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Ocean State Anointed
February 19, 2013 | 23 comments
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Stamped for Failure
May 14, 2010 | 42 comments
The Nation's Pulse
Portland Going Nowhere
Except broke — light rail will do that to you.
(Page 2 of 2)
But the public has little recourse. Public transport authorities exist outside of democratic accountability; they’re not elected, and thus come under little oversight. Should TriMet wish to build an astonishingly expensive and needless light rail line, there’s little the taxpayer can do to stop them. If it wishes to sacrifice utilitarian bus service at the altar of light rail, the people have no veto. TriMet serves the interests of its workers and environmentalist sycophants. Its customers are increasingly left in the rain.
THIS BLEAK PICTURE presents a stark contrast to the reputation that Portland’s public transport network enjoys in the national media and among public transit enthusiasts. The New York Times calls Portland the “city that loves mass transit,” and runs gushing tributes to the supposed triumphs of TriMet. The L.A. Times muses, “What can Portland teach Los Angeles about transportation?” (One wonders whether TriMet’s dozen person-plus PR and advertising staff deserves credit for this state of affairs.) Jennifer Dill, a professor at Portland State University and high priestess of the TriMet clan, is a celebrated speaker worldwide, giving talks with names like “Toward Sustainable Urban Mobility: Insights into Portland’s Journey.” Nor is this a new phenomenon: almost 20 years ago, the Atlantic purported to answer the question of “How Portland does it.”
Thanks at least in part to Portland’s PR successes, cities and states across the country are now replicating Portland’s failures. Los Angeles is currently building an 8.6-mile light rail line that will cost almost $900 million. Seattle just opened the first 15.6 miles of its nascent rail network at a cost of $2.4 billion. The first phase of a rail project that will connect Dulles airport with Washington, D.C., will cost $2.65 billion. This is occurring as highways are deteriorating — yet there is no precedent to indicate that residents of automobile-oriented Los Angeles, Seattle, and Northern Virginia will suddenly abandon their cars for light rail.
Portland’s experience with public transport holds lessons for the rest of the country. But they’re not the lessons that the Rail-Volutionaries think they are.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (81) | Leave a comment
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Old Soldier| 3.8.11 @ 7:25AM
I laughed out loud at the picture with this article. They paid $billions for that bus on rails? Ha! Stupid Statists.
Melvin| 3.8.11 @ 7:46AM
A subject I am personally familiar with. I am a TriMet baby. Born and raised in the Portland Metro area, I road those big white and I think orange buses between Portland and Hillsboro.
At the time I was a teenager and I didn't care about the minutia of running a bus-line with efficiency I just wanted the bus to show up at the bus stop.
If memory serves me correctly I think I paid .50 to .75 cents in 1976.
Unfortunately I was the only one who escaped the reeducation camps that the Liberals set-up after the invasion of Nike and Intel.
When these companies were first started in former wheat fields, every fruit cake, deviant, Eco-terrorist, and pervert from across this Nation descended upon the Portland Metro area like a plague.
Urban planners in Multnomah and Washington County's developed what they called Smart Growth. This growth is designed to keep urban growth in a certain area that is serviced by TriMet and the light rail line.
Jennifer Dill and those like her for a lack of a better phrase, have rabidly promoted and created a Disney World like atmosphere with cute little light rail trains scurrying about with their passengers nestled safely insides singing, "Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to Portland we go."
People have a hard time visualizing this because I have the ability to compare now and then when there wasn't TriMet or the cute little light rail choo choos.
When I grew up it was farming and logging that was king. Portland was always Liberal to a certain degree, and what used to be king is now a queen. Ya got to live in Portland to appreciate my humor.
Tom in Michigan| 3.8.11 @ 5:01PM
"Smart growth" by these people reminds of the Obamaviks' "Smart diplomacy" shown to be a risible fraud by their ineptitude, especially on the part of Secretary Clinton. Even more laughable will be her upcoming Presidential campaign in which she touts her "foreign policy experience" as her main qualification to be POTUS.
How many of those still willing to be fools for the left are going to buy into that bit of comedy?
Anyway, 20 years ago Portland was high on my list of places to retire. Sadly, it's been thoroughly "californicated" like the rest of the beautiful state of Oregon (deserving of SO much better as I still recall all the wonderful people I've met there) and, I haven't returned since 1999.
Will Detroit, Oregon one day resemble Detroit, Michigan? Give the left long enough and, it will. Remember, we were once the most vibrant city in America until 60 years of leftism reduced us to our current sad state.
Save yourselves! Reject the left and all their works!
MikeD| 3.8.11 @ 7:51AM
As I confessed before, I LOVE trains; big trains, small trains, any kind of trains. I especially love riding trains; as often as possible. But, it's an unrequited love in today's world.
America has been so deep in our love of cars so long that our entire infrastructure is developed around it. Advocates gush about the rail systems in Europe which ARE spectacular; but Europe is a fraction the size of the U.S., and every major rail line outside Switzerland is subsidized heavily. and that's the crux of the problem.
Apparently a large percentage of us simply do not understand the fact that WE ARE OUT OF MONEY! We are broke! Insolvent! We should be operating under bankruptcy rules.
