"Flow of goods for economic growth." Spare me the tears.

So what about the multi-hour, traffic jamming, bladder bursting, economy killing Traffic Accident Reconstruction Investigations that serve no purpose but to employ Investigators?

WHERE is all the money going to come from?
There isn't enough BID/LID money along that stretch of highway and the feds are beyond broke. Or has Earl the Pearl missed that? Never mind that this whole project is pure lunacy.
However, we are all grateful to you and Bill McDonald for allowing us to witness the "birth" last week. My morning (mourning?) sickness is setting in a bit late.

"Lacks 140 miles of sidewalks."

So, uh, build some sidewalks?

I saw this piece of shinola a couple of weeks ago - for the life of me, I don't see how light rail has anything to do with sidewalks. In case the geniuses haven't visited lately, it may surprise them to know that there are no sidewalks in most of SW Portland.

Amusingly, the first photo in their frame shows one of those rare breeds in SW:a sidewalk. One nifty thing about sidewalks is how effective they are at moving workforce and transporting goods and services.

The thing w/ sidewalks in SW is that they are mostly lacking in residential areas. I'm not exactly sure how building light rail down a thoroughfare like Barbur is going to help address the missing sidewalks in housing developments from the 1980s. You still have to get *to* the lightrail, no?

The thing with light rail is that once you have it, you have to grow it to meet your expectations. People aren't riding? Well, that's because they can't take it to ______, or ride it from ______. So you have to build lines to those areas.

Don't get me wrong, I'm actually a fan of light rail, and think it should be a national priority. This, however, doesn't seem like a particularly good use of money that we don't really have.

Having lived a couple of blocks off of Barbur Blvd for the last 38 years, let me tell you, Barbur DOES NOT need a train. But then I guess I'm just being selfish.

Look, when the country is carrying on with our debt problems, how in any sane mind can these decision makers here keep on spending and dreaming up these nightmarish problems and more debt is beyond me.

They can't even come up with the money for the Milwaukie Light Rail, me thinks this focus on Barbur now is to take our eyes off of that "project" and on this for awhile. Is it just busy work to keep on scheming and dreaming?
Either that or they are just going hell bent for leather.
What do they want?
For those of us who object to the agenda to leave town so that they can bulldoze the entire city flat and redo it for their purposes?

I wonder if the geniuses at TriMet and Metro will include in their analysis of this project the costs of the increased auto, bus, and commercial truck delays that will occur during the 2 to 4 years this light rail line is being constructed. I bet they won't.

I don't care what anyone says, this is cold blooded corruption.

Tax revenue at multiple agencies is being used to manufacture a need to justify the advancement of failed public policies and costly boondoggles that would never pass voter approval.

There are far too many bureaucrats working full time to gin up anything they can imagine.

Unconstrained by any ethics whatsoever they have effectively become complicit criminals in a thoroughly corrupted
government operation.

And the politicians involved are engaged in wholesale public deceit.

I listened to that JPACT audio and Rex Burkholder claimed he has "gotten reports that john Chalres and Cascade Policy Insitute have received a surge in Koch Bros. funding and are using it to fan the flames of opposition by spreading misinformastion.
Sam Adams and Carlotta Collette piled on. They are blatant liars smearing people in an official meeting of all the regions governments.
That tired claim has been repreated and refuted time and time again.

Burkholder got no report of anything.

CPI doesn't even know how apply to get Koch Bros or Big Oil money.
They get not one dime from either.

Their shoe string budget relies upon their institute providing accurate, reliable and supportable information.

That's in stark contrast to the enormous tax funded mob at TriMet, Metro and other rackets.

Other officials are lying about Urban Renewal paying for itself, MLR being pro-business, slum preventing, a linchpin to livable communities, money saving and economy saving.

They have all gone wild with lies.

What does 140 miles of missing sidewalks have to do with 10 miles of light rail?

According to the Mayor's office, many Portlanders prefer ditches and gravel roads to asphalt and cement (which are impermeable).

We all know that the light rail boondoggle has shifted funds away from other transportation projects (like roads and sidewalks). It's like the rapist calling his victim a whore for not putting up more resistance.

Or maybe the 140 miles refers to extending MAX all the way to Cottage Grove?

Furthermore, Barbur Blvd.is still one of those reasonably nice avenues characteristic of the nice Portland we knew, can't have that now, can we?

Imagine it after their plans - the greenery of the hillsides/trees gone, replaced with cement and blocks of hillside condos and the ubiquitous mixed use concept. Another way to get rid of the "old" style and character of our neighborhoods, is then to throw a huge LID over the area, with more people leaving their homes and businesses. I suppose all the better with "gold" in their eyes to take over this property and with tax abatements yet!!

