MaxRedline

Too Big To Fail

Peter Rogoff, FTA head, was in town the other day to throw fed taxpayer dollars into the pot for the Portland/Milwaukie loot rail line, at which time he stated that opposition in Clackamas County can't halt it.

Clackamas County opponents have qualified a measure for the September Special Election ballot requiring a public vote on the county's $25 million share. Two light rail opponents have also made it onto the November ballot for two commission seats.

Rogoff, however, believes many, if not most, Clackamas County residents want the line.

"Transit projects create jobs and provide needed transportation options, especially in these days of $4 a gallon gas," Rogoff said.

And were it a transit project, rather than a deveoper project, there would likely be no opposition. Nobody objects to more and better bus service, for example. They do object - and rightly so - to exorbitant waste of funds on the Portland Agenda. Studies clearly show that the Portland model, in which commuters are forced into downtown Portland, is fundamentally flawed.

As it happens, Broward County has one of the strongest transit systems among other mid-sized metro areas in the United States (population: 1 to 5 million).

So what's the key to Broward's success? That's the question at the heart of a report published online earlier this month in the journal Urban Studies. A Florida State research team led by urban planning scholar Gregory Thompson considered the history of Broward County transit and evaluated its performance on a number of metrics. What they found, in short, is further evidence in favor of multi-destination systems that get people from home to work rather than simply from home to downtown.

If that's what Portland, Metro, and Tri-Met adopted, they wouldn't have an uprising on their hands.

 

They're Doing Something Right

It's not much, but at least the legislature got a toe in the door, cutting about 190 mostly mid-management jobs from the state trough. Unbelievably, the committee of budget writers who took this step consisted of two Democrats and a Republican. Bipartisanship occasionally works.

Naturally, Michael Jordan under whose term as head of Metro oversaw the sprouting of dozens of new mid-manager positions, is whining and crying. He loves his managers.

Michael Jordan, who serves as Gov. John Kitzhaber's chief operating officer and has oversight over the gamut of state agencies, said the plan follows the instructions laid down by the Legislature, but it undoubtedly will affect the level of state services.

"There aren't any of these cuts that go without any impact," Jordan said. "There are very few, if any, managers in state government that just manage. They carry a part of the general workload with them, too."

He may believe that, and if he does, he's a fool. If not, he's a liar. And say what you will about Jordan - he's not a dummy. Draw your own conclusions.

Being acquainted with a number of people who had to work under the exploding ranks of highly-compensated middle managers at Metro during the Jordan years, not one has reported a mid-manager actually working. They attend a lot of meetings, they hold a lot of meetings, they make up a lot of arbitrary rules - but they don't work.

The budget writers are on the right track.

As well, it appears that the folks in Portland City Hall have managed to pull off - however inadvertently - a major coup: traffic congestion dropped by 30% in 2011 when compared with 2010 levels. They'll doubtless claim that bicycles made all the difference, but that's actually a neglible component; the decrease was fueled by their tireless efforts to drive businesses away. The high price of gas, coupled with the lack of jobs, means that people are driving less because they have nowhere to go - and can't afford to drive without a job.

"We're experiencing a stop-and-go economy right now," Bak says. "The data indicate the country may be experiencing the jobless recovery economists warned of during the recession."

In some cases, the connection between job growth and increased congestion was clear. Cities that outpaced the national average of 1.5% growth in employment experienced some of the biggest increases in traffic congestion: Miami, 2.3% employment growth; Tampa, up 3%; and Houston, up 3.2%.

Cities that had big drops in congestion often were those that saw road construction slow considerably from 2010 to 2011 and those where gasoline prices were well above the national average at the peak in April 2011.

Metro Whines, Portland Plans

Metro will get to experience a taste of what they've been dishing out to the rest of us for years. Usually, we pay to clean up their messes, but in a surprising twist, the US Coast Guard asked a tugboat operator to to tag into a derelict barge that was adrift in the Columbia River and tow it to the nearest safe spot - which happened to be a Metro facility near PDX. So, there it sits, and Metro's fretting because the USCG mission ends at getting a navigational hazard out of the way. Metro may have to pony up as much as $90,000 to have the thing removed, which may cut into their funds for some "green and sustainable" pet project. So they're as unhappy as a property owner who's just had an "environmental overlay" slapped across his land.

Portland, also home to legions of "planners", has actually managed to come up with a good idea; proving the veracity of the old adage that even a blind hog, in a forest of oaks, will uproot the occasional acorn: flat, straight N. Williams Avenue gets a lot of bicycle traffic, and it's never made a whole lot of sense to have a bike lane on the right-hand side of this one-way street. So they're going to move it to the left side, with some additional improvements. Urban cycling's a dangerous undertaking; anything that stands to greatly improve safety at minimal expense is welcomed.

Metro Considers BRT To Gresham

The Metro council has voted to spend a million dollars to "study" a potential Bus Rapid Transit route between the PSU Development Corporation in Portland and Mt. Hood Community College.

The Powell-Division corridor study will look into whether the region could deploy “rapid transit” buses instead of far-costlier light-rail lines to connect downtown with Gresham.

It must have occurred to the brain-trust that the light rail gravy train is likely to derail in the not-too-distant future, so they're forced to look at bus options. In any case, Portland's not going to have a lot of money to throw into more light rail - they've been ordered to get it in gear and build closed reservoirs.