This is just one more reason to lose my natural enthusiasm and optimism. Nobody in any part of our government gets this simple fact. But the message coming from barry the muslim is "business as usual"; just keep spending. It is clear that the democrats have reached "TERMINAL STUPIDITY" and slithered right on by to "NATIONAL ECONOMIC SUICIDE"!
As frightening as it sounds, Mr. Boehner, it is up to you and your House majority to stop this spending in its' tracks. Now. DO NOT LIFT THE DEBT CEILING! Hold out! Let the government shut down!.
JayDick| 3.8.11 @ 11:12AM
Several years ago, while visiting Italy, I rode from Florence to Rome on a train. I don't know how high-speed it was, but it was OK. Last year I visited France and looked forward to riding the TGV, which I had heard very good things about for years. What a disappointment. It was very small and cramped. It had two levels; the upper level was difficult to get to. The ride was rough, like all other trains I ever rode. And, it was expensive. But, it was fast.
What a waste!
Stormzeye| 3.8.11 @ 1:55PM
Speaking of European wastefulness, remember the SST (Supersonic Transport)? We almost followed that lemming over the cliff. Liberals, please go to Europe where you belong!
Paevo| 3.9.11 @ 12:38PM
Utter rubbish. The TGV is smooth enough to use a laptop while running well over 200 mph...
JimH| 3.8.11 @ 8:10AM
I think one reason the governor of Florida said 'no thanks' to the high speed rail money is the fiasco that is the Jacksonville rail system.
Hillel| 3.8.11 @ 8:36AM
I grew up in NYC where mass transit made sense. Keeping the fares too low and featherbedding work rules of course are killing it.There were also steam choo-choos into the country. While NYC-transit had a good safety record, I have photos of deadly RR accidents. In the first decades of the twentieth century,RRs had what today would be an unacceptable level of lethality. "Trolley's just don't make it! People need to take charge and abolish "authorities" which foist unwanted expensive boondoogles on us and are instruments of Tyranny.
Melvin| 3.8.11 @ 8:40AM
I'm to shotgun this question out into the conversation. Why can't rail of any kind work, and can it work, even in the private sectors hands enough to make a profit and still make it viable for people to afford to ride?
Stan Redmond| 3.8.11 @ 9:41AM
It will never work and has been proven (except two lines in the world I believe (one in Japan one in France)) a failure everywhere.
Inflexible. Once the rail line is there that's it. A breakdown and it blows the ENTIRE system.
New lines will never be built without bribes to eco-nut tree-huggers.
As one poster here pointed out train travel is a major PITA. If you want to travel by train...Load the car, park the car, unload the car at the train station, carry the luggage to the train station, get your ticket, load your bags, go through TSA screening (it's on the way folks) sit on the train, get off the train, pick up your bags, take bags to rental car counter, take bags to rental car, drive to destination, unload car. Rinse and repeat to get back home.
lmn| 3.8.11 @ 10:08AM
Trains have a hard time competing against the massive subsidies larded onto roads.
Dan Sudlik| 3.8.11 @ 10:30AM
You obviously don't drive the toll roads in the North East. Buffalo to New York City about $12 each way. And than you get to pay to cross a bridge.
PolishKnight| 3.8.11 @ 11:30AM
Indeed, Dan, the massive costs of driving are revealing that roads are also heavily subsidized and unworkable, but most people live with it because they don't think they have any other choice.
I know better.
Quite simply, I choose to live close to work and school. This may mean paying more for housing (about $200 more per month) and in a condo rather than a home, but it also means an extra hour or more each day as compared to my colleagues who drive every day. Plus I get fresh air on the walk to work.
The urban-suburban commute in the states is a dirty secret of the left and right alike mostly due to white flight. As cities became liberalized and extensions of the welfare state, workers fled in the droves. Later on, some or most of the jobs fled as well (hello Detroit!)
All that said, when I have lived in other countries where there is a lot of light rail and an extensive small bus network, it was a pleasure. Cars were still useful at times for rural areas or getting large families around, but most of the time I walked it (and showed a loss of weight to boot!)
Sadly, we're living in a war zone (culture war zone) along with a variety of political issues that are revealing themselves (union strikes here but this has long been a problem in Western Europe.)
Albert| 3.8.11 @ 10:31AM
Massive subsidies? Roads are paid out of highway and gasoline taxes, e.g. user pays. That's not a subsidy. (In California road revenues are siphoned off into the general fund by politicians, meaning road users are subsidizing government.) Trains don't work because trains are HEAVY and consume great amounts of fuel per passenger mile. Cars and busses are more efficient. Trains are inflexible (as noted above by Stan). Trains are scheduled, and the schedule rarely coincides with desired travel plans. Trains go where the tracks are and not where you want to go. It is no accident that automobiles followed trains as an advancement in technology. It is simple economics.
JayDick| 3.8.11 @ 11:16AM
You don't understand. To liberals, fuel taxes are like any other tax revenue. When used, they become a subsidy, even though they are used for the benefit of those that paid them.
