Welcome to the week.
Here are the most notable stories and other items our community flagged from the past seven days.
This week’s sponsor is Bike Tires Direct, who just announced a big Warehouse Sale January 18th. Check their website to RSVP and get an invite to this huge savings opportunity.
NEPA nope? There’s an effort to weaken the scope of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) so big projects are responsible for a much more limited set of impacts and the Supreme Court is about to weigh in. (LA Times)
Merckx takes a tumble: 79-year old cycling legend Eddy “The Cannibal” Merckx crashed his bike and broke his hip. Get well soon Eddy! (Associated Press)
Local non-profits in trouble: Several major local nonprofit orgs have hit major financial headwinds that have resulted in layoffs and soul searching. (OPB)
Inflation and affordability: One reason some small community bike shops are going belly-up is that their costs are rising, but their customers can’t pay higher prices. (Cycling Weekly)
Dash cam for cyclists: Is the hope of a small, affordable and reliable dash cam for cyclists finally about to come true? Learn about the Cycle Safe project if you want to find out. (Streetsblog USA)
Bike culture: What happens when a famous cyclist gets seriously injured in a dooring incident involving a post office van? Well, when it happens in Belgium, the postal service launches a national campaign to increase awareness of the dangers of opening car doors. (ABC News)
Cost of light rail: Notable that some elected officials in Vancouver, Washington are balking at the price tag to maintain and operate a new light rail line that would be build as part of the Interstate Bridge Replacement project. (The Columbian)
Rural realities: At least in the U.K. they’re actually talking about the dangers faced by people who ride bicycle on rural roads. This is a vastly under-appreciated issue here in the states and something that deserves a lot more advocacy and conversation. (BBC)
Just share the damn roads: A good way to refresh your arguments when someone complains about bike lanes, with a good reminder at the end about what cities are all about. (🔐💰Boston Globe)
NYC is doing something right: I realize New York City is an outlier for American cities, but it’s still nice to know what cycling is booming there. A recent count of four major East River bridges shows a 15% increase over last year. (BK Reader)
Daylighting law: California will put a new law into effect in 2025 that will prohibit people from parking cars within 20-feet of an intersection. Known as “daylighting” this is a move that should be watched closely by Oregon safe streets advocates. (ABC)
Less care parking, more homes: It really is that simple, and folks who’ve been yelling this from rooftops for many years have an excellent new bit of research to back them up: Data from Colorado shows that giving developers more flexible can result in 40 to 70% more homes being built. (Sightline)
Video of the Week: Bogota, Colombia’s “Ciclovia” is what inspired Portland’s Sunday Parkways. Now the city is celebrating 50 years of open streets (Al Jazeera English)
Thanks to everyone who sent in links this week. The Monday Roundup is a community effort, so please feel free to send us any great stories you come across.
Thanks for reading.
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Regarding the new CA daylighting law – Oregon already has something very similar. ORS 811.560 makes it illegal to park “Within 20 feet of a crosswalk at an intersection.” Additionally, Portland has city code 16.20.130 that prohibits parking of tall vehicles (over 6 feet) within 50 feet of an intersection. But I have not seen either of these enforced.
Yes. Unfortunately OR law has a huge exception that allows Portland to only follow it when they feel like it. It’s something that’s being worked on by local advocates which is why I wanted to share the link to make sure folks are aware of how it’s going in CA.
Oops smally typo I meant to put ORS 811.550.
Can you point me to what exempts Portland from following this law?
Hi Tom, Oregon law gives local roadway authorities ability to set their own intersection parking regulations and PBOT has made it clear in the past that they don’t strictly adhere to the state law. In 2018 PBOT updated their pedestrian design guidelines and said they would begin adhering to state law with all new capital projects. So they aren’t doing it to all intersections retroactively. They will also enforce it at specific intersections based on complaints.
Jonathan mentions it in this previous article.
tl;dr The city says ORS 810.160 gives them the authority to enforce parking violations at their discretion.
I just realized that city code makes it illegal to stop on a bike lane without exception. Which would override the ORS exception for loading/unloading passengers and delivery vehicles.Not that the city cares to enforce its own code or the state statute. I see so many vehicles over 6 feet parked within 50 feet of intersections around town in addition to all the ones parked in bike lanes both of which are wonderfully dangerous while cycling.
That’s interesting. I knew the ORS had those exceptions, but didn’t know Portland didn’t. Someone just commented in another article that some residents parking in bike lanes told the commenter that the police said it was OK when they were loading or unloading passengers or things. But looks like you’re right–that’s not true. You’d never know it from seeing delivery trucks in bike lanes constantly.
https://oregonbikelaw.com/can-motor-vehicle-stop-park-bicycle-lane/
https://www.portland.gov/code/16/20/130
I’ve read that some delivery companies (like UPS) pay a flat fee to the city to settle all parking tickets issued during a given time period. That simplifies enforcement, but disincentivizes drivers from following the law.
In Portland’s complaint driven regulatory environment, it may be easier to get no parking signs and crosswalk bars put in place near your residence than at some place along your daily route. The exception is, if somebody happens to be killed in a spot it’s often good for some paint and signs.
I’d like to see some additional signs to mark a greenway added to cross street stop signs.
Remember just a few months ago when the city said they were gonna go on a parking ticket offensive??
Or starting to enforce expired tags. In my neighborhood it’s still running about 50% of the vehicles (parked permanently and those used daily) have expired tags.
Right. That was going to be part of the offensive, wasn’t it? I’m in outer SE and there are cars that I ride and walk by that I’d bet money haven’t moved since I bought my house. The one I’m most obsessed with at the moment is a little Blazer or something with Idaho plates and if I’m reading the tags correctly has expired ’08 tags. Wild. Why keep a vehicle that doesn’t run??
Concerning light rail costs in Washington, I’m not surprised to see CTRAN balking at a $20M price tag (though they are only on the hook for half of that). Their entire budget is ~$100M, so paying 10% of their budget for a fairly short rail line does feel a bit much. Especially considering that TriMet’s entire rail division budget is $38M for operations, $25M for maintenance of the right of way, and $40M for vehicle maintenance – so a shade over $100M (page 57).
I have to imagine the estimated maintenance of way costs are far far higher than typical for the MAX system (it’s far more complex to do maintenance on massive elevated structures), but 1/5 of the entire system for a 3 mile extension?! I suppose there are political reasons why TriMet cannot publicly critique the IBR project, but the design of the bridge is clearly going to be an anchor around the neck of the transit operators. A low bridge would have a much simpler right of way to maintain and would surely reduce the burden on TriMet and CTRAN.
But of course, having a moveable span is a non-starter for ODOT and WSDOT. They would have to pay ~$1M/year in operations! Traffic might be delayed to allow < 1 opening per day! Can you imagine the horrible consequences of something like that? This extreme price tag is a direct result of a bad bridge design, and it would be nice to see the Columbian analyze that in more depth rather than mild pandering to anti-light rail sentiment in Clark County (which I think is justified to some extent based on how horribly state officials have bungled plans in the past).
Another question is what will ridership be like? Currently, at this moment, Google tells me that Max from the Expo Center to downtown takes almost exactly the same time that bike riding would take (45 mins), which is about triple the time it would take to drive.
Considering that Max from many destinations in Vancouver would take a fair bit longer, I wonder how much increased ridership we could expect over the existing CTRAN service.
I’m happy to use Max as a political bludgeon to try to scupper the IBR project, but I have to wonder if the cost of building and operating Max would really be worth the benefits we could reasonably expect.
EDIT: Google tells me the travel time on CTRAN from just north of the Columbia (800 Washington) to downtown Portland is 27 minutes; that’s further and significantly faster than what Max can deliver.
I think we need express buses AND MAX to really make transit look like a realistic option. MAX provides accessibility in a reasonable amount of time to not just downtown Portland, but also many locations in North Portland. If you want to travel from Downtown Vancouver to Alberta, you need to hop on a bus across the river, transfer to MAX, and the catch the 72. Extending the MAX makes those trips much easier.
