your Mt. Hood Expressway (I assume you think the expressway would have been a great idea).
JK: It was planned for Division, not Hawthorne.

Matilda Or maybe you're one of those McIntyre types who says the whole problem could be eliminated by "cutting bureaucatic fat?"
JK: What about ODOT’s alleged 5000 employees that don’t build roads?

Thanks
JK

Every single one of your responses, Monsieur Karlock, was a sidestep or an evasion.

That will be my last attempt to argue with you - you are obviously an individual impervious to facts that don't fit your warped worldview

Vaya con Dios

Matilda

Matilda Every single one of your responses, Monsieur Karlock, was a sidestep or an evasion.
JK: Can I assume that you cannot come up with how “neighborhoods like Lair Hill that were destroyed by facilities needed for all those "paying their own way" cars were harmed by cars? (Of course all of us would like to be the only person on the road, but the reality is that others have a need to travel too, so you must consider your right to travel in other neighborhoods as a benefit to allowing others to travel through your neighborhood.)

Can I take it that you now agree that cars "pretty much pay their own way through user fees?" And that many/most of ODOT’s 5000 are unproductive?

Or are you just another of those PDC/Portland Planning Dept shills that show up here frequently?

Thanks
JK

Matilda,
Wake up and smell the burning cash.
It's not about "cutting bureaucatic fat"

It's about stopping the insane stream of boondoggles advanced under false premises.

You appear to have little or no understanding of the countless millions in general fund dollars devoured by Urban Renewal and other schemes every year.
For reckless and irresponsible things like SoWa.
Even with SoWa and Corbet/Terwilliger/Lair Hill neighorhoods you are oblivious to what is adversely effecting the area and funding for every basic service and infrastructure need.

The preference to spend millions on new shiny toys and high density without regard for ANY of the impacts or for any higher city priorities.

The Mt.Hood freeway would have run out Powell not Hawthorne. You can't even get that right. It would have been a ribbon like 84. Not a wide path of destruction.
Big deal.

Given it's proximity to the Sellwood Bridge, I'm surprised they haven't decided to suspend all development in SoWhat until the Sellwood Bridge replacement is underway.

Given that Southbound rush hour traffic is already backed halfway up Macadam, just imagine what all those Condo Dwelling dinks/boomers driving to Oswego for dinner/shopping is going to do for congestion.