Tigard/Sherwood feel left out and want their share of gangs and home break ins.

I can't tell if that was writen by a journalist or a Metro "reporter".

I guess that means there's no difference?

"I'm sure glad the government can write my stories for me! And for the final touch..my name at the top."

Which area can better use and support a new light rail line:

Milwaukie?

Tigard?

I guess since the head man at the Trib is on the Trimet board we need to remember that any actual analysis of the benefits of this extension of the line will never be done. Objectivity goes right out the door.
And publishers wonder why people have given up on reading news papers. Get a clue!

Its a two-fer!

The Max trains can distribute drunken Timbers fans safely back home to discover the gangs have stolen their bikes and flat screen TVs.

OMG

http://tinyurl.com/luuny

Roberts said she felt like Harrison Ford's character in the third Indiana Jones movie, "where he gets ready to step off into space and the magic road appears and he walks across the canyon… there is a requirement that you have some faith before you step off into the canyon."

Tigard with 100,000 people . . . bullcrap, I say. 99W's already a pretty heavily-traveled road . . . having to "mix modes" by sticking MAX down the middle is going to make it extraordinarily unsafe.

I guess there's one upside, though . . . if it's going to Sherwood, someone can steal the red light cameras.

Everyone knows MAX hasn't done anything to reduce congestion and in fact has made it worse in places by hobbling major thoroughfares by deliberately being run down the middle of them.

The point isn't to provide the public with a service that gets them where they need to go, the point is to restrict their choices of how to go anywhere at all. Affordability, convenience, and safety are secondary, if even considerations at all.

What if we took all the new light rail money and used it to build a series of aerial trams?

They're planning $1.5billion for MLR and a rail line to Sherwood would be in the same ballpark.

I bet $3billion buy a lot of support beams and gondolas. Much smaller footprint for the support towers, so no need to buy up vast tracks of land for construction. And the new trams wouldn't increase traffic congestion.

If we are going to waste money, do it with panache.

Just put a tram on it!

Who's with me????

What if we took all the new light rail money and used it to build a series of aerial trams?

Funny you mention this, one of the city planners that helped plan the OHSU tram suggested building a network of trams instead of light-rail lines back when the projected cost was $5-15 million (so for ~2/3 mile that's $7.5-22.5 million per mile where as MAX averages something like $40-50 million per mile for both directions). That bubble of course burst when the tram turned out to cost more like $86 million per mile and has massive operating costs.

That explains it all then... they really are trying to turn Portland into Fritz Lang's Metropolis. I wonder where most of us are supposed to wind up.

99W's already a pretty heavily-traveled road . . . having to "mix modes" by sticking MAX down the middle is going to make it extraordinarily unsafe.

Highway 99W, between I-5 and Highway 217, is Oregon's busiest five lane highway with over 50,000 vehicles per day.

In comparison, Highway 99W between these two points carries MORE traffic per day than ANY POINT ON I-84 EAST OF TROUTDALE (within Oregon), and MORE traffic per day than ANY POINT on I-5 SOUTH OF EUGENE AND MORE THAN BETWEEN EUGENE AND ALBANY.

With two lanes removed for MAX - where is that traffic going to go? Much of the traffic is overhead traffic and therefore not suitable to be carried on MAX - do you think Portland weekenders are going to take MAX to Tigard and then somehow magically get to the casinos or Lincoln City sans car? Do you think McMinnville and Newberg residents are going to take MAX to...well, where? Unlike the eastside and Interstate lines which also travel in a median, there are no alternate routes to 99W in Tigard - 72nd Avenue is hardly a suitable alternate route, and I-5 often is congested south of 99W at the 217 merge.

Of course, as a "Devil's Advocate" suggestion I suggested a MAX routing that was completely separate from 99W and would require a tunnel underneath most of Southwest Portland allowing the MAX route to directly serve a number of transit-friendly destinations that could not be served by a strictly surface-level route -- my idea was largely pooh-poohed by transit planners specifically because it wouldn't attract development (never mind it'd serve more people and have almost no surface construction impacts.)

Tigard would be better off spending $25 million and breaking off from TriMet to form its own bus system. With all the retail business in Tigard, the city could probably get away with instituting a 1% sales tax (which would result in the city collecting taxes primarily on out-of-towners, while the tax would be so small not to discourage shoppers) on retail sales which would generate enough revenue to have a dozen bus routes providing seven-day-a-week service, with brand new buses, without charging fares to riders (see Canby, Sandy, Wilsonville as examples of cities that broke from TriMet, lowered their business taxes AND dramatically increased transit service - AND ridership!)

This proposed lightrail line is the culmination of many of the negative aspects of other existing and proposed lines in our metro. And it will rely on urban renewal dollars from Portland, Tigard and Sherwood to have it move forward. That will finally bring citizens to demand voting on the issue. And if the pols, bureaucrats won't allow it, then it will petitioned to do so. The time has come.

Tigard already has heavy rail. If the planners want to run commuter rail to Sherwood--to Newberg even--hook WES up to the Portland & Western rail line. "Vision" solved; bucks saved.

Tigard already has heavy rail

But, but, it's not good enough! It's not LIGHT Rail! WES has to share the tracks with a freight train whereas MAX can take travel lanes away from cars and because of that, it's SOOO much better than the bus!