But commuting directly to Downtown Portland? Absolutely we should have all day, everyday express bus service. It should be “this and that”, not “this or that”.
“It should be “this and that”, not “this or that”.”
I certainly see the value in express service; The question would be will there be enough people who use it to make it worth the expense?
I am not sure where you’re getting 45 minutes, 31 minutes is the maximum scheduled travel time I see between the end of the line and Pioneer Square. The fact that its 12 minutes on the Yellow line from the Rose Quarter to Pioneer Square (1.3 miles) and 19 minutes from Expo Center to Rose Quarter (5.7 miles) demonstrates how badly some project is needed to speed up trains on the last mile into downtown.
My experience on CTRAN express buses is that they are extremely prone to traffic. Even outside of the normal bad traffic on I5 north of downtown slwoing things down, the issues can really snowball. I once gave up waiting for a 105 when I realized that the one I had just missed was actually the trip before (that had left 45 minutes late). And I’ve caught the CTRAN 60 from Delta Park and had similar issues with delays cascading into entirely unpredictable service where you end up waiting 20 to 30 minutes. The benefits of a MAX extension primarily accrue in situations like this, and in just generally improving the reliability of a cross-river transit trip. Now, could these issues also be addressed via an exclusive busway? Mostly, but I don’t think the MAX extension is without merit in the abstract (especially since it’s roughly competitive on time with an express bus while still providing local service to a relatively transit oriented part of Portland along Interstate).
That said, the current iteration of the IBR is clearly not designed with a quality transit connection in mind. It doesn’t matter if its bus or light rail, if transit is not an actual priority in the planning process of the bridge itself, the outcome won’t be great for transit riders (or agencies). If WSDOT and ODOT want a good light rail connection, a moveable span is better by almost every metric. It’s just the one metric they care to measure (delays due to river traffic) is the one metric that gets any elaboration in the SEIS and is the one metric by which a high span is superior. The fixed high span is presented as a fait accompli, and our region will be stuck with a terrible bridge that only works well for automobiles – not unlike the Glenn Jackson bridge. And of course, designing infrastructure that only works well for automobiles means that travelers have fewer good choices and then the infrastructure is overwhelmed with automobiles.
I almost spit my coffee out.
TriMet has major issues with reliability of the Max (and bus) system now. Do you think someone is going to wave a magic wand for them to finally step up to the task and make a reliable service?
I’m not going to hold my breath.
I mean literally anything will be an improvement from the situation now. Did you read my comment? I’m talking about +/- 30 minutes on bus arrival due to operational constraints from I5 traffic. TriMet is so much more reliable than that. It’s not perfect but anyone who has ever done a cross-river transit trip with a tight schedule knows that it’s truly miserable now.
Solar I hear you. The MAX compared to say the MTA, MBTA, the Metro or even dare I say the SEPTA is fairly limited in capacity and reliability. But that’s consistently baked into the system due primarily to the Steel Bridge bottleneck (Other factors such as the extreme heat vs the overhead wires during the hottest summer months also exist). At some point Portland is going to have to wrestle with the idea of a tunnel downtown. Unfortunately, we weren’t so keen on studying the idea.
But as for medium sized cities in N. America, the MAX is a shining beacon of efficiency. We’re not living in Japan where a few seconds schedule lapse is grounds for public shaming.
A MAX line to Vancouver would–ahem–WILL be an incredible economic boon to downtown Couv. I see no conceivable outcome without a MAX line on the utter cluster F that is the current IBRP. Any separated grade system will be more reliable than a highway (given that the highway has no demand related/congestion pricing elements incorporated).
I got the times from Google. I did “Expo Center” to “Downtown Portland”. I reported the times it gave me. However, after doing it again, I see that it added 5 mins walking time because you have to walk across the parking lot to get to the train.
Since the comparison will change a bit depending on where in downtown you pick (i.e. near a Max stop or near a CTRAN stop), I let Google choose so at least I wouldn’t be biasing things myself.
A Max extension into Vancouver will succeed or fail depending on whether it can entice enough drivers to take the train to make the whole thing worthwhile. If half of CTRAN riders switch to the Max, and no one stops driving, we’ll have two inefficient systems running, and everyone loses.
But hey, look at us… here we are discussing how to make it easier to get into downtown Portland, not travel to a variety of locations around the region, which is what it will take to convince people to give up driving.
COTW
Really great points Blum. It was a monumental movement to reject the Robert Moses trend by cancelling the Mount Hood Freeway. And the MAX was ahead of its time (for the US) when it started in ’86. Revolts against the expansion of freeways in the ’70s were a big part of that.
But because the Steel Bridge was the only feasible option, it soon became a bottleneck and LRT as streetcar treatment downtown became the achilles heel of the MAX system, as we well know. This was an organic (and unavoidable) solution to modify a somewhat cost-effective network across downtown (if only we had had Seattle’s bus tunnel option).
Two potential solutions for this problem:
1) an incredibly expensive subway
or
2) a Powell Line that reroutes some or most Clackamas/Gresham/PDX origin trains across the Tillicum giving the system some flexibility (and incidentally giving LRT access to some of the denser parts of the east side).
Number Two: We’ve had the opportunity to start from scratch (twice) to make something that can benefit the entire region, or be a reminder of how the 60s and 70s essentially eliminated any other functional mode of transportation in the US. As you mentioned the option to start from scratch and create a system that works well for all modes SHOULD be central to this project. Except that was never really in the cards because (and I think I’ve referenced this before) but:
“It is difficult to convince someone to understand something if their livelihood relies on maintaining a lack of understanding about a particular issue.” Traffic Engineers are paid to build freeways, they are not paid to not build them. The bigger the bridge, the larger the project area (~5 mi), the more drive to provide flimsy/questionable data to reinforce its predestined outcome, the more costly, the more money ODOT will require to complete the project.
It’s yet another project the next generation will simply shrug and assume to be part of a bygone time when a blind ideology geared toward maintaining the idea that everyone must drive hadn’t yet realized its obvious folly.
In your last paragraph you make a very bold prediction, evoking a future when people no longer rely on cars or car-like vehicles for transportation, arriving fairly soon (the next generation).
As someone who leans so heavily on certain types of formal evidence and has been so critical of opinion, what plausible path do you see us taking to get to that future? The next generation of political leaders is already here (they’re Pete Buttigieg’s age). What’s going to finally rewrite political reality?
Physics.
I don’t know that it’ll happen in the timeline eawiste predicts, but it will happen.
You’re not wrong, but if we wait until physics forces the issue, it really won’t matter.
Hey Damien I think there was some misinterpretation of what I wrote. FWIW honestly have no idea what you guys are talking about.
“I have no idea what you guys are talking about.”
I was referring to this paragraph, evoking the next generation that no longer relies on driving. It’s a nice vision, but I’m not sure how you think we’re going to get there from this soon-to-be-bygone time.
I was hoping you might clarify.
Huh? I am so confused.
The methodology and design of the project is very similar to freeway expansion projects of the past, which rely primarily on future SOV models/projections. The court systems, for example, have begun to question the scientific validity of those projections. Many urban freeways are in the process of being removed, even in the US.
I agree with you that any straight line growth projection is bound to fail at some point, and that any policies based on that (of which we have many) are bound to falter as well. The critical question is “when”.
You make a lot of good points – especially as it relates to the Steel Bridge bottleneck. But as I understand it (mostly from reading the MAX FAQS blog), part of the reason the Steel Bridge area is such a bottleneck relates to the junction with the Interstate MAX line as well. I am not 100% sure the Broadway Bridge can handle a two-car MAX train, but routing the Yellow/Orange line over the Broadway Bridge would be an order of magnitude cheaper than a downtown tunnel or a Powell MAX line (both of which are great projects that we should be considering).
Hey Blum, that is a very interesting idea I have never thought of. Apparently the streetcar and MAX tracks are technically the same gauge, however there is a difference in turning radius and other technical stuff that might be problematic.
Well I’ll be. It has been studied (pg 19). Whether or not that is a feasible stop-gap I have no idea, but the doc does bring up seismic resiliency and maintenance cost issues.