Tri-Met: Who Ya Gonna Believe? Us, Or Your Own Lying Eyes?

Tri-Met folks claim that light rail is safe, despite findings to the contrary in a survey conducted by the Oregon High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program and the Clackamas County Sheriff's office.

An uptick in gang banging around Clackamas County is tied mostly to gangsters based in Portland -- some who take TriMet's Green Line trains to Clackamas Town Center, according to a new survey.

The survey lays some of the increase to recent transportation-system improvements, specifically the MAX light-rail line to Clackamas County that opened in 2009.

Clackamas County Sheriff's office has reported a 32% increase in crime along the Green line since it went live, even as crime has decreased elsewhere in the county. An interactive crime map published by The Oregonian in 2007 shows high concentrations of crime within a three block radius of then-existing light rail lines.

None of that matters, according to Tri-Met's effervescent flack, Mary Fetsch: 

Fetsch pointed out that light-rail lines run throughout Portland and Washington County, where police are not blaming commuter trains for increases in gang activity.

The map says otherwise, Mary. And Milwaukie Police Chief Bob Jordan said he is concerned that the new light-rail line to Milwaukie may give gangbangers an easy way to the city, bringing the same problems police have experienced in areas adjacent to the Green Line. 

Keep smilin' and shinein' Mary.

Light Rail, Garbage Mandates - The Overlords

Light rail has come to Seattle, and with it, the ever-present "unintended consequences":

A new study finds light rail is driving up rent prices and driving out working class residents who are the lifeblood of the community.

Rainier Valley thrives on its diversity. But this colorful community now finds itself in a gray area because of light rail.

Obviously, the only answer they'll find will involve taxpayer subsidies to fund  "Equity or affordable housing". Imagine that!

Here in Portland, the Overlords mandate that, effective last Halloween, garbage pickup would go from weekly to every other week (but compost and recycling get picked up weekly). Natch, there've been a few problems: not only did garbage rates not get cut - they're going to be increased. And the predicted problems have arisen: two weeks of stinky dirty diapers create quite the stench, and the hot weather's not even yet underway. The Overlords at the City of Portland recommend placing your garbage can in a cool, shady location. Isn't that just special?

Of course, that doesn't solve the problem of cans stuffed to the gills - it's just another example of the Overlords deciding that families are bad and single hipsters are good, so that's what they cater to. Some folks have opted to stuff their garbage excess into City receptacles at parks and elsewhere, and the Overlords have responded by threatening to remove trash cans from parks.

Other folks have got more creative: they conceal the dirty diapers and other stuff in recycling bins. We warned them these problems would arise, but as always, They Know Best.

3 Months Old - Just Coming To Light

The "Columbia River Crossing" (replacement for the current I-5 bridges) - with loot rail into Vancouver, Wash. has long been "projected" to cost a mere $4.5 billion. Turns out, construction costs would be considerably higher: $10 billion. There's a surprise.

More surprising is that the February 2012 article just turned up in the newsfeed today, which almost makes one wonder if the data's been deliberately withheld. But greengrocer Eileen says that Vancouver's "going to love it". At $10 billion +, they'd better.

Bicycle Boulevards, Greenways, and More

Portland may be broke, but that's no reason to stop spending your money. Let's see...there's a freeway and a light rail line, on either side of which are neighborhoods with streets, bike lanes, and sidewalks. Nope! Not good enough. What the city really needs to do is to blow another few million on a paved bike trail next to the light rail line. Yeah - that's the ticket!

Portland Transport

Having dispensed with the occupie kiddies, let's move on to some real issues: it seems to have come to the attention of some in local media that folks have had about enough of the Portland/Metro/Tri-Met/developer cabals. It seems unbelievable to them, and The Zero draws attention to the fact that in Clackamas County, the "Portland Creep" factor has gained some real traction. This, of course, is viewed as a Very Bad Thing, because it "threatens" regional transportation and cooperation. 

This is a horrifying situation, because everybody's supposed to love the Portland/Metro "vision" of people packed into stacked lab-rat cages and riding around on crime-infested Tri-Met light rail trains. It's shocking for them to discover that a lot of people don't buy into it, and they're tired of having that U.N. Agenda 21 junk rammed down their throats. Naturally, the Leftie commenters from Portland are all over it; deriding the folks in Clackamas County as backward losers because they don't think that they need to pay for 19th century fixed rail at $1.5 billion for seven miles. Supporters claim that County residents wouldn't have to pay more than $25 million - the rest is all "free money" that apparently falls out of the federal and state skies. Typical leftie idiocy.

They have even more reason to get their panties in a twist, as several Washington County communities are circulating petitions that would mandate a vote before any funds can be spent to aid the grand plans of Portland and Metro. What audacity! 

Actually, it's just a start. It's an uphill push, but efforts are underway to replace social engineers with actual representatives of the people. That will take time, but by working together, we can begin to undo some of the damage inflicted upon our neighborhoods. We start by taking their hands out of the cookie jar.

Related articles

• Regional planning policies probably intensified hard-hit Clackamas County's housing woes (oregonlive.com)

TSA

Just doing what they can - after all, they're hard-working union members.