Is this one of the many plans that Streetcar Charlie is wanting to
come back into pdx to do?

"impedes workforce travel and flow of goods"

If you want to see horrible traffic, drive Interstate now that it has been "fixed" with light rail.

The local worship of trains is truly bizarre. How did we get so fixated on transportation as the end-all and be-all priority around here? Are there really no other problems in Portland other than transportation?

What I would like to know is, if we're constantly working towards a multi-modal system, which major arterial streets are designated to remain open and efficient for CAR traffic? After all, cars are one of the travel modes. (In fact, it is BY FAR the most prevalent travel mode, far surpassing any other, but you wouldn't know it from listening to planners.)

Gumming up Sandy or Broadway or 82nd with rail would be a horrible mistake. At some point, if you're going to whittle away at streets to accommodate other modes, you have to decide which streets ARE meant to function best to move cars around the city, and actually optimize them for that use.

Has there been any decrease in congestion with Max? I-84 is still a parking lot every day, and so is I-5. It seems the solution to congestion is more roads, not worthless trains that no one rides. It's so clear the answer is to move out of multnomah co.

Good luck with those home values...

Wow I shouldn't have clicked on the Barbur concept page..

"presently characterized by post-war auto-oriented commercial development that lacks distinct centers or a sense of place."

Well F-U buddy.

I grew up in SW, went to the local public schools and after college moved back and I live in Lair Hill area. It was a great "place" to grow up- streams, Gabriel park, hills to ride bikes on, and more importantly SAFE from transients. Over and over it's proven that transients, drug dealers, and felons use the trains to avoid police encounters when on the move. The west side seems to be the only functioning part left of the city, resulting in low crime, high income, and the best public highschools.

But the planners love to destroy because it makes them feel powerful. It's totally sick. Their careers and lives are solely focused on destroying mine, while sucking off my labor to do so. Portland will never get it until it gets too bad, I hope we don't end up like Detroit..

There is nothing wrong with the existing bus service (line #12) operating between Portland and Sherwood. I've riden it for years, and it does the trick very well. There is nothing wrong with Barbur either. It provides a very valuable function of offering an alternative route to I-5 through the congested Marquaim area. The sooner TriMet goes bust, maybe the better. Then maybe citzens tell Metro planners to take a hike.

Representative Matt Wand introduced a House Bill last session to eliminate all Planning by Metro. It died quickly but maybe when TriMet's fiscal bust becomes front page, then maybe the next push goes farther.

The heavy hand of light rail- thou shalt bend over and touch the invisible sidewalk

It might interest folks herethat a lot of well organized folks in SW have been preaching to Metro, Tri Met, PBOT and ODOT that no high speed / high capacity transit in the Barbur / I 5 corridor can work unless there is more, not less right of way.

Needs to be an ADDITIONAL dedicated right of way for the Toonerville Trolley, or electric buses.

Surprisingly, the planner types are actually listening to that.

The accountants are rolling their eyes.

Why worry?

Neither China, India, or Brazil are going to lend Uncle the money to build this.

The steel wheels / steel rails school of transit MAX stlye is dead. The body hasn't hit the floor yet, but its dead. The [planners haven't noticed, but they are usually about a decade behind.The money isn't going to be there.

PS - The 12 is a great bus route, when it runs, Its now running on very long headways. Tri Met has gutted that service, and a lot of others, to keep stuff like WES operating.

I'm really excited about MAX to Tigard and Sherwood. Hopefully as much of it as possible can be underground or on its own ROW in order to make the trip quick and impact auto traffic as little as possible.

And I couldn't disagree more with Bob — in addition to the currently terrible headways, the 12 is a long, slow trip, and doesn't have as good of destinations on the way as this new transit corridor seems likely to have.

This future line seemed to be better received even by OregonLive commenters than the line to Milwaukie, not that anonymous comments posted online should mean a thing.

Snards, don't you know?..."cars are evil, cars are evil....

"25 miles of the most highly-congested corridors in the region"? Are these guys smoking crack? I drive Barbur on a daily basis because it's the fastest, LEAST-congested arterial to/from the far west side. What a sad joke.

Aaron; the reason most of us comment anonymously is that the 'rail mafia oligarchy and developers' would make sure our businesses would suffer. We would have many expensive fire inspections on our properties, and we might even suffer some material damage for our disapproval.
And don't tell me it doesn't happen. I have been harassed before in all of the ways listed above and more, for vocal opposition to city sanctioned projects in the past.
It is damn scary when you get phone calls in the middle of the night telling you to stop.
I say let's give the planner creeps some crack to smoke. It might improve the collective outlook.

