High Speed Rail and Amtrak News

[dizflip]

Still curious what the thought process was to not go through the heart of Sellwood. I get cost, but they had to have known following the UP tracks was a bad idea right?

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by dizflip

Still curious what the thought process was to not go through the heart of Sellwood. I get cost, but they had to have known following the UP tracks was a bad idea right?

How would light rail gone through the heart of Sellwood?

[subterranean]

17th/Milwaukie

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by subterranean

17th/Milwaukie

And how would light rail go down a two lane neighborhood street and make room for platforms?

[subterranean]

You think they couldn’t fit southbound on Milwaulkie and northbound on 17th?

Honestly it would be better as a streetcar line extension. Milwaulkie is exactly where the old line used to run, but it took a turn onto 13th.

[ThatDarnSacramentan]

If you're going to make that kind of investment in the streetcar that far south on the east side, you might as well run it across the Sellwood Bridge and go up Macadam to South Waterfront, create a whole new southern loop.

That would be a huge investment if it ever happened, but the cost and logistics almost certainly make it infeasible.

[subterranean]

Note I said “would have been”. These thoughts make no sense now that the orange line is where it is.

[dizflip]

Originally Posted by urbanlife

And how would light rail go down a two lane neighborhood street and make room for platforms?

Cut and cover

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by subterranean

You think they couldn’t fit southbound on Milwaulkie and northbound on 17th?

Honestly it would be better as a streetcar line extension. Milwaulkie is exactly where the old line used to run, but it took a turn onto 13th.

A streetcar would have been okay if it was some eastside line that ran all the way up Milwaukie and onto 11th/12th, granted then we would have a streetcar line that gets stuck every day by freight trains.

The current light rail route was definitely the better option since it can easily be connected to local bus lines.

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by dizflip

Cut and cover

So a roughly 3 mile cut and cover tunnel...before we have a tunnel running through downtown...plus the amount that would have cost to do while also building a transit only bridge, that would have easily killed the Orange line and Tillicum Bridge from happening.

[babs]

There was talk of adding streetcar tracks to the Sellwood Bridge when it was built with the idea of extending the streetcar from South Waterfront down the abandoned tracks over the Sellwood Bridge,.down Tacoma and into the Sellwood area.

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by babs

There was talk of adding streetcar tracks to the Sellwood Bridge when it was built with the idea of extending the streetcar from South Waterfront down the abandoned tracks over the Sellwood Bridge,.down Tacoma and into the Sellwood area.

That might have been an interesting idea since there is a pretty good population that is along that route.

[dizflip]

Originally Posted by urbanlife

So a roughly 3 mile cut and cover tunnel...before we have a tunnel running through downtown...plus the amount that would have cost to do while also building a transit only bridge, that would have easily killed the Orange line and Tillicum Bridge from happening.

In the 90s, planners declined a $250 million downtown tunnel for the South/North Corridor. So yes, you can absolutely point to a short-sighted decision to justify another short-sighted decision.

Not saying it would have been feasible, just saying that I will always see it as a missed opportunity.

[subterranean]

For what’s its worth, no one I’ve ever known who lived in Sellwood and worked downtown ever took the Orange line. It’s either the bike trail or bus (40) because it’s like 10-15 minutes faster with less walking.

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by subterranean

For what’s its worth, no one I’ve ever known who lived in Sellwood and worked downtown ever took the Orange line. It’s either the bike trail or bus (40) because it’s like 10-15 minutes faster with less walking.

That doesn't mean much unfortunately because I have also seen people taking the Orange line from Sellwood/Westmoreland from both of its stops, so it is obviously happening and possible to make it much faster and efficient to take a bus to one of the light rail stops if timing is done correctly. This is basically what Helsinki does to maximize their ridership numbers and it works.

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by dizflip

In the 90s, planners declined a $250 million downtown tunnel for the South/North Corridor. So yes, you can absolutely point to a short-sighted decision to justify another short-sighted decision.

Not saying it would have been feasible, just saying that I will always see it as a missed opportunity.

I wasn't here in the 90s, so I am unaware of this proposal and the history of it.

[PhillyPDX]

I guess I didn’t realize Amtrak doesn’t own the station. $250M is a lot!

https://www.oregonlive.com/business/...outputType=amp

[babs]

Originally Posted by PhillyPDX

I guess I didn’t realize Amtrak doesn’t own the station. $250M is a lot!

https://www.oregonlive.com/business/...outputType=amp

It needs to be more than a train station. It should be reimagined as a hub of some sort. Look at European train stations of often have food halls, office space and more. I don't see that happening with Amtrak owning it. It just doesn't get that many trains to just be a train station.

[PhillyPDX]

Originally Posted by babs

It needs to be more than a train station. It should be reimagined as a hub of some sort. Look at European train stations of often have food halls, office space and more. I don't see that happening with Amtrak owning it. It just doesn't get that many trains to just be a train station.

I dropped off family recently at the station, it really is well connected to the old post office lot. The bridge on ramp is there, but doesn’t seem as much an obstacle as I would think. Maybe because the viaduct has a historic appearance. Almost like en El appearance in a big city.

[aquaticko]

An issue with Portland Union as a passenger train station--at least one in the 2020's, and not the 1920's--is the ground-level boarding. It should be unacceptable now, with the current level of services; it would be basically unusable if it were to function as a major train station a la anything in a medium-sized European or Asian city.

However, my understanding--gleaned from somewhere, I promise, if not the Prosper Portland pdf I'd thought it was from (still worth a look-through; lots of info)--is that level boarding wouldn't provide the clearance freight trains need. Automated gap-fillers are fairly common in Europe, where mixed platform heights are the norm, but AFAIK don't exist anywhere in the U.S.

The higher frequencies between Portland and Seattle proposed by WSDOT would seem much more feasible and pleasant if people didn't have to climb up into the rail cars as they do now.

I wish the few American cities with modern-ish rail service levels and modernized stations would see rail investment as the major economic breadbasket that it can be. There is no major global city whose physical construction is benefitted by a dominion of highways through their middle; the opposite is pretty obviously true of rail.