Logic like that got us where we are. Sad.
lmn| 3.8.11 @ 4:50PM
If gas taxes could cover the cost of roads that would be fine. But they don't, nor do they cover the pork shoved into the highway bill or the cost of military power expended to keep the oil flowing.
Slash the subsidies to roads, to oil, to mass transit and to roads. If people were willing to pay the real price there would be a lot less Spending.
Nunya| 3.8.11 @ 5:17PM
Actually, there is only one state I know of where the fuel tax actually exceeds the cost of maintaining roads, and that's California. That's one of the reasons the Fed was able to bludgeon the states on the 55 mph debacle years ago, because if they pulled their road money none of the other states could afford to maintain their roads.
Stormzeye| 3.8.11 @ 2:12PM
Point-to-point transportation only works for people who are in one place from nine to five. Remember though that our freight rail system is the envy of the world. It was laid out when land was cheap. To buy up rights-of-way today would be prohibitive in densely populated areas, like LA to SF. You can't effectively run passenger service on freight roads without disrupting the latter by having it pull onto a siding to let a train full of commuters ride by. Passenger rail can never work in the U.S. Even light rail rights-of-way are too expensive and point-to-point travel is not the way a lot of people work, so it has many of the same issues as long haul rail. Unfortunately, for some reason, the romance of the rails will never die; and as many of us know, the mental illness often referred to as Liberalism is all about romance.
PaulyD| 3.8.11 @ 2:13PM
The American railroads were the first American industry to become "socialized" in the late 19th century.
As GM has done in our day, the railroad industry got into bed with the politicians of its day and became heavily regulated. Railroad employees were unionized early on and now all enjoy FEDERALLY SUBSIDIZED pensions.
The decline continued (as is the case with every regulated and unionized industry) over the last century until passenger rail service was eventually "nationalized" (AMTRAK).
It is a sad story of Government interference in the marketplace with the usual warnings (that go unheeded) which the readers of AmSpec are probably all too familiar with.
logmank| 3.8.11 @ 8:42AM
However, here comes Obowmao to the rescue! All you have to do is two little things: first, shut down all domestic drilling for oil and, second, foment unrest in the middle east. Voila! $4 dollar per gallon gas, headed for $5, $6, $8, $10.
Pretty soon, no one will have the financial ability to fill their automobile's gas tanks, then everyone will be riding public transportation.
Problem solved! Isn't the all wise and beneficent Obowmao (pbuh) brilliant?
Nightmare on Obama Street| 3.8.11 @ 10:27AM
Exactly. The whole gas price rise is deliberate by Obama and his marxist environmentalist cronies. The local media in Sacramento is already interviewing the brain dead sheeple about how they are now taking the failed light rail to work instead of driving cars they can't afford. When one is forced to take the rail, another slice of freedom has been taken. People should be up in arms about the hate America energy policy President Kim Il Obama is following. Obama's rule of thumb: If it's good for America I Hate it!
Ken (Old Texican)| 3.8.11 @ 8:59AM
Well, this article demonstrates quite clearly that ALL of the nit-wits aren't in the federal government.
Many States and cities are stark raving lunatics as well.
Tom in Michigan| 3.8.11 @ 5:06PM
Google, "Detroit City Council Monica Conyers" (now incarcerated wife of Democrat Congressman John Conyers - didn't hear that in the corrupt, leftist media, did ya, Tex?) to see the epitome of the lunatics that the Democrats have ruining our cities and states. It's a national phenomena with the Obamaviks in power. At least we're exporting SOMETHING!
Jeff R| 3.8.11 @ 9:30AM
"Public transport authorities exist outside of democratic accountability."
This is astonishing. I would think that if Portland residents and Oregonians really wanted to end profligate spending on mass transit, they could pressure local and state elected officials into doing so. Seems that propaganda and the liberal mindset of too many Oregonians are the obstacles to curtailing mass transit spending excesses in Oregon - oh, that and federal subsidies that provide inducements to expand and construct mass transit systems.
figusja| 3.8.11 @ 9:34AM
This is amazing MikeD, I was thinking the same thing. I don't feel as alone. When times are good then spend for all she's worth.....BUT when times are tough we should tighten our belts and do the right thing. Everyone knows those benefit packages and retirement plans for the unions(now public workers) are unsustainable! Use some commonsense.
Michael L. Hauschild| 3.8.11 @ 10:29AM
Has anybody actually been to Oregon? To solve their transportation kerfluffle all you would have to do would be to plug up the storm drains and issue envionmentally approved rubber rafts.
Pelligrino| 3.8.11 @ 10:48AM
Folks, I'm hearing very simplistic thinking here.
Is the issue really that public transport cannot work or that the management of it is mismanaged?
In this article we plainly read of over-compensation for the Portland TriMet employees. That is mismanagement; that will kill any enterprise and make it unsustainable.
For feasability you have to tinker with ticket prices, create attractive long-term rider packages, and interject commercial ideas everywhere.
Note the nice photograph of the white, yellow, and blue tram on that Portland street. Where's the advertising on it? You get the idea: Get IBM, Kellog's, CocaCola, Office Depot, RadioShack, etc. to "pitch in" by buying up adverstising space.
