While Oregon and Washington turned out to support left-leaning politicians, same-sex marriage, and marijuana during this election, one progressive issue went down hard: Light rail.
The MAX is popular in Portland, but light rail projects are very controversial in the city’s suburbs. Vancouver, Washington, weighed a proposal that was crucial to funding the Columbia River Crossing project: Voters were asked to approve a small sales tax hike raising $2 million annually to cover operating costs for the bridge’s light rail link planned between Portland and Vancouver. Instead, the tax was soundly rejected. Federal and local legislators have repeatedly said that the CRC will not be built if it doesn’t include light rail.
Scrambling for a Plan B, the CRC project proposed raising the money from other sources, including cutting bus routes planned to run over the bridge, adding a surcharge on transit tickets, and charging for parking at Park and Ride stations.
Meanwhile, Clackamas voted in two anti-“Portland creep” conservative candidates to the county commission last week, both of whom have promised to oppose the already-under-construction Portland-Milwaukie light rail line. In September, Clackamas voted heavily in favor of an measure that forces a county-wide vote on public light rail decisions—likely killing any future rail lines in Clackamas, if the current political environment holds.
GOOD JOB, EXURBS… YOU’VE VOTED AGAINST YOUR OWN BEST INTERESTS; AGAIN. DIAF.
YES, BECAUSE THE WAY TO SPEND PUBLIC MONEY MORE EFFICIENTLY IS TO PAY FOR AN ELECTION ANYTIME AN ELECTED BODY DOES ANYTHING. DIAF.
may all of these silly acronyms DIAF.
Or just possibly, exurbs understand their own interests better than urbanites do.
Yeah. Light rail does bring some demographic changes, which I think they oppose. Not that it’s right, but it’s not irrational.
I don’t really see the issue here. If the people of that area are so opposed to light rail to vote this way, then isn’t it likely they would be similarly opposed when the light rail got built, meaning it wouldn’t be terribly well utilized?
But then, I kinda think light rail is a big, fancy waste of money, myself, even though I ride public transit every work day.
Your choices are build a rail system now and save money or wait till gas prices go up again. I’m pretty sure if people realized how much money they would save traveling on public transportation they would have made a better decision. Rail systems have also been proven to boost the economy of the connected surrounding area. Yay more Jobs!
Now that a Trimet pass costs $100, I don’t save much money. Plus I still have to use my car sometimes, so I’m still paying for gas on top of it. Between that and constantly degraded bus service, TriMet needs to watch how much value they’re really providing. They have a bit of a “you’ll take what we give you and like it” attitude.
It’s time to let go of the idea that Portland has a good public transit system. During the time I’ve lived here (about 8 years), prices have nearly doubled and service has been cut in extent, frequency and duration. Trimet like to blame it all on revenue decreases, yet have done nothing at all to try and change it from a payroll tax onto something more stable. Really, it’s just massively incompetent management combined with crippling union contracts. Time to hand transit over to a new agency and start from scratch.
@ stu, bingo and I have been here much longer than 8 years but you are absolutely correct.
My theory its not light rail that people are so against, its TRIMET.
Why would Portland drop billions of dollars for the dirrty ‘Couverites to drive to work again? Looks to me like they like the traffic.
Why don’t they put new highways to a vote like this?