One other point about the steel (as with nearly all the bridges): It’s old as F. Many of the issues as you said are simply a matter of capacity (i.e., getting as many MAX trains across as possible). BUT one of the other not infrequent problem that has happened are the freight train derailments. The Steel is just not a great situation in general. Food for thought in any case.
Here is the tunnel study dated 2019. Pg 9 shows the reliability at baseline, with a tunnel, and 2035 without a tunnel. Who knows how accurate those numbers are. Take a look at the differences in travel time.
In my non-engineering degree, back of the hand estimation the capacity issues downtown simply cannot be solved without a below-grade line (or building an entirely new line on Powell to mitigate congestion from the 3 east side lines). An at-grade line would be quite a bit less costly per mile than a tunnel under downtown. But IDK.
Let me bring up one more likely unpopular option for Portland’s highway/Amtrak/LRT network. The reason that downtown (particularly the East Bank) sucks is much of the interstate traffic is funneled through the center of the city. The original Eisenhower Interstate plan did not include urban highways, for a very good reason. It makes the surrounding environment intolerable.
Phase 1: Building a multimodal tunnel or cut and cover through St Johns adjacent to the current freight tracks and bridge adjacent to the BNSF 5.1 would allow Portland to finally start improving rail to downtown and removing urban freeways (e.g., Marquam Br. and East side cluster F.).
Phase 2: Build a multimodal tunnel under Forest Park. This would allow for MAX and highway access between Vancouver, St. Johns and Beaverton AROUND the city center. We could finally start phasing out dysfunctional urban freeways like a lot of cities around the world. Anyway, thanks for reading.
All interesting ideas – one note about gauge differences between the MAX and the Streetcar. They have the same track gauge (1435 mm, standard gauge) and the same electrification (750V DC) so they are interoperable in that sense. But they do have different loading gauges (size of the vehicles), so a MAX train can’t fit by a streetcar stop. Luckily, this isn’t an issue on the Broadway bridge, since there are no streetcar stops between Larabee and the Lovejoy/Broadway intersection.
On the topic of rail planning as it relates to freight/Amtrak I think the issues are more regulatory and institutional than physical. Adding a third or fourth track exclusively for passenger service across the Columbia will only be useful if there’s an agency actually interested in running lots of trains over it. A few low dollar projects (like the North Portland Junction one in the state rail plan) are all that’s really needed to increase capacity enough to run (nationally) competitive regional service
MAX trains might be too heavy for the Broadway. I don’t think anyone has even considered looking into it because they are also too wide. They also should never share a lane with genera traffic for obvious reasons. Additionally, getting the Yellow line to tie in with the existing streetcar tracks on the Broadway would require some wild, impactful, slow curves on both sides of the bridge. It’s just not a good idea.
The steel bridge is a bottleneck because it combines all 4 lines and has a strict 15mph speed limit. It is also a single point failure, subject to lifts, and weather problems. Frozen switches have been an issue many times in the past during winter events.
The solution for all of the above is a tunnel. It’s not going to be easy or cheap, but it needs to be done eventually.
Junctions may be complex, but the curves wouldn’t need to be any slower than the existing Steel Bridge junction, with the advantage of lower traffic (A/B only runs every 20 minutes vs. every 5 for the Red/Blue/Green). There intersections/junctions were designed for streetcar use and are fairly wide.
If the tracks are too close together, it’s mostly a moot point. But getting one MAX line off the Steel Bridge would serve to relieve that bottleneck to some extent.
Yes, a tunnel is a good choice but I still think it’s worth considering other options.
Interesting, re the streetcar/MAX compatibility. I’m hoping that was purposeful and not incidental engineering.
I need to get more informed on this North Portland Junction idea.
With respect to regulation re priority of Amtrak vs freight I hear you (and I am not alone as someone who has waited in the Amtrak train for lengthy periods for freight to get priority wishing I were in W. Europe).
The movement towards high speed rail (not including Acela), is both a somewhat hopeful and frustrating one. On the one hand there are countries such as China and Japan who have thousands of miles of high speed rail. In the US we have a few “outliers”, and the somewhat dysfunctional California HSR and Brightline (FL and CA).
The Cascade corridor is in its very nascent phases, so I really hope I’ll get to use this before I’m dead (or even after, because why not).
When I was still living in Portland, at some point the Broadway bridge was being worked on, and I remember seeing a report on whether the bridge could be used by the MAX or not. The basic conclusion was that the bridge supports would have to be massively upgraded to support the weight and motive traction (the force of the driving wheels on the rails) of a MAX train, but that it was feasible for a certain price, rather than having to rebuild the whole bridge. Remember those huge steam locomotives of the past age? Those huge wheels would have so much motive traction that they would crush the tracks at most stations – most station tracks were constantly being repaired – and in the early 1900s someone got the bright idea of transferring all of the engine’s motive power to all the cars equally and evening up the traction throughout the train, allowing station rails to last a lot longer between repairs.
From once talking with a railroad construction engineer, apparently the main difference between streetcar, light rail, and standard trains is partly the strength of the rails as blumdrew states, but primarily the amount of supporting ballast (the underlying base material) under the ties and rails. The deeper the bed and ballast, the more expensive and time-consuming it is to build the system. Standard freight rail (UP, BNSF, etc) has the heaviest cars per foot and typically requires 13 feet of different layers of well-drained rock, boulders, gravel, and sand; light rail requires a similar mix that is about 4-5 feet deep; streetcar only requires about 2 feet of the same, plus a concrete bed. Subway systems are typically referred to as 3rd-rail (the extra rail for power conductivity) but is sometimes called “heavy rail”, but doesn’t require any more ballast than light rail. There are rail-guided BRT systems that require pretty much no ballast at all, just enough to support a bus. Bridges are another matter. Standard freight rail bridges are normally way overbuilt, especially the old ones – those old wooden trusses apparently are flexible during major earthquakes and rarely collapse – while concrete railroad bridges are much stronger than interstate highway bridges.
All very interesting david. Here’s a read on the Bway Br. As for the likely result of a reasonably powerful subduction earthquake, apparently the
Unfortunately, they are the bridges that will likely collapse. I’m not sure how tunnels (e.g., Zoo station) would be affected. According to
Seismic upgrades would be somewhat of a risky investment.
Any similar reports on the UP-owned Steel Bridge?
Good question. One issue with the Steel is that it’s owned and operated by UPR.
There is a pdf of a seismic retrofit of the Steel in 2008. I have been told a PSU study simulation of a substantial subduction earthquake would essentially destroy the bridge, but I’m unable to get a hold of that study. The bond that failed in 2018, I believe, would have provided money to study an alternative for the bridge (e.g., tunnel).
It’s a difficult call. I can see Blum’s Bway idea being a quick-fix potential, but given the turbidite evidence of a pattern of imminent and somewhat predictable interval of subduction zone earthquakes, I’m not sure a retrofit of many of the bridges would be that cost-effective in the long term, but I’d rather a mechanical engineer chime in instead.
A couple of things on the MAX ridership in Vancouver, and I feel like I can speak with an iota of authority having once upon a time commuted into Vancouver for work. I-5 and I-205 offer the only two local connections across the Columbia, which means everyone coming south into Portland in the morning and going north back home must either walk or bike (lol); take a CTran bus, which will kind of get stuck in a lot of the same traffic (I’ll hit on that caveat in a bit); or drive/carpool on one of the seven available general traffic lanes in a personal automobile. Given these constraints, traffic is understandably pretty horrible during commuting times, and I suspect that a decent number of Washington commuters will decide to take the train if it makes sense for them.
So, the question is, how many people will it make sense for? I suspect it’ll get decent ridership, but not mind-blowingly so. The biggest limiting factors, I think, will be the extent of the network and ease of access in Vancouver and other suburbs and the speed of the MAX relative to other modes. The big marks in favor of using the MAX as a hypothetical commuter are the flexibility and cost. Taking each in turn, the Clark County bus system is, to put it rather mildly, underbuilt. There’s a huge amount of sprawl, and for a large portion of the commuters coming from Clark County into Portland I suspect it would take >30 minutes just to get to downtown Vancouver via bus before you could even think about connecting to the Yellow Line and continuing on into Portland. So, the reasonable catchment of the MAX is basically going to be limited to people living near downtown Vancouver or along The Vine (CTran’s BRT line). Even so, the same limitation more or less applies to the CTran express lines, and those get pretty decent ridership. I imagine there are a bunch of park and riders who drive to the big transit centers, park their cars, and wait for the bus to take them over the bridge.
