Right now, six five trains run on the Cascades line between Eugene and Seattle. Four Three of those are owned by Washington, and don’t go further south than Portland. Two are owned by Amtrak, which lets Oregon use them for service to Eugene. How does Oregon pay for that service? (drumroll…) Custom license plates. But […]
Transportation
Posted inTransportation
David Bragdon Takes Down CRC
Lame duck Metro Council President David Bragdon didn’t wave protest signs outside the first meeting of the Columbia River Crossing “independent review panel” yesterday but, boy, did he lay the smackdown inside. It seems like he’s going to do everything he can his last few months in office to change the course of the $3 […]
Posted inTransportation
TriMet Calls in National Safety Review
In the wake of a TriMet bus crash this weekend which left two pedestrians dead, TriMet’s outgoing General Manager Fred Hansen has asked the National Safety Council to send out an expert to review TriMet’s training and policies. A statement from Hansen this morning referred to both the pain the victims’ families were feeling and […]
Posted inTransportation
East Burnside’s Goin’ One Way, Baby!
via Sandy/Burnside in 1958, when it was the city’s “#1 accident intersection” Yes, as you may have noticed if you’ve been anywhere near the east end of the Burnside Bridge in the past several months, the city is finally investing the time, money and bulldozers to clean up the clusterfuck of East Burnside between the […]
Posted inTransportation
This Ad Was Banned from TriMet
Doesn’t seem so controversial, does it? I reported an article in this week’s news section about TriMet swapping ad space for poetry, but didn’t have the room to discuss much about a significant legal case TriMet is battling in court right now. Until last year, TriMet’s ad policy banned any sort of political or advocacy […]
Posted inTransportation
Int’l Designers on CRC: “This is a Bridge Back to the 20th Century.”
Oregon and Washington’s governors revealed today the eight people who will review the Columbia River Crossing (CRC) project for two months in response to criticism over the cost and impact of the project. The governors list the review committee’s tasks as assessing the CRC’s budget, implementation and post-construction performance measures, but NOT, as local leaders […]
Posted inTransportation
Commuting Makes People Miserable
David Brooks in today’s NYT: If the relationship between money and well-being is complicated, the correspondence between personal relationships and happiness is not. The daily activities most associated with happiness are sex, socializing after work and having dinner with others. The daily activity most injurious to happiness is commuting. Some people can’t afford to live […]
Posted inTransportation
CRC’s Hayden Island Footprint: Acceptable?
Coalition for a Livable Future has drawn up sent out some comparison images of how the Columbia River Crossing (CRC) will impact Hayden Island. Residents of the island between Portland and Vancouver rallied against the CRC earlier this year when the project unveiled a new plan that would demolish the island’s grocery store to make […]
Posted inTransportation
TriMet Will Only Cut Three Bus Lines!
This is so expected that maybe it’s not even worth reporting on but here you go: after six weeks of open houses and 1,000 public comments received about TriMet’s plans to cut four bus lines, the agency has decided to only cut three bus lines. On the chopping block are 27-Market/Main, 65-Marquam Hill and 157-Happy […]
Posted inTransportation
Can the CRC Design be Saved?
There’s one thing we can all agree on with the Columbia River Crossing. It’s ugly. Brian Libby at Portland Architecture ran an interesting post last week about the lack of good design for the $3.6 billion bridge, asking, “Can the CRC’s Design be Saved?” Seen at the CRC design show at PNCA. There are too […]
Posted inTransportation
CRC Will Ask Feds for “Reasonable” $400 Mil
The big topic of discussion at the Columbia River Crossing’s (CRC) packed Project Sponsor’s Council Meeting this morning was: um… how are we going to fund this thing? As the project is currently burning through $1 million a month in spending, the staff is looking to the future. The plan they pitched to the bigwigs […]
Posted inTransportation
What is This?! A Freakin’ PR Stunt for Your iPhone App?
I can’t work under these conditions! A large truck and a mini-steamroller (!) are growling in the road outside out office window, surrounded by a half-dozen guys in yellow safety vests who are SHOOTING FLAMES from equipment strapped to their back. They say they are filling potholes. We all know whose favorite publicity stunt that […]