Wow I shouldn't have clicked on the Barbur concept page..

"presently characterized by post-war auto-oriented commercial development that lacks distinct centers or a sense of place."

Well F-U buddy.

I grew up in SW, went to the local public schools and after college moved back and I live in Lair Hill area. It was a great "place" to grow up- streams, Gabriel park, hills to ride bikes on, and more importantly SAFE from transients. Over and over it's proven that transients, drug dealers, and felons use the trains to avoid police encounters when on the move. The west side seems to be the only functioning part left of the city, resulting in low crime, high income, and the best public highschools.

Sorry, meant to reply to pistolero - I've lived in Northeast, southeast, northwest, and southwest Portland - and southwest is by far the best. Sure, there are no sidewalks nor road shoulders to speak of, and in many cases the roads aren't even paved. In most cases, the roads are tight, wining, and green. And that translates into less crime and fewer hoboes because it's hilly and there are no free trains to ride.

I say we keep it that way.

I ride the bus on Barbur every day (well, except today due to an appointment).

I can tell you a few things that PBOT doesn't want you to know:

1. Primary cause of bus unreliability is NOT due to traffic (at least not traffic on Barbur or 99W). It's because of the buses themselves and TriMet mismanagement. Building MAX would not resolve that problem; TriMet would still mismanage it.

2. Primary traffic problems are not on Barbur. They exist on side routes (such as the Ross Island Bridge which backs traffic onto Sheridan Street and ultimately onto 5th Avenue and Broadway), on Capitol Highway (in Hillsdale), on Terwilliger Boulevard or on I-5. Building MAX does not solve any of these problems; in fact MAX might make some of these problems worse.

3. The main problem on the corridor itself is in Tigard, King City, and even Sherwood. All of these are completely outside PBOT's control; MAX likely would only go to downtown Tigard and thus not even touch the problems in south Tigard and King City (and possibly make the problems worse - as seen on the Westside MAX line, MAX has resulted in increased local auto use. Over half of the Westside MAX line's ridership comes from people who drive by themselves to a TriMet operated park-and-ride facility according to TriMet's own statistics.)

4. 99W, south of I-5 at the Portland/Tigard city limits, is the BUSIEST FIVE-LANE ARTERIAL STREET in all of Oregon with over 50,000 average daily trips. Building a MAX line here will remove two of those lanes of traffic. There's NO OTHER ROUTE. NONE. Interstate has Denver, Greeley, M.L.K., and even I-5. Burnside has Halsey, Stark, and Division. What does Pacific Highway in Tigard have? 72nd Avenue (which more parallels I-5?) What will Metro do regarding the I-5 to 99W Connector between Wilsonville and Sherwood when it'll become about 1,000 times more necessary thanks to MAX?

A Bojack post the other day suggested that a legal fund be established that legally proceeds against a select few of the most egregious illegal shenanigans that are occurring in our region. Barbur Max should be an issue that should have a similar immediate response.

After spending decades of trying to effect and challenge the Transit Mafia, I think it would be more effective to immediately demand a public vote on the issue, without $100+ Millions of studies and all our wasted time. If pols/bureaucrats won't put it on the ballot, then have a petition to remand to a vote.

I know that many of us would contribute money and time. Think about it, it would be cheaper than all the time we waste at hearings. And it would save all taxpayers money to limit the wasteful planning dollars.

I've decided to apply the "light rail and bike lanes solve congestion" system to my own eating habits. I need to lose 20 pounds, so I plan skip cheeseburgers, and instead buy larger and larger clothes and eat a lot of potato chips and cookies. I expect to reach my goal very soon.

And hey--look at all the congestion problems building I-5 and I-205 solved! Without those, we'd be bumper to bumper at rush hour!

99W through Tigard is extremely congested 18 hours a day, that's a fact. But I can't see how a train from Portland to Sherwood would appreciably change it. My opinion is that it's a failure of local access road development. All the planning and $$$ goes to trains when it should've gone to studying traffic patterns and improving/widening other local arteries to ease congestion on 99W. When was the last time there were any projects like that anywhere in the Portland area in the last 40 years?

Like having all the bad eggs in one basket, the Cascadia Subduction Zone will eventually put an end to all the stupidity and corruption that has amassed in this place.

I live near Barbur. I drive it nearly every day. The congestion does not occur until you get close to the Tigard Fred Meyers past the I-5 south exit lane. Building a light rail will just create a traffic congestion problem that does not currently exist.

