LAST WEEKEND was one long celebration of Portland’s newest
transit star, the MAX Green Line from downtown to the Clackamas Town
Center. Friday night, transit bigwigs drank Green Line-themed martinis
and ate foie gras Fig Newtons at a private party downtown. Saturday
morning, a Green Line dance crew performed for the official opening of
the line and 40,000 people took advantage of the opening day’s free
rides.
But amid the smiling faces chowing down on “Green Means Go” cupcakes
on Saturday morning, one man was not pleased. I invited John Charles,
president of the “free market environmentalist” think tank Cascade
Policy Institute, to take his first ride on the Green Line with me to
get a critical counter balance from someone who has opposed the Green
Line since it was just “a gleam in the planner’s eye,” as he puts
it.
“It creeps through downtown at an exceedingly slow five miles per
hour. There’s a bunch of tourists on it. All it’s done is replace
inexpensive bus service with expensive rail service,” grumbled Charles
as giddy older ladies squeezed onto the packed train in Old Town.
A former MAX-commuter, Charles became the system’s arch nemesis when
he saw TriMet’s emphasis on expanding the light rail system led to
cutting bus lines. After pouring $20.5 million into the $575.7 million
Green Line project, this year TriMet cut five bus lines and axed
fareless buses from downtown.
Charles testified in the legislature against a bill increasing
TriMet’s budget (which passed) and as the new train crossed the river,
he opined, “Anything light rail can do, buses can do better, faster,
and cheaper.”
After we disembarked at the NE 7th station, a man with a large
mustache shouted joyfully to the almost empty platform, “Here comes the
Green train!” Charles, on the other hand, was doom and gloom. “TriMet
is going off a cliff. Something has to give—either they’ll cut
back on frequent service or stop expansion,” Charles predicted. “They
should pave over these tracks and make it a busway.”
More mainstream transit advocate Chris Smith dismisses that
particular idea, but agrees that Charles has a good point. “Should we
build rail? Definitely, yes. But we do need to worry about all the
growth going into rail instead of into busses,” he agrees.
So his solution to Trimet spending too much money on capital projects instead of service, is for Trimet to spend more money on a capital project (paving over the MAX tracks) at the expense of service (once the tracks have been built, MAX is much more cost efficient than buses). Sheer genius.
And you wonder why people think conservatives are idiots…
Yeah, I would so much rather have a bus mall choking me with diesel fumes than a nice clean train rolling through downtown.
Wait, did the “no more fareless square for buses” thing happen? Because I caught a ride from Voodoo Doughnuts to Columbia on the 44 this morning and the driver didn’t stop me when I said “fareless”.
You don’t have to be conservative to realize light-rail, the way its done in this city, is a total boondoggle. He’s right about MAX being totally useless through downtown, and obviously, he was joking when he suggested paving over the tracks to make more room for buses. Leave the tracks there, run more buses. If you don’t like diesel, run them on natural gas. And before you tell me electric trains are more sustainable than buses, think about the coal we burn to get that power.
BTW- having spent most of my life in cities where trains actually move enormous numbers of people, I assure you, I have nothing against trains that actually move faster than I can jog.
Buses only need a trolley wire and electric motors to run on electricity. Curitiba Brazil has buses that can handle the same amount of travelers as the MAX. To solve the imagined fareless square problem charge people to get off the bus when heading out of downtown.
To solve the Tri-MET budget problem just get rid of Biodiesel. That will cut maintenance and fuel cost and increase bus availability. We should not use other peoples food for transportation.
Now the obnoxious kids from Clackamas have the same access to downtown bars as the obnoxious kids from Gresham and Hillsboro.
Stu,
Have you ever heard of the expression, “Tongue-in-cheek?”
And you wonder why people think liberals are idiots…
I guess John Charles hasn’t been up to Seattle where they use an all-bus transit system. I can’t tell you how many times I missed classes/tests because the bus was full when it road up. They bus driver would simply wave at you as they drove by. So if he really feels an all-bus system is preferable, then maybe he should go try it out for a year, and come back to Portland to report.
PS: Yes, they put in the SLUT…. the dirty slut barely serves the Seattle community from what my friends and family have told me.
Rail has its place, and bus has its place.
Rail is great for connecting communities, such as the blue line does.
The red line is useful as a fairly quick connection from the airport.
The yellow line is absurd until it makes it to Vancouver.
The green line is absurd period, coulda been done years ago with express buses at a fraction of the cost, much like the WES.
The worst of it all is that bus service keeps getting chopped to pay to run these rail services.
The expansion is not going to end so count on less and less buses.
Land use development is the name of the game, if your transit dependent and don’t live in Portland proper your in big trouble the way things are likely to continue heading.
Lot’s of people are getting hurt, primarily lower income people, and we all know that nobody cares about them.
In America, the land of freedom and democracy, you get as much freedom and voice as you can afford.
I hate John Charles for what he represents , but occasionally he makes sense as do all the right wingers make sense occasionally.