Look, folks, our beef is: We want it to be a fully commercialized entity that survives on its own through ticket sales and riders.
We don't want the taxpayer to have to fund it. Got it.
Okay, emphasize that, and not that mass transit, rail, or street trolleys are inevitably dumb initiatives.
They can definitely work in some metro areas. They would be a boon.
I, for one, am fed up with street congestion, miles and miles of death-by-driving through countless traffic lights at bumper to bumper speeds.
I'll rail if you give me a good option. What kind of broke country are we when we don't have a Metro link for Dulles Inernational Airport into the existing D.C. Metro system? (No, I don't want it taxpayer funded; I want it to pay for itself with a private company running it. But it would make business travel to D.C. much, much easier.)
Folks, we are all living in different urban/suburban situations. But some of us might be singing a really different tune very soon.
For example:
Let's see regular unleaded fuel go to $5.85 / gallon in Portland, and more people will be finding a way to use public transport.
txn4ever| 3.8.11 @ 11:10AM
The long term future for many types of workers is not gonna be commuting via mass transit. It will be tele-commuting (working from home). Businesses will stop building large campuses where employees go to work everyday. Instead the work place will be distributed throughout the community will perhaps some smaller centralized office where workers meet only as necessary.
I'm not too keen on all this pie-in-the-sky green utopia grabage however I think large businesses will lead the green transportation revolution by inovation in distributed work environments thereby eliminating transportation to the maximum extent possible.
What will happen to all these mass transit systems when no one leaves home to go to work?
Al Adab| 3.8.11 @ 11:32AM
Central planners can always posit arguments favoring their concepts. However, are we more interested in creating a society of ants each following the leader, or a society of free people where individual choices aggregate to form a cherent whole? The issue (mass transit, rail, busses whatever) is not the issue. The issue is control by authority. It is that which we oppose.
Doctor Right| 3.8.11 @ 12:32PM
Liberals prefer to be ants. Or, rather, they prefer that WE be ants while they rule from above.
Pelligrino| 3.8.11 @ 11:43AM
Texan4Ever, have you ever supervised those who do or who wish to work from home? Have you ever been in a division or seen a genuinely productive workforce -- over time -- do this?
It takes a very focused and disciplined person with no life distractions to be fully productive at home.
That's not most of us.
This is typically not the case for 30-something, 40-somethings who have some family also living in that home. Family, dog, cat, neighbors, kids home already from school, kids off from school, home phone calls unrelated to work, etc. are work distractors.
Talk to more senior bosses on this; they aren't too keen on it.
Sure, it could work perhaps if you just employ something like a group of bloggers who comment on the social-political issues of the day. (former Huffington Post) That is not what most people are employed to do.
Where do you read green utopia into this? This is about moving people about and giving them choices. If you've never experienced the ease of using efficient public transport (and getting to leave the car behind while saving on the tolls, gas, & parking fees) then you should branch out in your life and try it a bit.
It can work (depending on the city, the size of the population, the layout of the city, demographics, etc.). Good, efficient, privately funded transport systems can indeed meet a need that consumers want.
There is no need to dismiss it as a possibly solid, viable option out of hand.
Dave| 3.8.11 @ 5:33PM
Pelligrino, Telecommuting is a management issue that can be readily solved. I telecommuted for six years and was MORE productive at home than I ever was in the office - nobody wandered by to waste my time talking about their kids, no useless daily meetings, no arguments, no muss no fuss. Telecommuting works across a broad spectrum of jobs - not just bloggers - and the internet makes it feasible.
Mass transit, on the other hand, only works if you happen to live near one terminal and work close to another. And once the rail lines are laid down, the system will quickly become ineffective (if it ever was in the first place) when people move to new and better homes, work moves to a new office park in the burbs, you take a new job for some other company. Mass transit by its very nature cannot adapt to changing circumstances for either end - work or home.
Albert| 3.8.11 @ 1:22PM
If mass transit systems were economically feasible, they would be privately funded and operated already. That they aren't tells the story.
Jared| 3.12.11 @ 6:40AM
You obviously haven't been to Portland. Tri-Met is already covered in advertising. Also, on the MAX light rail, there isn't anyone to check fares usually. Sometimes the police will board the MAX to check for fares, but mostly no one bothers. Addtionally, the MAX isn't really the best way to get around. The people on the MAX tend to behave worse than on the buses. The buses go more places, too. Additionally, the MAX is pathetically slow. It also breaks down anytime something comes across the tracks. It can't simply be rerouted.
It's not so easy to take public transit here in Portland to get around. The buses are more crowded than ever, too, thanks to service cuts. It's crazy because ridership is supposedly up, but they are cutting service.
Stephanie| 3.8.11 @ 11:11AM
Silly progressives just want us to be like Europe. But we mainly live in suburbs, not cities. We like our cars, we need our cars even when the gas i edging toward $4.00 a gallon.
No Barry, we don't want your lite rail and hopefull the next president will bput the kaibash on that sutpid notion.
Steve A| 3.8.11 @ 11:12AM
Liberals & their choo choos. It just never ends.
