From bad to worse
There's an election under way in Portland, but that doesn't impede the ongoing foolishness of the bureaucrats – not in the least. Now we learn that there are bobbleheads in a silo somewhere drawing up plans to turn the Max trains downtown into a subway.
These are the Max trains that are already too dangerous to ride, through a downtown that's dead. But for some reason now's a good time to start putting the operation underground. The current liars' budget for the dig is $4.5 billion, but even if you broke ground today, you know the cost would wind up being twice that.
Why are we paying people to "plan" such fantasies? When you wonder why grouchy old coots like me vote no on every money measure that's put before us, it's this kind of nonsense. The PERS eaters already have plenty of money to burn – and it used to be our money.
I’ve seen this bumping around a bit…
ReplyDelete…it is crazy expensive!
…I’d be *slightly* in favor of an elevated/ getting rid of the slowest surface-running portions without dedicated right of way in a general sense?
I don’t find ELs ugly, most of the adjacent buildings are unoccupied, anyway, they accomplish the speed of a subway at <1/5 the cost & can be torn down or rebuilt & re-routed a lot easier & aren’t confined nor flood prone spaces, necessarily?
More trains on game nights, being able to run longer trains that don’t exactly fit in the short downtown block & having the thing actually go fast through downtown isn’t a bad thing?
Building a crazy expensive subway?
No thanks?
Vancouver BC has the sky train that has done pretty well?
Elevated urban freeways are obviously awful most of the time.
Although, our own 2-deck markham bridge, ugly as it is, did get the freeway off the waterfront & actually got a lot of the noise and air pollution away from where most people are, stayed on budget, has boat clearance below & flight clearance above without requiring an opening span nor specialized tower lights for aircraft? Rather narrow lanes & an eyesore, but for something to come out of the era or Robert Moses wrecking cities with urban freeways that don’t separate the Thru traffic from commutes in any way that works well, I’d call it by far better than it was before & not the *worst* option?
It was thought to be a blight/ugly, and when it came time for the Fremont bridge, a lot of the conversation was about making it less ugly, which has some value I’m sure, but it ran 6x over budget, requires aircraft signal lights/has tall towers & really wrecked a neighborhood (not specifically the bridge’s fault, but it looking prettier doesn’t help, either?).
Some dedicated right of way at choke points isn’t a bad thing with transit, but a big dig at great expense sounds completely nuts!
An elevated with a big arc/sweep over a corner of water front park that doesn’t bump & chug hopelessly slowly & dangerously thru downtown that can feed some increased capacity to the stadium would be valuable.
I’d rather have what some might consider an ‘ugly’ thing that functions like the Marquam bridge for transit than a really expensive ‘big dig’ for transit.
I’d rather cover the freeways with an elevated train that mostly cuts the noise, but without creating a totally confined space that’s a fire hazard &/or ventilation nightmare nor a developer weasel/ politician ribbon cutting bonanza.
So I say, yes elevated trsnsit & yes cover the freeway/enclose most the noise & make the freeway experience worse for drivers view-wise (except where views are needed for safety so you don’t wind up with the great Alaskan way viaduct tunnel issue where the cars don’t slow down coming off exits because they can’t see as they suddenly emerge snd end up blowing thru an intersection oftentimes now) while doing the existing residents some good & maybe widening I5 by the rose quarter choke point?
If it’s gentrification, sports stadiums & cover the freeway at great expense either way, I’d rather choose more transit to meet the demand at stadiums, faster transit thru downtown & getting something that’s a more usable structure & public good (dedicated right of way fast running elevated heavy rail spec metro) over the freeway than just a free standing sound wall thatd still cost a lot snd only marginally helps sound overall snd to immediate neighbors &/or luxury apartments adjacent/above?
But, *sigh*, since when do we build things that Might be a little ugly & functional, but stay on budget & really work well and allow inexpensive maintenance, alteration etc. anymore in america, much less here…
Sometimes blather is entertaining. Sometimes I get distracted when I wait for the closing point.
DeleteMaybe you should lay off your meth pipe and try sleeping for a change...or, maybe, get a girlfriend to help you with your insomnia.
DeleteSeattle is spent a TON of that tech money for the Alaskan way viaduct to become a tunnel and it doesn’t work all that well.
ReplyDeleteThey’re spending a ton for their light rail that doesn’t interchange with king street station for diversity & equity bleeding heart reasons that results in bad transit & no real meaningful upside for all things gentrification and displacement consequences, anyways
Vancouver BC the sky train works pretty ok considering their late start, but everything is so crack price expensive there for house & car traffic & wrecks so god awful, they had to do *something*.
I say cover the freeways partially at the edges with an El if you’re going to spend stupid money to build sound walls, widen &/or cover them generally, anyway , build a hideous elevated section(s) around waterfront park & downtown rather than do some crazy expensive ‘big dig.’
Elevated urban freeways are a blight/awful.
Elevated electrified rail transit really isn’t.
Real estate weasel lobbies advocated and got it tore it out in the ‘50s and 60s wherever possible + the car, oil and tire lobby, but now that downtown is fairly worthless/needs to get repurposed, anyway , why not rebuild it?