What Barbur needs is a face lift. With
all the Urban Renewal money going to
other areas of the city, like the
Interstate Corridor area, the Paul
Bunyan makeover in Kenton, Martin
Luther King Blvd., ect. ect. isn't it
time the Barbur Blvd corridor benefits
from all the taxes homeowners in the SW
have paid into this program? Barbur looks
like it belongs in a bad area of Detroit,
instead of the SW area of Portland.

Light rail yesterday-today-tomorrow- light rail forever!!!!
Repeat over&over until you believe in the holy of holy's, THE CHURCH OF LIGHT RAIL-LIGHT RAIL-LIGHT RAIL!
hosanna & hallalluglia! Do I get an Amen brothers&sisters?

Sell Trimet and end their monopoly!

Have all the elected politicians in the area served by Trimet use it everyday for the personal and family errands. No excuses! Gotta take the kid to soccer? Use Trimet! Gotta get to a parent teacher conference? Use Trimet! Wife in labor? Use Trimet!

Seriously though, this has been in the works for quite a while. Engineer the congestion where it doesn't exist via traffic "calming" techniques, then point to it and say, "tsk, tsk, there's too much congestion, we'll have to do something drastic", and the sheeple will nod in agreement and say "please save us from ourselves, Great and Powerful Guvmint!". If the population weren't 3/4 recent arrivals it would never fly, but, that isn't the case.

Since there ain't no Berlin Wall, what you wind up with is a demographically and socially re-engineered community that fulfills the parameters of the calculated model.

Welcome to the petri dish. I wonder if someone will get the Nobel Prize.

I drive Barbur instead of I-5 between Corbett and SW Taylor's Ferry. It's faster.

Mr. Grumpy, it's even worse than that. The sheeple aren't saying "please save us from ourselves". They're saying "Like, that would be really cool, like yah!" Then, as soon as whatever boondoggle is finally available, the ones demanding it the loudest suddenly decide "Well, I don't want it now." It's then on to the next bright shiny object. Enough bright and shiny objects, and they'll move back to Ohio to live with Mom and Dad, loudly honking "Well, in Portland, we did things this way..." at every local boondoggle they see.

Lee:...If pols/bureaucrats won't put it on the ballot, then have a petition to remand to a vote.

I know that many of us would contribute money and time. Think about it, it would be cheaper than all the time we waste at hearings. And it would save all taxpayers money to limit the wasteful planning dollars.

Spinning wheels we have been for years, can't go by who the insiders put up for election, especially when other candidates are not even allowed to debate in major candidate debates.

This financial absurdity has to stop.

Mr. Grumpy:...If the population weren't 3/4 recent arrivals it would never fly, but, that isn't the case...

It is a race here, in my view our dollars are being used to PR and market people in who will more likely go along with the insider's agenda - to try to outnumber those of us who have had Portland values and object to plans. We apparently do not count as evidenced in city hall, but have to pay and pay, along with being dealt some shabby treatment.

Time to do not only one petition, might as well get organized and do several at one time in order to sweep up the mess on several matters in our city.

I learned back with Citizens for the Canyon (The Sylvan Interchange on HWY 26) it is about feeding the real estate speculators/developers and the contractors. Citizens are just sheep* to be fleeced to pay for it. The politicians and Metro types are either toadies for the former or, as as the CIA call their versions, useful idiots.

*At least shepherds know not to kill their flock.

I listened to that JPACT audio and Rex Burkholder claimed he has "gotten reports that John Charles and Cascade Policy Insitute have received a surge in Koch Bros. funding and are using it to fan the flames of opposition by spreading misinformation.

That's pretty funny, as much as I've heard that accusation thrown around on OregonLive and various blogs that have a steady stream of anti-car fanatics, I rarely hear that come from Metro councilors or planners. Not that I think they're necessarily above such childish arguments, but they do have to maintain some semblance of professional composure... you'd think...

Anyway, Koch Bros. or any other oil company couldn't care less about any given transit project. First off, most are now huge conglomerates and many happen to own construction or engineering firms that would be more than happy to receive a no-bid contract for a multi-billion dollar capital project with an almost certain chance of huge cost overruns (that's big $$$$$ for them). Alas, most of those contracts go to more local or firms, or the regulars like Parsons Brinkeroff and HDR (i.e. Streetcar Charlie). Plus, light rail has never produced a measurable reduction in traffic congestion, so if anything they'd support rail since it kills off reliable bus service and forces more people to return to driving cars and buy more of their gasoline.