Seek| 3.8.11 @ 11:49AM
Actually, the late Paul Weyrich, a conservative if ever there was one, was a huge champion of subsidized rail transport, especially urban trolleys. Or was he just a Euro-greenie, too?
Mitch Angoop| 3.8.11 @ 8:22PM
Do you really think Weyrich was a conservative? Try googling him...you'll get a surprise.
JayDick| 3.8.11 @ 11:20AM
This is funny, unless you have to pay for it.
KyMouse| 3.8.11 @ 11:39AM
Almost a century ago, Louisville KY had a little rail system called the Interurban, which primarily served wealthy families along the Ohio River. Their children rode it in to school, and their maids rode it out from downtown.
The Interurban stopped running in mid-century. Even the maids could afford cars by then, and the line was just to expensive to run.
Today, several of the estates still have the small shelters that were built for the Interurban -- benches with moss-covered roofs -- but the tracks were torn up long ago. The Glenview neighborhood's two-room post office used to be the Interurban's little train station.
And yet, some Louisvillians are still clamoring for light rail. After all, things would be different this time -- right?
Who Knows?| 3.8.11 @ 11:47AM
Thanks for the reminder, if I even needed one, of the insanity exhibited by the wet noodle denizens of the Portland-metro area, my old hometown.
When I was drafted into the army in 1966, and had to leave the soggy cocoon of Portland and Eugene for unknown places, certain that Vietnam was one of them, boy, was I depressed and mad.
But, spending time in California, Indiana and Tennessee, and even one year in Nam, sure turned out to be a grace, because there was no way I was going to live in that depressing place again!
The author is wrong about the voters having no say in the light rail boondoggle, especially, and even in the whole public transportation system.
SOMEBODY signs the checks that pay for stuff!
And, the people in those decisive positions WERE put there by the voters, probably aided by fraudulent ballots. The people in Portland DESERVE their liberal form of government, right down to the “fringe” transportation system called “public”.
It has always amazed me that rip offs like these can just seem to keep on going. A regular business quickly burns through any saved or invested capital, if costs are more than revenue, but entities like Trimet stretch it all out, by floating bonds, or otherwise borrowing, until----KABOOM!
Well, today we’ve FINALLY passed from the BOOM days, wherein socialists were able to blow up their stealing bubble, to now, where it is quickly bursting---KABOOM!
We’ve become the Disunited States of Ponzi Schemes.
hkjr | 3.8.11 @ 2:16PM
Did u just say what I have been thinking for decades? Amen to that brother!
Renaissance Nerd | 3.8.11 @ 12:11PM
I doubt many conservatives would be against high speed or light rail if it were commercially viable. The problem is that the left wants to force everybody to pay for the privileged few who ride. As is so often the case, the left has no desire to fix a problem, just control other people's choices. Meat is murder? Fine, come up with an alternative that is healthier and tastier and cheaper. Problem solved. That's not good enough though, because the real issue is giving orders, and every liberal is a petty tyrant yearning to force others to crawl on their bellies. Don't like the internal combustion engine? Invent an alternative; nobody alive would object to a 9-passenger Suburban that got 100 miles to the gallon of water (or whatever). Or a flying car, or a functional 6-seat zeppelin, or a (my personal favorite) an anti-gravity flying recliner. Come up with the solution, and there's no need for subsidies, coercion, or shrill denunciations. But then a liberal's world revolves around subsidies, coercion, and denunciations that cannot be shrill enough. No chance for cruelty? No point in bothering.
I used to commute from Tracy CA to downtown San Francisco. I drove to Dublin, got on the BART, and rode into the city center. It was only $8 for a round trip ticket each day, and $12 to park in the city, so it was cheaper. The trains were never crowded (in 1999), even during rush hour. The roads were packed solid, and a quick tap of the brakes reducing speed by 10mph causes cars 100 or 200 spaces behind to stop.
I won't be holding my breath waiting for the left to invent any solutions. They love problems, and the longer the problems last the more firmly their hooks are set.
Peter| 3.8.11 @ 12:26PM
For me the only big draw on the MAX line was the line to the airport. It was slower than driving but it meant no worries about traffic jams or parking fees.
I did use a day pass for trips to downtown Portland as it meant no parking hassle.
I figured that as my tax dollars were paying for it I might as well use it.
The only bright side was the occasional ticket check, when you got to see some smelly hippie become unruly and get arrested.
Doctor Right| 3.8.11 @ 12:29PM
Reminds me of that episode of "The Simpsons" where Mayor Quimby got bought-off by a Huckster to put a monorail in Springfield.
Only in Portland...
Pat| 3.8.11 @ 12:31PM
As an alternative to gas hogging cars, light rail is ideal. Why? Because light rail runs on two inexhaustible energy sources: Pride and Greed. Now High Megadollar Greed as an alternative fuel is not the first choice of most light rail developers, but it does work well in cities like Las Vegas. Suppose the outside temperature is 110 degrees and suppose you want light rail to move gamblers, shoppers, rubberneckers, Spring Breakers – maybe even call girls from the Venetian to the MGM casino. Or from Bellagio all the way down to the Luxor. Happy tourists have gobs of money to spend, so make it easier to extract that currency, transport them quickly and in air conditioned comfort – obviously, and without question, light rail fueled by the Casino Owners’ greed is a desirable alternative to smelly buses and taxis.