Speed, though, is going to be a bigger problem. It’s a well-known issue with the MAX network that being at grade with general traffic slows it down through built up areas so that it ends up taking significantly longer to take many MAX trips than a similar automobile trip. CTrans regional and express buses are able to take advantage of carpool lanes and shoulder bus lanes, or otherwise able to go highway speeds while the MAX crawls along with surface traffic and taking turns with other lines limping across the Steel Bridge. So why take the Yellow Line if the 105X can get you to downtown Portland in half the time?
Well, a couple of reasons. The biggest and most obvious is that not everyone wants to get to downtown Portland or any of the other limited number of CTran express stops throughout the area. If I want to get to Swan Island from the 15th & Broadway (Vancouver), to use a fairly plausible example, I’d have to take the 105X to Wheeler & Multnomah, then transfer onto the 4 bus to go back north to Albina & Killingsworth, then transfer again to the 72 bus to finally get to work. That’s probably 10-15 minutes dead time while I transfer twice, and that’s just one-way. That route could potentially be made much faster by a Yellow Line with a Vancouver terminus, where I could simply get off at the Killingsworth MAX station and transfer directly onto the 72. Also, the CTran express buses are almost exclusively commuter buses operating during and in the direction of peak commuting. If you’re a Vancouverite working weekends in Portland or just someone who wants to visit for whatever reason, you don’t get to take an express bus shortcut; instead, you have to get onto one of the regional buses taking you into N or NE Portland, then meander your way through the network from Parkrose or Delta Park or the airport to wherever your end destination is. The Yellow line at least opens up a direct, off-peak link between downtown Vancouver and downtown Portland, including every stop in between and direct transfers to other trains and buses.
Finally, cost is a consideration. Taking the CTran express is somewhat more expensive than taking Trimet alone (though the disparity used to be a bit bigger when I was commuting between SW and Hazel Dell). It’s $3 per ride, $6 per day, and $105 per month to take the express bus, versus the MAX’s $2.80, $5.60, and $100, respectively. That’s not much, but there’s no reduction for on-peak service if you’re on a reduced disability/youth/senior fare. If I’m on limited income and fortunate enough to have an Honored Citizen fare, and I’m given the opportunity to pay half as much for more or less the same transportation service between Vancouver and Portland, I’m probably taking that discount, even if it means I’m spending half an hour longer on my trip.
All that is to say, there are definitely valid concerns about the usefulness of the Yellow Line to people in Clark County trying to get to Portland with any kind of frequency, but I think there’s enough utility there to believe that ridership will be comparable to what we see on the express bus lines, at least after a bit of adjustment while people figure out whether and how the Yellow Line makes sense for them.
This is a very thoughtful answer. Do you think extending the Yellow Line to Vancouver would attract a significant number riders who currently drive, or would it primarily give existing riders better options?
I think its main utility will be in better access to North Portland and off-peak trips, so largely new riders. Especially if the express buses are able to benefit from restricted right-of-way that improves their reliability and travel times.
I think there’s going to be added, long-term benefits in making the Vancouver downtown area denser and more dynamic. Who knows, maybe we’ll even start having Portlanders taking leisure trips into downtown Vancouver because they know they can get there without having to figure out the regional/express bus system. But really, Clark County needs to figure out its sprawl issue if they want to really juice ridership, whether it’s an extended Yellow Line that’s burning a hole in their O&M budget, or the CTran network more broadly.
Anyway, I come at this from the perspective of someone who used to live in the Sylvan area and worked on the northern edge of Vancouver. For years, I beat my head against the wall trying to figure out a way to ditch my car and make the commute by bus or bike. The best I could ever do was a hair over an hour, if I timed everything just so and if the buses weren’t delayed by the awful traffic, versus a 25-40 minute car ride. Usually, it was closer to an hour and a half. Eventually I gave up and managed to find a job closer to home.
That’s probably the ultimate answer (along with a home closer to work). I don’t have a lot of confidence that I’ll ever see a post-sprawl Clark County; the amount of abandoned property that would entail is enormous (as would the number of people required to turn it all into high-density housing as some people claim is possible).
I think for the foreseeable future, we need to figure out how to make transit work with the urban structure we have, and I am not convinced it is at all possible (or at least no one has been able to explain how).
Maybe someone will figure it out by the time we extend the Yellow Line (if we actually end up doing that).
I worry that can collectors traveling between downtown Vancouver and Delta Park might be the most regular users. A surprising number people currently walk or ride across the bridge with bags of cans. The height of a new bridge will make that difficult. CTRAN doesn’t allow bags of cans on the bus but it sounds like the MAX stations will open/accessible.
MACX: Metropolitan Area Can eXpress
I’ve observed the same thing on the current I-5 bridge. I see more Oregon Bottle Bill arbitrage participants than recreational or transportation riders.
I see more cars utilizing income/sales tax arbitrage on their commute into Oregon from Washington than people carrying cans across the river
Anyone working in Oregon pays Oregon income tax. Anyone living in Oregon and working in Washington pays Oregon income tax.
Man Blum this is just such a depressing spiraling and unnecessary disaster, where mega-mammoth-poor design naturally begets higher costs, which in turn burdens an already limited transit system. Of course C-Tran can’t pay that check.
Yep. And since transit is often considered an optional part of the design (at best) for a lot of residents in Vancouver, any potential functional and well thought out critiques of the design can simply be used to magnify the opinion that transit is unnecessary. Sigh.
If you want to read the news on Bogota’s stunning accomplishment of 50 years of open streets and don’t want to watch a video made by the propaganda arm of various terrorist groups than the information can be found here as well……..
https://thebogotapost.com/celebrating-the-ciclovia-bogotas-weekly-miracle-turns-50/53183/
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20241213-part-of-bogota-s-soul-how-colombia-fired-up-the-car-free-movement
They’re a propaganda arm of terrorists because… the name is Arabic I guess?
Do some research on it and get back to me. Find the articles where they’ve been banned by the Saudi’s and why. Who owns them and what does that autocratic place use them for?
I’m really not sure we should be taking cues about who is and is not a sponsor of terrorism from Saudi Arabia, noted sponsor of terrorism.
Al Jazeera is funded by the Qatari government. I’m not super stoked about Qatar, and I think the gulf states broadly operate quasi-apartheid states as it relates to immigrant (primarily South Asian) workers and the ruling class Arabs, but I don’t think I’d refer to them as a “terrorist group”.
You’ll get into the weeds to an incredibly impressive level on some minutiae of regulation or ordinance and you’ll pronounce Al Jazeera as not being a propaganda arm for terrorist organizations because the Qatari royal family doesn’t publicly arm the organizations? You do know their government is a patriarchal monarchy? They themselves are no more terrorists than the British royal family, it’s what their funds go to that’s an issue.
I think the Qataris are slave holders (technically abolished in 1952 wink wink) and “just about slave” holders. I think they support terrorism by association if not actively bank rolling it (difficult to prove via open source news) and it seems they use their media arm to protect their own human rights abuses and those of other organizations that find succor within their borders.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just wondering why your research stopped.
Never seen a clearer example of an ad hominem argument than what you just wrote, Jake9.
Yes, because I spend a lot of time in the weeds on regulations and ordinances.
Yes, because they are a propaganda arm of the Qatari government. It’s different to take a stance you view as in-line with a terrorist organization than it is to be a terrorist organization.
Yes, but that hardly makes them more of a terrorist organization than say, the government of Morocco or the Vatican.
