Quote:
Originally Posted by zilfondel
Now, although I think the project as it is designed is a large waste of money, I still believe that a local bridge + MAX in Clark County would help congestion.
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I don't dispute that at all. But when a congestion point gets relieved, unless that relief comes from having fewer cars instead of enabling more of them, it creates new congestion points and exacerbate others. And that's what this boondoggle monster project would do.
It's like a bathtub. Let's say some genius comes along and decides it takes too long for the water to drain after a bath, so he creates a tub with a super-wide drain. WHOOOSH, right? Not so much, unless all of the pipes can handle that much water at once. But they can't.
Portland's highway system isn't particularly well designed. Instead of routing traffic around the city, it dumps a lot straight into the heart of it. The last thing we want to do is make that worse.
I'm not saying we shouldn't relieve congestion points. But this one isn't worth 4.2 billion dollars, and it certainly isn't worth the six billion or more it'll eventually cost when all of the competing interests finish duking it out, especially since the new congestion messes it'll add to will cost even more to fix.
If Vancouver wants light rail, the answer is to build a pedestrian/bike/light rail bridge. And if Vancouver doesn't want light rail, it's about time we stop trying to take it there and pour our resources into Portland neighborhoods like SE! NE! NOPO! I realize that's an entirely different can of worms... but, man... 4.2 billion for a project Vancouver voters just shot down a key component of. Make the madness stop.
With all of the talk of Portland-Creep, I think it's about time Portland starts pouring its resources back into Portland. Voters in Vancouver don't want light rail? No worries. We'll take it into SE instead via the Streetcar, which is something we should have been focusing on anyway (the new inner-inner-inner-inner SE line doesn't count since it goes nowhere near where most people in SE live). Decades from now, when Vancouver realizes how amazing our system is and finally wants to be part of it, they can pay their fair share to make that happen. And I'll support the project 100%.
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