A less desirable alternative fuel is High-Sulfur Pride, a rather disgusting energy source found throughout America and particularly in decaying urban areas controlled by Democrats. This fuel is the first choice of light rail developers from Boston to San Francisco, it’s found everywhere, it’s easy to mine, it’s easy to process and can be further refined into various distillates such as basic graft, high fiber corruption and insidious vote buying.
Even destitute cities like Detroit built their People Mover to run on low amperage Civic Pride. The tax money spent could have gone for basic necessities to help Detroit’s citizens but the Motor City has its pride and could not deviate from building their very own light rail system to brag about. For a few insightful Detroiters, it was as if a poor West Virginia hillbilly had spent his very last dime on a marble fountain to grace the front yard of his two room shack. No doubt the siren call of Civic Pride will continue to fuel Light Rail sinkholes in every urban area, while the politicians and their friends, the developers, lug their deposits to local banks cheaply and in comfort via Light Rail.
hkjr | 3.8.11 @ 2:26PM
I,m still laughing Pat.
Tom in Michigan| 3.8.11 @ 6:20PM
Detroits's entire transportation problem is the result of the leftists driving anybody out who COULD get out (leaving poor blacks to the tender mercies of their new masters and to pay the price of being enthralled of the left) as the freeways were designed and laid out to transport people across the city.
However, the exodus of the productive (erroneously called "white flight" because hard-working blacks who could, left as well) means that most people commute from suburb to suburb. The latest hare-brained scheme is to "keep young talent in Detroit" (see my post below) by building light rail.
This is a silly and pointless as erstwhile Democrap Governor Jennifer Granholm's "Cool Cities" initiative and subsidizing the film industry (she's a failed actress, don't you know?) giving yet another leftist favorite group; overpaid, drug and sex-addled, no-talent Hollywood parasites money we could ill-afford for dubious returns (Much as we all love Jeff Daniels, the film subsidies cost us more than they earned).
Want YOUR town to be just like mine? Keep voting for Democraps.
Michael L. Hauschild| 3.8.11 @ 12:57PM
I'll push my Buick before I ride your trolly. You people just do not "get it" about internal combustion. In 1966 I owned a 426 Mopar, in 1972 I had a 750 Kawasaki Trident 2-cycle crotch rocket. Sadly, my mid-life was pointless and my income wasted; all I have to show for those years is now (and finally) self sufficient children and grandchildren. But finally, after years of withdrawal, the relief I craved lurks in my garage. It is a tricked out nailhead under the hood of a 1964 Riviera. I live on acreage adjacent to a very straight, very level, blacktop road. Mysteriously, after the last set fades, acceleration marks nearly a quarter mile in length reappear in front of my home.
DEATH BEFORE DETUNE.
Yosemeti Sam| 3.8.11 @ 12:57PM
Ah, yes - by their propeller beanie caps ye shall know Leftoids and their grand visionary enterprises.
LOL.
Wayne | 3.8.11 @ 1:00PM
Portland is just duplicating Chicago, with its Els and street cars and buses. Of course the street cars are gone, and the Els and Subways are not dilapidated and the city is more dangerous than Baghdad and 1 million people have left.
I see the same happening in Portland. It lost its vibrancy. It is now a rather poor city and it is dreary. It is getting more dangerous and it is collapsing in on itself.
Seek| 3.8.11 @ 1:39PM
Rail or no rail, Portland will remain livable so long as it remains white. Ultimately, it's about race.
borninsocal| 3.8.11 @ 2:01PM
You have obviously not been to downtown Portland and experienced the ever growing population of white hippie scum. Its not about race. It never has been. Its about culture. Specifically, "adult body, child mind" culture.
Tom in Michigan| 3.8.11 @ 5:12PM
Sorry, I must disagree. It's about culture as borninsocal says. White leftists do more damage than any other group. Blacks, Hispanics and other minorities accused of ruining places are victims of the left. Sadly, they just don't understand that fact and, it's guaranteed they will trudge back to the polls year-in and year-out to re-elect the leftists who have ruined their cities, not to mention their families and cultures.
Echoing borninsocal again, visit Toronto, ONT once, along with Portland, OR and San Francisco one of my favorite North American cities. The leftists have ruined it as well. You can't walk the streets without being accosted by a panhandler (One guy even yelled, "I fought for this country in Vietnam, man!" when I wouldn't give him a couple Loonies [Canadian dollars]. Man, was HE lost).
No, it's the left that ruins everything they touch.
Wayne | 3.8.11 @ 7:24PM
True, it is not black people biking around naked and it is not a black mayor leading the group with his gay partner.
Tom in Michigan| 3.9.11 @ 8:11PM
You've just proved my point. Portland's "Naked Bike Ride" is exactly the kind of perversion the left brings wherever it goes and part of how the ruin whatever they touch. I used to love Portland but, sadly - I'll never go there again.