When the US bankrolled the mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, were they supporting terrorism? What about when the US support of the Contras in Nicaragua? Or the various attempted coups in Cuba? Or the various movements against Sukarno in Indonesia backed by the CIA? What about the Vietnam War? Or the Philippine-American war? I’d lean yes for all of these. Does that mean the US government is a terrorist organization?
In general, I think “terrorism” is not a useful way to distinguish political groups. One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter, and I prefer to not arbitrate in making that decision unless I’m absolutely certain. But again, we are talking about the government of Qatar. I am confident in saying they are not a terrorist organization, because of course they aren’t. Not every unsavory or unjust political regime is a result of them being terrorists in the way that word is commonly used.
Yes, it does. Be glad you are on this side of it and not any other side. Thank you for paying your taxes 🙂
If you want to stick with Qatar then I would call them terrorist sponsors,, but that’s from being over there and watching and analyzing a lot of video (a decent percentage of it Al Jazeera footage and little of it published as their film crews were filming snuff propaganda for fundraising for terrorist/freedom fighters) of our people getting killed and trying to identify individuals for targeting. I truly despise Al Jazeera for what they’ve done and I admit my bias against anyone taking them seriously as an actual news organization, because they are not. They literally just play one on TV (and the internet).
One thing is for sure, when it’s your own people getting killed the ones doing the killing are definitely terrorists.
Regardless, I appreciate the response and discussion and do not mean to attack you personally. If it comes across that way I do apologize. Al Jazeera is a difficult topic for me and I do not enjoy them getting any positive respect.
Light rail isn’t cheap. However the Columbian newspaper printed an article with an operating cost of $21.2 million in the headline and had local officials reacting to that number in the second paragraph. You have to read most of the article to find out the Washington share is estimated to be $7.2 million a year, a third of what the paper led off with.
There are lots of issues with MAX without exaggerating the cost.
Light rail costs about $10 to operate for each passenger boarding, according to TriMet data.
And Bus is ~$6 per passenger. I know what option I’d vote for.
No rail right of way, just a dedicated lane for buses that allows for much more flexibility. Don’t see Washingtonians squawking about buses going to their fair city.
In 2023, light rail was marginally less expensive per passenger for TriMet than buses (per the NTD) – $9.63 vs $10.61. It cost CTRAN $12.17 per passenger over the same time. So no, buses are not half the price per passenger of light rail in the Portland area.
Now, there are significant differences between different parts of the network cost-wise. The Orange Line doesn’t attract as many riders as the rest of the system and generally has more structures and complexity so it probably does worse than others in per rider metrics. But line level comparisons are fraught, even within a network since transfers between lines make both lines more useful and more heavily ridden.
There are issues with the cost of the IBR MAX project, but those are costs inherent to the project plans – not costs inherent to light rail as a mode.
I’m sure IBR Max costs will be significantly less than the $100(!) per ride it costs to operate WES.
A fair point in that it takes awhile to reach the estimated actual cost of 7.2 million. However, given the constant underestimating of what the bridge and concurrent road swelling (is that the right word for the opposite of a diet?) will cost, I have a sneaking suspicion the numbers are less than they will turn out to be and Washington’s share might actually approach the 21.2 million total cost estimated the first year.
We’re getting lined up to spend about $10 Billion for construction on I-5 projects . The Million dollar figures are estimates for annual transit operations, a different thing.
If a Vancouver paper is talking about local transit budgets shouldn’t they lead off with their actual estimated cost? I’m a skeptic too but deliberately using a three times bigger number is a motivated action.
TriMet wants the MAX yellow line to go across the river to make their numbers look a little better. I’d rather have Vancouver BRT running direct to Portland transit centers in a center 3+ HOV lane with dedicated ramps and for 10 Billion, why not?
With the budgets we’re talking about, it might pencil out to buy up Hayden Island, unpave it, drop the ramps and run a barge ferry for day trippers. That action alone might take about three minutes off a Vancouver commute.
I agree with you that they’re fear mongering the numbers and I don’t disagree at all that trimet has ulterior reasons for the expansion that they just won’t come and say and i like your ideas on the BRT and saving Hayden Island. I think on this one we’re in agreement.
Estimated capital costs associated with the light rail extension are ~$3B from what I’ve seen (can’t find where that was specifically right now, but it’s in the project schedule somewhere). But most of it will be paid for by “someone else” (the FTA, ODOT, WSDOT, etc.) so Clark County/Vancouver probably don’t care that much about it. They do care about long term operational cost burdens, since they will be responsible for footing that bill in perpetuity.
I too am a bit put off by that $21.2 million figure (though CTran would only be on the hook for 7.2 mil as others have pointed out). I’m curious what that would go into. blumdrew pointed out the design of the bridge itself, but I’m not sure if that accounts for all of it though. Aren’t they talking about building a new MAX maintenance facility by the expo center as part of the project? I assume staffing up and outfitting that would be part of it.
It would be nice if that $21 mil included some benefit to the wider system – like more reliable service, better frequencies, and better hours. As it is now the last Yellow/Orange train that goes all the way to Milwaukie is at like 10:15 PM. If you’re catching a show at Mississippi studios you gotta leave during the headliner’s first song to catch the last train home 🙁
That’s more of a layover facility than a full maintenance facility as I understand it. And while there will be costs associated with it, given the operational difficulties of the current TriMet maintenance facilities (two suburban facilities, neither of which are close to or on the Yellow/Orange line) means that they may actually save money by having it. This extension is 5x more expensive than the system at large in per mile terms – I think the most feasible explanation is the difference in maintenance costs associated with the physical right of way.
Don’t get me started on the lack of good night transit service in Portland… I’m in Seattle at the moment and just took a look at the King County Metro #48 schedule. I could see a show in the U District, stay out til bars close, get a slice of pizza, and still catch a 3:30 AM bus back to where I’m staying. 24 bus service is so valuable, but we seem to barely have enough funding to keep the lights on as is.
They used the 21 million to put you off. It worked. It’s a fancy way to lie.
No it did not SHOW this. The estimates were based on a MODEL, not on real world data.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dJtE7IXoDvIUzLmqXFlVDtwKg-UhuWg7/view
And you gotta love the milquetoast options modeled by the free-market-urbanists: granny flats or transit oriented development. How about legalizing 8+ story rental housing everywhere not just in crappy polluted zones around transit facilities (e.
Parking reform is a necessary step to making higher density housing a viable and affordable solution. You’re not getting your desired high density public housing if you’re requiring onsite parking for two cars per household. That’s the point of the article.
Your oft repeated broad sides attacking TOD and ADUs are non sequiturs.
No Portland public or subsidized housing project that I’m aware of has this requirement, and I’m not sure it ever did.
The article was reviewing parking policy in Colorado, where parking requirements are presumably much higher than in Portland (though I don’t know if the actual requirements are two spaces per unit).
The authors don’t detail the existing parking minima in the localities that were modeled, but they include in their housing production assumptions a market demand of one parking space per development and 0.5 spaces per TOD development. I think one can infer that existing parking requirements are significantly higher than the demand assumptions that they built into their model (otherwise they would not have seen an increase in housing production with the elimination of parking requirements). But I don’t feel like doing the research to find out what parking minima are specified in the Durango zoning code. Feel free to look it up, of you’re interested.
Their scenarios had many differences, so attributing all the change to changed parking rules might be overstating the case a bit.
There is a new and very large housing complex at 30thish and Powell that has very little parking, suggesting Portland has already reduced our parking requirements below what we suppose might exist in Durango.
Portland has no required parking for residential development
Unless I just read the zoning code incorrectly, it looks like not only is that true, but Portland got rid of minimum parking requirements for ALL uses in all zones. I only saw maximums.
It’s the ultra-conservative banks who make loans to developers, who require the parking.
My comment did not address “parking reform” at all. I was simply pointing out that the study modeled outcomes and did not rely on bonafide housing construction data. Mr. Maus’ characterization of the study was misleading, according to my opinion.
I’m a big fan of removing or limiting parking in urban areas so please stop suggesting otherwise.
Non sequitur does not mean “I don’t like your critique, therefore it does not follow”. It’s my opinion that “granny flats” and a few buildings near polluted transit centers/corridors are pseudo-reforms that will do little to address our chronic and long-term deficit in low-income rental housing.
