Sounds like a repeat of Trimet & Colorado Railcar over the WES units.

Another self-answering question, but why aren't the additional oversight costs being billed to United Streetcar/Oregon Iron Works? It's their delays, they should be paying. Heck, why aren't there contract penalties for the delays period?

Might as well stock a crappy idea with crappy equipment. After all this is a weird class city. West side ridership down once Pearlies had to pay. They were insulted. After all the 47% gets all the goodies, they are entitled to some too.

"76 back orders in the big parade...."

Portland could have chosen from any of a half-dozen proven bus manufacturers who have thousands of units in revenue service and dozens of references available with a quick phone call.

Instead, we choose commuter rail cars from an unproven company called Colorado Railcar which had quite the dubious history - and TriMet had to bail them out before letting it shut down.

And we bought streetcars from a company who had no experience whatsoever and is now years behind schedule, millions over budget, and the ONE car they've managed to scrape together has been plagued with faults and failures.

It's a damn good thing Portland isn't an airline.

Erik, please don't give CoP any more ideas about having an airline. We already have a Parks Patrol funded by Parks Bureau. We have Portland Patrol managed by Portland Business Alliance paid by CoP, we have Randy's Navy, patrolling our rivers. We have Land, Sea protection, let's not have Air.

Busways and BRT would be so much better. Even restoring the status-quo bus service from 15 years ago would be better. Horse-drawn rail carriages would provide more service than these new streetcars do now.

Rail is just a failure all the way around. Had a special moment on the Streetcar yesterday with a mouthy, dramatic young lady with a pitbull and lots of baggage (literally and figuratively).

An elderly motorized wheelchair user couldn't park in the designated spot due to Ms. Loud Argument Phone Call taking up all the room. Operator pretended not to notice.

Why do the nutters always gravitate to rail? Let them have it. I rarely need rail, just want halfway decent bus service. Heck, I even miss the old Crown-Ikarus 60-footers, despite their frequent breakdowns.

Just read the trimet scanner feed to see how often MAX, WES, and the streetcar get totally bollixed by a small, local fault. One switch signal in Beaverton goes south, and the whole Red Line comes to a halt. &c.

The bus just goes around. So long as it works at all -- let's talk about ramps getting stuck. Happens way too much on the old high-floors. You do need to maintain them, and replace them. Looking forward to trying out Fleet 30.

Someday soon, I hope that Tri-Met finally goes (or admits that it has already gone) BK, so we can replace it with real, practical transit service that meets workers' needs.

LW:

Haven't you seen our security plane flying around at night? And that is the one you can actually see.

TriMet posted this an hour ago:

"An auto collision in the Rose Quarter area has damaged the MAX signal system and is delaying Blue, Green and Red line trains."

Commute mayhem to ensue. As I was saying...

Streetcar tracks are a bottomless money pit in the pavement.