The left destroys everthing it touches. Lay off the blacks and other minorities who have, sadly allied themselves with the left - to their ultimate dismay.
wolflen| 3.8.11 @ 1:23PM
santa monica CA is about to mimic portland with a light rail system..we even have our own jennifer clone...watching the city council drool over the "new baby" that will be here in 2015..and saying how it is going to reduce traffic and car use (it wont reduce it...but they wont believe it) and increase walking and bike use...
for many years i have heard about this wonderful place called "nowhere"..."i live in the middle of nowhere" "train to nowhere" "bridge to nowhere"...now in a few years i will be living within a light rail ride to nowhere...i can hardly wait
CalMark| 3.8.11 @ 1:42PM
Life is just "too good" in this country. Only an immensely wealthy society can afford such lunatic schemes.
Technology aside, this would have been unimaginable 150 years ago, when government was small and largely irrelevant in most people's lives. Life was hard and often brutish, but there was so much more LIBERTY, on every level.
The parasites who cling to government for their lifeblood create hare-brained schemes like light rail or socialized [name of program here] to justify their continued proliferation and blood-sucking. They would have starved to death 150 years ago.
CalMark| 3.8.11 @ 1:44PM
Ouch!
Beautiful!
Purple Lips| 3.8.11 @ 2:59PM
And who says Progressives don't like tradition? They're obsessed with windmills, trains, and street cars. What's next, washing boards? (I probably shouldn't give them any ideas?).
Perhaps they should be known as Regressives?
Al Adab| 3.8.11 @ 3:07PM
Regressives actually defines their perspective. There is a great Luddite tradition in The Left.
Grace| 3.8.11 @ 3:46PM
As I drive I-84 I notice that the MAX has only limited ridership, and no wonder. Women know that you ride MAX at your own peril or at least travel with a friend. It is well known that gangs and transients use MAX to move around the city.
I can travel faster by car while feeling safer and more in control of my envionment. With gas prices going ever up I would certainly entertain a more economical form of transportation, but at this point MAX is not the answer.
tallMel| 3.8.11 @ 3:53PM
Operating a small 13 employee business within the TriMet area we have about $800 per quater confiscated from our business to subsidize the riders who pay a small fee to ride. The true cost of the MAX line to Wilsonville, south of Portland, is about $22 per ride. The riders pay $2.50. Socialism, at all it's levels, takes from them who have and gives to them who haven't a clue.
Tom in Michigan| 3.8.11 @ 4:41PM
If you haven't seen it, by all means watch "The Simpsons" episode entitled "Marge vs. the Monorail" It was made in 1993 (12th episode, 4th season) and was absolutely prescient about the light-rail fraud. It's also a very clever "Music Man" spoof with a star-turn by the late, great Phil Hartman. If you're one of those people who still follow the left and believe ANYTHING they're selling and, if this doesn't make you finally understand how the left is handing you a pant-load; you cannot be helped.
Oh, yeah. Come visit me in Detroit and, I'll take you for a little spin on our own "People Mover." For that matter, read "Devil's Night: And Other True Tales of Detroit" to understand how this type of boondoggle is symptomatic of a third-world nation or a nation in decline.
Quit being the left's suckers.
Tom in Michigan| 3.8.11 @ 5:24PM
And don't EVER think they'll change. We had, for one, brief, shining moment hope that new Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, successful businessman, NBA Hall of Famer would be different than his Democrap predecessors (the latest languishes in prison awaiting even more charges for corruption - this time from the Feds) but, he's turning out to be just another one.
As if things weren't bad enough in Detroit; guess what the latest project to "keep young talent in Detroit" is? You guessed it, light rail:
http://www.mlive.com/news/detr....._tale.html
I'm considering moving to New Zealand.
Richard Baker| 3.8.11 @ 5:26PM
Kill the light rail beast everywhere! A colossal waste of money by liberals playing games with our money. These clowns live in Fantasyland which is not just the old Disneyland theme park. Lefties, spend your own damned money for this nonsense!
Michael L. Hauschild| 3.8.11 @ 5:46PM
Our own Democrat mad-hatters are floating a “light rail” project from the Old DownTown Market area to 24th and Lake Street in North Omaha. (This area is not even inner city; it is “outer city.”) I can only assume that this is to provide inexpensive (taxpayer subsidized) transportation for stoned bald hippies to areas where they can be robbed or shot. Absolutely no travel will be generated back to the Old Market as the only people able to pay the fare will be those who just robbed someone and they are going to spend the money on crack. It will be named after some former democrat Mayor and like most of their harebrained schemes at spending someone else’s money it will have two dead ends.
Jon Rambo| 3.8.11 @ 8:21PM
It will never be as efficient as individual vehicles. Fuel efficient yes. Time efficient no. Too many stops and lack of a common destination make it a relic of the last century. Mass transit wasts millions of man hours and public resources every year. I totally agree with this article.
proreason| 3.8.11 @ 8:54PM
Ah, but perhaps the author is not considering that once cars have been banished from the planet a few decades or centuries hence, light rail will look like a wonderful option.
