i think, even though i have some sympathy for the argument that portlanders shouldn't pay for vancouverites to have an easy commute to the city, that something needs to be done. in the afternoon, NB I-5 backs up from the interstate bridge all the way past downtown and up to around the terwilliger curves. give it 10 ten years and backups all the way to wilsonville will be common. that kind of nullifies the advantage of a reverse commute for those of us living downtown and working out in the soulless suburbs. inbound 26 gets backed up fairly often as well in the afternoons; i'll bet it's all part of the same mess.
oh of course if there was any political will to build max down barbur or I-5 south, that would be a better choice. why it's given so little emphasis i don't understand.
i was going to post a link on here, but it's already gone... Metro's JPACT (joint policy area (?) committee on transportation) is the one that makes all these strategic decisions. their agendas and minutes are posted
here. recently, they had a 50-page compendium of their wishlist of projects (both road and transit) for their 2035 plan. unfortunately,
the link now leads to a 404. but if it starts working again, it makes for some interesting reading. for one thing, for the jack bogs of the world, only about the last 5 pages listed transit projects; the rest were for roads. the one road project i'd never heard of before is burial of 224 through milwaukie. i assume that means open cut, but it's only got a one-sentence description. re: transit, they list commuter rail projects to salem by 2014, as well as mcminnville and st helens a few years later. lrt projects include powell to 205, forest grove, barbur, a red line extension from quatama to amberglen, blue line from gresham to mhcc, various ways of extending the green/orange lines south to oregon city, and routes into vantucky. also, some brt lines. hopefully they'll re-post it soon.
oh yeah, tefen, thanks for the map, i was having trouble picturing where all these options are supposed to go. what is the "kellog bowl" anyway? a bowling alley? or an ampitheater?