“I was simply pointing out that the study modeled outcomes and did not rely on bonafide housing construction data.”
And you could have stopped there. Instead you decided to drag in some pet arguments that you’ve been airing ad infinitum in this comment section for years.
The phrase “high density public housing” brings up some unpleasant memories of my youth visiting Chicago, St. Louis and New York.
Fair. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Public housing was quite successful for decades in large cities across the United States until long term neglect and disinvestment caused deterioration, drove away any that could afford to move, and led to the destruction of community cohesion.
How do you force future governments to fully fund care and feeding for public housing? There is a natural incentive to shift funds away from housing and into whatever is the politically sexy issue of the day (or into reducing taxes).
I like the idea of public housing, but how do we make it work in the American political context?
Considering that one party has been convinced (brainwashed?) to reject logic, reason, science, civic responsibility, collective action, and anything that is similar to a provable fact, and because that party is on the ascendency, I don’t see how you can make anything beneficial work in the present American political context. It’s kind of pointless.
I continue to reject your constant drumbeat of asserting that Americans are only interested in detached, single family housing and private automotive transportation. I feel like you come into every comment section on every article on this webpage and pepper it with the same predictable set of responses. I find it tiresome to refute you over and over, but here we are.
I vote for people, not parties. I realize not everyone does that.
Not only interested. But primarily interested.
https://www.fanniemae.com/sites/g/files/koqyhd191/files/migrated-files/resources/file/research/datanotes/pdf/housing-insights-070115.pdf
They also prefer large houses:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/02/majority-of-americans-prefer-a-community-with-big-houses-even-if-local-amenities-are-farther-away/
If you want to refute me, show me some evidence I’m wrong, or explain why you think Americans don’t in general prefer single family housing.
Or, better, let’s find a way to convince people multifamily housing is better.
I think the fact that you cited statistics that were generated by Fannie Mae goes a long way towards making my point. It’s a government subsidized entity that was created for the purpose of promoting owner occupied single family housing, and which has in the past denied funding to multi family housing purchases. Further, the United States massively subsidizes owner occupied single family housing through tax incentives that are collectively worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year. And the United States subsidizes suburban living through public investments in transportation and utility infrastructure, the cost of which is disproportionately borne by urban areas. Yes, Americans express a desire for living in heavily subsidized communities. It’s not a level playing field. The people living in the less dense areas are extracting wealth for everyone else. Of course people express a desire for that, given the economic incentives.
I’ve made no claim as to why Americans prefer single family housing, only that they do. The source of the data I shared doesn’t “make your point” (and you seem to concede I’m right later in your comment). Do you have some better data to share that I should consider?
The reason why it is important to remember this preference is that policies that rely on people voluntarily leaving the suburbs to move into dense transit-friendly housing need to contend with it. Simply ignoring it and hoping it will disappear is magical thinking.
This preference has major policy implications in terms of where we build housing (Kotek, for example, is pushing it onto prime rural farmland), and how our transportation systems are designed and operated.
Fannie Mae is one of the largest providers of long term capital to multifamily owners and in the country. As of September, Fannie Mae has $475 Billion in outstanding multifamily loans. https://capitalmarkets.fanniemae.com/mortgage-backed-securities/multifamily-mbs/multifamily-issuances-and-total-mbs-outstanding
We also massively subsidize affordable housing via LIHTC and Section 8 programs. Last time I checked, nobody living in Portland paid sewer tap fees, electrical meter fees, or water tap fees for new developments in the suburbs. Further, the likelihood that people living in the suburbs pay more in taxes than urban residents is very high, so the conversation about who is subsidizing who is more nuanced than those blanket statements above.
And, I’ll add, my comment had nothing to do with single family housing, only with the demonstrated difficulty getting the government to invest in the maintenance and upkeep of public housing.
I’m curious how your one political party who are a long list of negatives example plays out in Portland where there is solid one party rule and has been for awhile. Where are the glorious skyscraping condo’s and apartments housing the greater percentage of the urban population? It’s been a long time since there was any influence from the political party that has a long list of negatives. Even the avowed anti-capitalists on this site live in singe family housing and most everyone here has a car and uses it (while holding their nose in disgust no doubt). Reality is what it is and there are ways to change it, but good luck doing that when your opening sentence writes off more than half the population.
Just one example of the science of superior political party folk (and oh my was it hard picking just one that wouldn’t get banned)…
BIDEN: “If you’re vaccinated, you’re not going to be hospitalized, you’re not going to be in the IC unit, and you’re not going to die.”
The party of pure science 🙂
I have to say that, as a political statement (as opposed to a scientific or medical one), what Biden said seems appropriate.
Even considering it as purely political, I’m surprised you accept a factually wrong statement when it was known to be factually wrong as appropriate.
I contain multitudes. I understand the statement was not technically correct, but it was fit for purpose.
A general statement from a political leader is very different than health advice or an implemented policy. If the Biden administration had, for example, proposed some loony policy like opening restaurants and bars while keeping schools closed, that would be a different matter.
This was political rhetoric, urging people to take action. It’s ok with me if he omitted the footnote.
BIDEN: “If you’re vaccinated, you’re significantly less likely to be hospitalized, you’re significantly less likely to be in the IC unit, and you’re not going to die.”
There is a very good reason that Biden did not use the language of science to make his statement — most people don’t understand why scientists almost always speak in probabilities and therefore sound deeply uncertain. As a scientist who never says something is “fact” or “true”, Biden’s statement is a better public health messaging than something I would be likely to craft.
I did not vote for Biden and have been a life-long critic of the democratic party, but it is depressing that you use one Biden’s better moments to justify your idiosyncratic political belief system.
The COVID vaccines greatly reduced hospitalizations and mortality from COVID infections. That statement that you quoted is accurate.
Greatly reduced is nowhere near the quote. It is inaccurate and was meant to be so. Science hypothesizes and postulates, but it doesn’t lie.
And don’t waste time accusing me as an anti vaccine wierdo, I object to the lies and the description, not the product.
You’re splitting hairs. The COVID vaccines turned a disease that had a very high morality rate for the elderly and the vulnerable into a disease that had an insignificant death rate for the elderly and the vulnerable.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status
We have Trump out there making up stories about Haitian immigrants eating household pets and peddling debunked myths about links between autism and the MMR vaccine, things that are demonstrably untrue and intentional misinformation. Biden slightly overstated the effectiveness of the COVID vaccines in a statement that was largely correct. You are trying to draw an equivalency between two things that are diametrically opposed.
It’s not a waste of time. Creating cognitive dissonance with evidence can help those who have fallen victim to disinformation question the holes in their belief systems.
Science is not just the ability to question but rather a system of logic that uses experiments/models and statistical analyses to make predictions about our physical reality. Science has nothing to do with your feelings (about COVID).
What exactly are my feelings about Covid?
A public figure speaks colloquially about the public health advantage of vaccination and “Jake9” is so very, very, very upset that they were ~4% wrong.
(Recall that this comment was made in mid 2021 when COVID vaccines were far more effective due to less viral evolution/selection)
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanam/article/PIIS2667-193X%2821%2900061-2/fulltext
Joe Biden is not, nor has he ever been a scientist.
No, he’s a liar speaking from a position of highest authority on a matter of medical importance.
As someone who is a citizen i deserve the truth and not to be lied to like a child.
Just like Bush lied about Desert Storm.
How Bush 2 lied about Iraqi Freedom.
How the Bank bail out will make our lives better.
How Obama continued the lie, kidnapped, tortured and also droned people to death while the faithful and apparently many people here nodded along with it because authoritarians know better than us.
I honestly didn’t think this would be very controversial as I thought being lied to kind of crossed party dogma.
If you and everyone here are okay with being lied to then I don’t know where to go.
And Jake9 is most definitely not a scientist.
It’s umabiguously very close to the quote. This obsession with the slightest semantic inaccuracy is a good example of COVID vaccine skeptic rhetoric.