In the meanwhile, isn't it worth it to indoctrinate a few thousand lemmings a day to the nuturing contol and wonderful options of going from point a to point b, and even, occasionally, to a point c. Your day-to-day happy marxist doesn't want the lemmings to have TOO many options. That smell too much like freedom, poison to the utopian marxist state.
Dee See| 3.8.11 @ 9:32PM
America's rail system has long been a disgrace.
AS 'Free Trade' TREASON and overt sellout
has virtually handed
ownership of the States to the awesomely genocidal, Rockefeller-Globalist enabled RED Chinese
----we might as well copy from them for a change.
Ben | 3.9.11 @ 2:49AM
Mmm…it sounds like the train fetishists have been tricking people. Portland has also been praised here in Australia. Luckily, in the age of the internet, spin is harder to control.
Rich Rostrom| 3.10.11 @ 11:21PM
Speaking as a non-driver:
A car gets you from where you are to where you want to go, right away, whenever you want.
Mass transit gets you from near where you are to near where you want to go, after a wait, some of the time.
The car transit system is composed of millions of independently purchased components. Not just the cars, but parking lots, garages, and streets. (The streets are a bulk purchase, but we have to have streets.)
Mass transit (especially rail transit) is composed of a few very costly components purchased by a central authority. (Bus transit is inefficient, but not as bad as rail. It was buses that killed the streetcars, not a conspiracy by Ford and GM.)
It's mammals versus dinosaurs, and the mammals win every time. Disaggregation rules!
Ian| 3.11.11 @ 12:48PM
I wish i would have seen this article sooner because as a Portland resident who uses MAX to commute to the Intel campus sited in the article, I question many of the claims on this article and generally find the underlying arguements to be simplistic.
First of all, this article creates the impression that Portland's MAX cars are running around empty. This is simply not true. During rush hour (when I ride), the MAX is packed with riders. The claim that only 23 people from my particular Intel campus is also false. Intel is Oregon's 2nd largest employer (next to the government) and is its most concentrated geographically. This makes Intel a prime candidate to be served by mass public transportation. For my campus (the one sited in the article), it is typical for 20+ Intel employees to get off just a single train (and the campus is served by 17 trains between the hours of 7 am and 930 am). This article also ignores that fact that my Intel campus is just the third largest of the 4 major Intel campuses served by MAX. Furthermore, Intel pays for minivans to shuttle employees to and from the MAX lines. Intel would not pay for such a service if it was not utilized by its employees.
Additionally, the claim that it takes 23 minutes to get from Hillsboro to Portland by car and 50 minutes by train is absolutely false. I live in NE Portland and it takes me about 1:20 minutes to get to work by MAX factoring walktime, transfer time, etc. By car, it takes me anywhere from 45 min (at best) and 1:30 (at worst) during rush hour...average time is about 55 min. During my MAX commute, i can read, sleep, etc. From a financial perspective, it is a cost neutral decision. It costs me about $4 roundtrip by MAX, and at $3.50 a gallon, it probably costs about $4 by car.
The article states that "Motorists here face none of the hellacious conditions that denizens of Los Angeles or Washington endure" is a half truth. As a former resident of Washington DC who commuted by car, I would agree that during non-rush hour times, Portland traffic is relatively tame compared to other cities. However, during rush hour, Portland's highways are a mess of bumper to bumper congestion. I could only imagine how much worse the roads would be if the thousands of MAX commuters were now in single occupancy cars.
For anyone interested in reading a thoughtful conservative critique of the many of the anti-mass transit arguements that were made in this article. Please read the study prepared for the Free Congress Research and Education Foundation, which is a conservative research institute and policy education organization. The study can be found here:
http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/weyrich3.pdf
Matt| 3.17.11 @ 6:31PM
A pretty lame partisan hack piece. It's weak on numbers, and long on tired rhetoric. It's even wrong on some of the major geographical and historical facts. (Seriously, you can refute a lot of the claims in the article with a simple search on Google Maps. Do your homework next time. Seriously.)
I live in Portland. And I'm sure I speak for a lot of people when I say this article totally misses the point. What's clearly ignored is land-use deregulation: this article is advocating for more government control over land uses and transportation infrastructure. Single-use zoning regulations, heavy handed setback requirements and fully subsidized government-run highways is not a "small government" answer to mixed-use and trains. It's the big government answer.
What is, of course, also ignored, is the massive surge in urban vibrancy we've seen in the past 20 years. That's what's really driving other municipalities to follow Portland's lead. Entire urban districts have gone from derelict warehouses to vibrant employment centers and engines of dynamic small business.
I feel like this article could have been written right after the BART was built in San Francisco and easily could have said all the same things. Then the Internet happened. Now San Francisco isn't just an economic center for America -- it's a force for economic growth all over the world, and even the most San Francisco-hating conservative won't deny that.
Thanks Spectator. That's five minutes of my life I won't get back.
Christian Louboutin | 6.23.11 @ 4:13AM
I feel like this article could have been written right after the BART was built in San Francisco and easily could have said all the same things. Then the Internet happened. Now San Francisco isn't just an economic center for America -- it's a force for economic growth all over the world, and even the most San Francisco-hating conservative won't deny that.
Creative Recreation | 8.11.11 @ 2:16AM
is good