“Were gonna keep it slow, all over town
ReplyDeleteSo lets have a party, and go underground
Ain’t nothing will change, except for your fare
Can’t wait to get started, throw the money in the air.”
Silly me. I thought the area was short on tax money
ReplyDeleteAll these tax $$$ administered by folks who have maybe $500 in their bank accounts. Insanity rules!
ReplyDeleteThey wouldn't have that $500 if it wasn't for the empire building of local gov.
DeleteGreat! Let's build an underground vagrant/drug addict camp that stretches from the Robertson Tunnel to the Steel Bridge! I'm all in! Where do I sign up?
ReplyDeleteLet's not forget the underground shithouse component...
Deletethe sound of an old man crying in his soup :(
ReplyDeleteBetter than having the soup poured over one’s head. Or maybe you are into that?
DeleteIt might help if more of us were privy to the plan.
ReplyDeleteLike most CoP/MultCo/TriMet "plans" this one will remain secret until it's time for the taxpayer to pony up. Once that happened then we'll find out that the cost projections were so low-ball as to make the "plan" unworkable. After that, the taxpayer will be asked to pony up more by passing a bond measure in the midst of a high-interest-rate economic environment, approve a local option levy with some tenuous connection to "the kids" or pass a tax that "only the rich will pay"...or all 3.
DeleteYou forgot the diversity/equity component.
DeleteGiven that downtown real estate is almost totally worthless & largely unoccupied, an elevated you have to pay to enter to cut down on it being dirty and dangerous that can be built more piece-at-a time makes sense, in theory.
ReplyDeletePassengers might even have a pretty good Mt. hood view instead of tent view, especially if they knock down all those aging large floor plate & difficult to repurpose & expensive to maintain office buildings no one really ever even needed or wanted (even the original WTC towers in NYC where occupancies are often high before work from home took almost a decade+ to fill?)
(I’m of the belief that no buildings >6-10stories need exist, functionally).
ODOT hires tons of flacks and consultants to present glossy fliers of what something ‘might’ look like to insulate them from liability these days/pretty standard.
Not great, but it’s the world we live in?
I’d be curious what the Oslo full heavy rail metro that goes to a ski hill and works in the ice & cold cost to build out, as the city isn’t that much more populous than Portland & they started building it pre oil money?
Downtown being in such bad shape & a bottleneck + American (or British) construction costs being so cartoonishly corrupt and ridiculous in general suggests build an elevated or not much at all?
Speaking of NYC & American construction costs, how much did those 2 stops cost them underground for the 2nd ave extension?
Or the Boston ‘big dig?’
At this late date, what would lead us to believe it’d likely go better here?
2 billion+ for NYC that’s been largely a developer give-away without taxing away the capital gains made thereafter nor funding it & controlling costs on the front end?
Bridge & tunnel replacements that can’t go ahead & be sorted out in any rational way largely because the fevered egos and ribbon cuttings couldn’t be agreed upon between Chris Christie & Cuomo?
Another word-salad dissertatio…3rd one today. You’re either getting paid or you think very highly of your “intellect”.
DeleteTrust me on this…if it’s the latter, you’d be the only one.
How about making one or two pithy comments? This is not your forum.
Delete^Fair.
DeleteDefinitely not the latter belief on the intellect part LOL.
I guess the big idea being that dedicated right of way thru downtown isn’t a bad one in the abstract and that acquiring real estate now of all times might be good value for the taxpayer & distressed building/downtown real estate owner that needs an exit strategy, but that would require a state/government entity to recognize & effectively seize upon an opportunity for something that’s a civilian public good to both benefit the taxpayer & existing (hopefully smaller local?) property owner, which, since…uh… the Thatcher & Reagan eras in the anglosphere has very much *not* been the rule historically & much more the exception…
…I’m sure the blog proprietor can better explain the many incentives that work against that, but the basic idea isn’t all together a bad one?
Even when you agree you should stop bloviating, you can't. I guess all your "friends" blocked your text messages...
DeleteI'm outta here until you get tired of this sandbox and go back to wherever it is you came from.
He kinda reminds me of this guy who used to post on the Rush band usenet forum some 25 years ago. He would write these long conspiracy theories every day about how Neil Peart controlled the world, that an ex-girlfriend was some kind of witch and was controlling him, and that the FBI and CIA were somehow conspiring against him.
DeleteThis went on for years, with multiple posts per day.
More evidence that the NYC parasites still think Portland can be a mini Manhattan.
ReplyDeleteBut heaven forbid the new Columbia Crossing be a tunnel. It’s “too expensive” they say. Yet it would solve all the problems cited by the Coast Guard.
ReplyDeleteIt’d also be better looking.
DeleteBetcha the railroaders try one more time to run blight rail down the middle of Barbur Blvd.....the only alternative when I-5 gets slammed with another Terwilliger Curves mess. All that Fed Free money just too hard to resist....but resist we must.
DeleteIt’s not really free money. The Fed’s are just giving back some of what they took earlier
Delete