Many of the grants that have come from Koch are from a pavements/asphalt production division of their company far removed from oil production. They usually amount to a tiny percentage of the campaign contributions given to rail-pushing pols from companies like PB, HDR, PGE, etc. who stand to make huge amounts of money from light rail construction projects.

What's truly amazing is that S.W. Portland made it clear to City Hall that they didn't want streetcars, but improvements to the existing bus service.

The City of Portland responded by renaming their city transit plan the city Streetcar plan, and completely removing all of S.W. off of the plan. Entirely. Nada. There's plans for North, Northeast, Southeast, Downtown...but NOT Southwest.

A survey about a year ago of Tigard residents showed that an overwhelming majority of Tigard residents preferred highway improvements and NOT MAX.

This PBOT presentation tries to make it sound as though light rail is going to be the end solution. Just how will one route a single light rail line to all of the destinations in the first part of the presentation? Tigard, Tualatin, the Tualatin Wildlife Preserve AND Sherwood? Sherwood gets five minute service during rush hours thanks to the 94X bus, and as I ride the 94 bus, it gets pretty empty by the time I get off the bus south of downtown Tigard. I used to ride it all the way to the stop after King City and there might have been one or two people on the bus. Often nobody else; yet the bus would still drive all the way to the end of the route - empty.

PBOT has no business planning Tigard. Tigard needs some backbone and to tell Portland to butt out. I don't live in Portland, I don't call Sam Adams my mayor, and I don't need Portland pushing light rail down my throat - as I live just a block off of 99W. Sure, 99W isn't perfect, but it CAN be fixed. Without light rail. Heck, at least my stretch of 99W has sidewalks AND safe pedestrian crossings; which my old bus stop (within Portland city limits) didn't - and the City, nor TriMet would accept any responsibility, claiming it was someone else's job (I even have the letter signed by Fred Hansen.) Why is it that when "rail" is involved, the politicians trip over themselves to over-fix anything; but when "rail" isn't involved, they can't fix a damn thing? Why must everything involve the nuclear option - just fix what's broke, and leave everything else alone!!!!

Erik H.
I hear this from people that the city should just leave us alone!! Areas were much nicer and livable before the city got involved. We can thank Katz and Hales for most of this negative change. Quite the duo they were and Adams was there with those two the whole time, we should have known better than to elect him period.

I began commenting on this at ten this morning and it is still on my mind, the insanity of what is going on in our country and locally. . we are in debt and these officials are adding more and more debt to our community, more and more projects and more debt. Do they have no fiduciary responsibility? Obviously, the answer is NO!!
Can they not see a “train wreck” before their eyes? The answer is NO!!
It is almost unbelievable that they would even bring up another rail line up at this point, what is going on with the months delay now on the eastside?
However knowing what we have been through, unfortunately, it is quite believable. What is on the plate for us next week?

Jaysus H. Krice... enough already... I live in SW and whatever effen mess gets made on Barbur will just move issues to Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy (my main arterial). As it is I try to go to work early to avoid rush hour traffic. These lunatics are out of their right minds and don't care about the rest of us.

I hope this does not get implemented until my employer decides to put me out to pasture with a nice lay-off package. I will be out of any jurisdiction involving TriMet, Metro, The Port of Portland, etc. All of them want the average taxpayers money for pet projects that mostly don't bring much benefit to those footing the bills.

Lee, I'd chip in the dough for a lawsuit if I thought the concept was legally sound and stood a reasonable chance of winning.

The one thing I have always thought lacking in this Blogosphere was that we cannot meet in person or contact one another. And I suspect that might prove to be interesting (I am shorter than most of you would guess) as well as useful. I suspect that the powers that be would be in a world of hurt if we were to meet-up and decide how to take the city back.

Nonny - TriMet has gutted Line 1 beyond belief. Not that it would take me to work but since weekend service was killed, there is no TriMet option from my area to downtown either on the weekend or in the evenings... or midday

GO by private auto if you live in the Maplewood neighborhood....

""25 miles of the most highly-congested corridors in the region"? Are these guys smoking crack? I drive Barbur on a daily basis because it's the fastest, LEAST-congested arterial to/from the far west side. What a sad joke."

Well, they couldn't exactly use the congestion on the Banfield, I-5 North, 205 to PDX, or the Sunset Freeway could they? Those already have parallel MAX lines, and still have massive congestion.

Also, the "moving goods and services" line is just precious. Did they put some flatbed or box cars on MAX since I moved away from Portland?

LucsAdvo, like most Planners around here there will probably be legally challengable mistakes they will make. For example consider the ICE Jail in SoWhat.

But, like I wrote, the best initiative would be to spend money for a petition to put Barbur Lightrail on the ballot.