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority;… our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…”
Sagan – 1995
I don’t really get the point of your quote with the impressive highlights. Can you expound on how it relates to the theme of not expecting truth from a figure such as the president?
After re-watching Biden’s townhall, it’s sad and darkly comical that you are so fixated on the part of Biden’s speech where he got it mostly right (but not on the part where he got it mostly wrong). This is probably an indication of how the consumption of crony-capitalist media can make a trivial inaccuracy from 2021 seem like some monstrous violation.
And, FWIW, Biden is not the kind of person that should be judged so harshly for flubbing his lines given his obvious cognitive impairment and lifelong history of speech issues. The real question is whether the Biden administration got this public health emergency wrong — and in my opinion
AS OF 2021 the administration response to COVID was remarkable.
More people died under the Biden administration with the vaccine than the Trump administration.
What is the point of your upset here? Theres simply got to be something else besides blind partisanship. I mean you are hitting an impressive number of catch phrases so maybe it is just hyper partisanship?
As I’ve said, the quote I used that you have fixated on was a throw away meaning to make a point, not to start a strange discussion on vaccines.
And, of course, the virus had no mutations, no evolutionary jumps, no change in virulence, no change in infectivity, no change in replication load!!!
Reading social media posts makes me an expert in molecular virology and the epidemiology of URTI viruses!!!
Okay, blind partisanship it is. Take care.
Speaking as a lifelong socialist who has always loathed the ‘murrican political system, your response is an amusing self-own.
Most Americans do not dream of an apartment in the big building. For the most part, we want single family houses, and the more we make those primarily available in the suburbs, the more people will locate there.
There’s some irony seeing the article about struggling nonprofits written by OPB, followed by a big “support OPB” ad. OPB recently finished up a several-million dollar remodeling, with a chunk funded by the Sate, and the salary of just one of OPB’s several vice presidents would be life-saving for many bootstrap nonprofits.
Not a fan of OPB anymore, but let’s not romanticize those “bootstrap” nonprofits—they often feed off public dollars while promoting absurd policies. It’s time to cut their government funding and let private donors decide if their “services” are worth anything. Just look at all the nonprofits that signed onto this nonsense:
https://bikeportland.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Response-to-Emergency-Declaration-on-sweeping-camps-FINAL.pdf
Public financing for public radio is in the single digit percentages compared to funding from individuals and corporate sponsors.
The only public funding I mentioned was the chunk (I recall $600K) from the State for OPB’s remodeling project.
Yut–oops, I see you were responding to another comment.
But there ARE many “bootstrap” non-profits that don’t “feed off public dollars” and aren’t “promoting absurd policies”. And they’re especially harmed by non-profits that DO do those things, because poor behavior by non-profits (I’m speaking generally, not relative to your list) makes people more likely to look suspiciously at all non-profits.
As far as I can tell, government grants are the main funding source for most of the non-profits that do questionable advocacy and campaign endorsements in Portland.
Could be.
I help run a nonprofit. We fix up donated bikes for the homeless, refugees, and inner-city kids, among other endeavors. 95% of our funding comes from grants, most of which are cash grants from the health care industry or from foundations of recreational companies, but we do get in-kind funding whereby our local DOT spends money on buying us parts, tools, and locks, then gives them to us – we also get a lot of “free” helmets from our state DOT. It’s also worth noting that the health foundations who give us cash got their money from a huge federal program that’s trying to reduce disparities in health outcomes between the poor and the rich, disparities exposed during the pandemic. Overall, about 60% of our income comes from indirect government sources – y’all’s taxes – and much of the rest is a big tax write-off or deduction for some rich people.
Our 501(c)(3) nonprofits, are, by definition, homeless beggars of rich people and the foundations they support, and we do help people avoid paying their fair share of taxes by providing legal deductions. We also help governments do the work they should be doing, but can’t because their citizens are so stuck up with worries about corruption and inefficiency, so they give us nonprofits money or stuff to do that same work but by us paying substandard wages and violating most if not all labor laws, we can do it a lot cheaper.
And why do we do it? Why do we put up with all the s**t we get from the ignorant public and the clueless bureaucrats? Because we are the sort of people who are naively and consistently optimistic that the world can be improved and things can get better. That’s just who we are.
“Local non-profits in trouble”
I see this as a positive development. Many Portland-area nonprofits contribute to the city’s decline—whether by enabling destructive street camping, backing extremist political agendas and candidates, or misusing taxpayer money. Fewer of these organizations would likely mean a better future for Portland.
Well, the story was about bike shops. Bike shops don’t pass out tents. I don’t think many people here care if some dang radicals are pushing subsidized bikes. They are a little chapped about sales taxes but that’s Oregon.
The OPB article briefly mentioned the Community Cycling Center, but for the most part was focused on social advocacy groups.
“While we’re very important, and many of us have been around for decades, all of our situations are extremely tenuous,” said Kim McCarty, the executive director of the tenants alliance.
Apparently not important enough to have any funding plan except government hand outs. If government money is going to go to services, it really should be handled by the government where there is some accountability for tax money. There is no reason for non profits to be involved in distributing tax money. If they can raise it via donations, that is something else all together.
I get your point, but you’re missing the bigger picture. The article is about local nonprofits, which have a significant role in Portland’s social issues—not just bike shops. Some of these organizations, while well-meaning, do end up contributing to the city’s decline by supporting policies that enable street camping or pushing divisive political agendas. So when you say “bike shops don’t pass out tents,” you’re missing the fact that nonprofits—many of which —are funded extensively by taxpayers and deeply involved and exert control over how Portland handles its social challenges arent’ helping our city get to a better place or end the problems they are “working” on.
The frustrations people have about taxes and the city’s direction aren’t just about bikes or any single sector. It’s about how resources are managed (or mismanaged) and whether policies are actually helping the people they’re supposed to. Fewer poorly run or misguided nonprofits could very well lead to a better Portland, especially if it means fewer people camping on the streets and less funding for political causes that aren’t helping the community.
It’s not about “radicals pushing bikes” or taxes—it’s about real solutions for real problems. You can’t ignore the broader context here.
All the organizations named had the word ‘bicycle’ in their name, FFS.
Sisters of the Road, a homeless advocacy nonprofit
OPAL, an environmental justice nonprofit
The Community Alliance of Tenants, a renters rights nonprofit
Center for Effective Philanthropy, a nonprofit that works with donors and foundations.
The Community Cycling Center, which provides bike education for kids and runs a Northeast Portland bike shop.
I’m not tying to argue with you, I just think we are reading different articles.
I was on a PBOT task force and we asked PBOT to post daylight signage in our neighborhood, and I am pleased to say that they did.
Thanks for doing that Joan!!
It’s really difficult to imagine how this was quantified, and I’m just not willing to read the 86pg report. But if this evidence is repeatable in other cities, it would be a pretty substantial basis for policy.
In Portland where ~70% of the area is zoned R5, we will someday need to grapple with the existence of essentially suburban, low-density housing which is mandated by the city, but could otherwise, based on the evidence above, become a catalyst for making housing a lot more affordable for everyone.
Both Irvington and Ladds are essentially suburban style neighborhoods that are within a mile of downtown. Protecting those neighborhoods from change has been a pretty consistent policy because well, political influence.
At the very least, we need to revisit our zoning policy in light of this evidence if we want housing to be affordable.
The tree canopies, parks, and roses in Ladds and Irvington are enjoyed by so many people who walk through, linger in those neighborhoods. Not to mention contributing to the tree covered landscape that almost defines Portland. Eliminating that should give us pause.
Just like eliminating the UGB in Carver or Yamhill–those areas are beautiful, tons of people recreate there who don’t live there and use them to escape city life and get into nature.
I wholeheartedly agree donel. I love Ladds. But rezoning a neighborhood, does not necessarily mean cutting down all the trees (or roses). We are “protecting” a neighborhoods within walking distance to downtown that is essentially single story family housing. And we’re not doing it because we don’t want to lose the trees. What neighborhoods have a lot of moola/political clout? Irvington, Ladds, Laurelhurst.
That both limits the places developers have to work with and creates a vicious cycle where people expect unrealistic outcomes. The “American Dream” of low density, low taxes, and stable services is a recipe for bankrupting a city (which does happen quite a lot in the US).
So citizens of Portland really need to look at themselves in the mirror if they want to actually have an effect on housing cost. Not everyone has to live in a soviet style brutalist high rise. And the somewhat recent tweaks to the zoning codes certainly helped (e.g., grama houses etc.). Japan essentially solved this problem via various means and we can too.
Incidentally, building denser also means the UGB does not necessarily need much change. One more thing since you mentioned Carver/Yamhill. Let’s build the Yamhelas trail.
“rezoning a neighborhood, does not necessarily mean cutting down all the trees”
Even our current zoning code encourages developers to remove large trees in R5 zones. You see any changes coming that will give more weight to tree preservation?
Yes, recent code changes created incentives for building detached ADUs, along with limits and complications on building taller houses, or incorporating ADUs (or just designs that could accommodate more people, such as extended families, without creating fully separate units) withn the primary structures. In other words, spreading out on a site (meaning less room for trees) was encouraged over keeping footprints smaller to preserve trees and green space.
qqq very interesting. I remember my dad getting permission from the city to cut down a tree, but I’m not familiar with zoning codes vis a vis tree removal. Do you have a link?
Yes, absolutely! We need more density in Ladd’s. We need a Ladd’s multiplication!!
I see your ladds and triple it! It is indeed a really unique neighborhood, and the alleyways and rose gardens can be something we can incorporate into other neighborhoods. Are we talking about the same thing?
In any case dw take a look at the history if you got a sec. Ladds was a product of a former mayor William S. Ladd who some say ripped off L’Enfant (DC’s designer). I’m not convinced.
Little tidbit of history for you to give some perspective on this neighborhood:
So yeah, Portland has had it’s share of segregation, not to mention Vanport, then the removal of Albina for a freeway etc etc.
And we already have some old buildings from the streetcar days that line Ladds. My point is we need not keep static a neighborhood simply because of a fear of change. As Crispin Glover once said, “I’m your density.”
Irvington and Ladds are not “essentially suburban style”. They have population densities of ~10,000/sq mile. Typical Portland area suburbs are in the 2,500 to 5,000 range.
Ladd’s is quintessentially middle housing. There are tons of n-plexes, cottage courts, small apartments (especially on 12th), and yes – single family homes.
Irvington is definitely more single family home oriented, but between Tillamook and Broadway it’s like 75%+ apartments, and NE 15th is also pretty apartment heavy. I think R5 zones should be more inclusive of small apartment buildings and that our zoning regulations are needlessly prescriptive, but come on. Laurelhurst and Alameda are the neighborhoods that most fit the “suburban single family home” mold near central Portland.
True Blum. I was using a larger paintbrush than I should perhaps for those neighborhoods. The point I was trying to make was the zoning codes are largely R5 (like +70% of the city), which severely restricts land use.
I’m not sure how familiar you are with Japanese land use policy (which has been incredibly successful at maintaining housing costs at far more affordable levels). In general, it is much less restrictive (one could argue more market based perhaps), so someone with a house can also have a tiny store. Mixed use like that, as well as allowing various levels of higher density can really make a place vibrant and shorten trips. It’s so much more flexible than the typical system of zoning in the US where we must only live here, and we must only go there to work.
One more point similar to Japan (where street parking does not exist). I think it would be an amazing policy decision for Portland to limit street level parking lots to x number, and incentivize development by taxing anything over that x number. Huge swathes of inner SE are covered in parking. Street parking is never free even if we think it is. Anyway, food for thought.
Yeah, I spent a week walking around Tokyo a year ago.
I loved the neighborhoods there, i found myself saying of all the big cities Tokyo was the most pleasant in lifestyle,
( London isn’t bad. Paris is too dense IMO and kind of grimy, surprisingly the rich parts of Mumbai arent bad either)
Back to Tokyo, the roads were narrow, low speed limits, and always a little shop or bar or restaurant tucked in somewhere on any residential street. However most of them were located on long market streets, again very narrow. The area about 2km away from Ikebukuro station comes to mind as an example of the perfect urban environment.
But they also had big stroads and stuff for people to get around. So its important to remember that.
And another issue was that the living spaces there were very small. I’m not sure Americans could even fit in some of them.
Wholeharted adoption here wouldn’t be feasible but allowing small shops in residential neighborhoods and 2-3 story buildings mixed in would be a good thing.
But financing that stuff is difficult. Big guys don’t want to do it and most people are just flat broke when it comes to spending 250k to build another building on their lot.
I wonder how many Americans would welcome having to roll up their bed to make room to unfold their kitchen table.
For decades now my GF and I have used a (very nice) double futon (internal spring mattress). Every morning I take 3-4 minutes to put it away (fold and stow the bedding in drawers underneath, pillow topper behind) and every night about 5 to put it down, put the pillow topper on and make the bed.
In our current 1 bedroom we have a home office and 2nd walk-in (by segregating space in the “bedroom”) that would take a 2 br apt otherwise.
It’s really not a big deal.
The biggest issue with going small is storage – when we discuss tiny homes we basically land on “we’d need a tuff shed or the like as well”.
Having lived together in 500sq ft for years, if we were to stay in the US we’d likely look at a tiny home plus a shed as the right size place to retire in.
Great perspective donel. I’d love to hear more.
This made me chuckle a bit. Yes, sure a lot of US citizens are obese, (which is another topic), but as you likely know the typical idea of a person from the US of “Tokyo” is massive skyscrapers surrounding Shibuya, just like when Mericans think of NY as Times Square. The Greater Tokyo Area has a lot of really cool mixed use neighborhoods that US citizens would be shocked to discover exist, including houses that are super cheap compared to the US. And a lot of average US citizens would fit in them.
I’m not sure that would be entirely feasible. Zoning codes take a long process to change. But changes over time would certainly be a step in the right direction.
People who extol Japanese land use policy as a mechanism for keeping rents low have no real concept of what living in a tiny Japanese apartment is actually like.
Americans are not going to go for that.
Well yeah, both neighborhoods are on the National Register of Historic Places. They’ve been protected by design. In the same way liberals typically are against drilling for oil in Yellowstone, these protections were put in place to prevent people who think living in a nice neighborhood is a birthright from building an 8-plex next door that looks like a child designed a soviet dental clinic.
Add in Portland’s relative affordability compared to California and Washington, and the market just doesn’t care what Portland does to try and improve housing prices. So, good luck, but broad affordability in the most desirable neighborhoods is never coming to Portland.
Oregon already has this law.
ORS 811.550 Places where stopping, standing and parking prohibited
(17) Within 20 feet of a crosswalk at an intersection. Exemptions under ORS 811.560
I don’t know when it was passed, but advocates have been working on getting it enforced for at least 10 years.
It does sound like Parking Patrol is starting to enforce this city ordinance, however:
16.20.130 Prohibited in Specified Places.
City Code Section
(Amended by Ordinance 165594, effective July 8, 1992.)
Enforcement of this city ordinance against parking vehicles over 6 feet tall within 50 feet of an intersection may have an additional benefit of fewer people buying big rigs to drive around town because they have a harder time finding a place to park them.
Or Sprinter vans and lifted trucks in our neighborhoods. The corner crossing by our school is made much more dangerous by a single home owner who owns a tall truck and parks it right up to the corner, blocking the view of K-8 students walking to school every day.
Given the very large downside of blocking sightlines for children at crosswalks it seems fair enough to call in the parking violation, assuming the large vehicle remains parked there during school hours and travel times.
I’m self interested as well, blocked sight lines slow down my travel times all over town. Car drivers regularly carry momentum out past crosswalks and I have to plan for that or else go over the hood.
This law in Hoboken was consistently built (bollards), maintained, and enforced, and resulted in some fairly decent statistics in lowering of conflicts between modes. Relying on manned enforcement alone has been the achilles heel of these types of laws.
Thanks for the Ciclovia article !
we should have Sunday Parkways every Sunday in Portland.
We should have Wednesday Parkways every week too !!!