TriMet/Metro Southwest Corridor Planning (Portland to Bridgeport Village)

[bvpcvm]

So, just a thought regarding that potential tunnel to PCC-Sylvania... of the community college campuses in the area, Sylvania, Rock Creek, CCC and, to a slightly lesser extent, MHCC, are all pretty isolated from, well, pretty much everything. They serve a lot of students, currently - CCC about 25,000, MHCC 32,000, Sylvania 26,000 (not sure about Rock Creek). It's unclear what their role will be in the future, given the push for distance learning.

OK, so, Metro is looking at a tunnel to PCC, which would cost about $515 million. Now, I'm all for underground trains, but I wonder if there isn't a better solution? As things sit, it will always be out of the way for transit and difficult to access. And what if we build a tunnel and distance learning becomes enough of a thing that the campus actually loses students (at least students that have to physically go there)?

How about instead of building that tunnel, we just move the entire campus down to the Tigard Triangle? (Most of Sylvania is just one or two stories, right? So we're really talking about 3-4 four-story office buildings; there's space down there for that.) Or, if it can be squeezed in, downtown Tigard? I can imagine that all those students would make Tigard's main street come alive, that's for sure. Then the land on top of Sylvania can be redeveloped with a shit ton of McMansions, just to make the libertarians happy, and that can go toward relocation costs.

Would it be expensive? Of course. Currently, per Portland Maps, Sylvania has about 676,000 sf of space, not including parking, mechanical, etc. I'm not sure how much it costs to build shitty suburban office buildings, but there's a retail development on Kruse Way that's running about $23m @62,000 sf, or $380/sf * 676,000 = about $257m. That's a lot, but in the same breath we're talking about $515m for a tunnel to something that could conceivably disappear, and if it doesn't, will always be awkward to access. In fact, all of those campuses should be encouraged to pull up and and move to areas next to MAX. Look at all that empty land near Civic Dr in Gresham: wouldn't having MHCC there make a lot more sense than leaving it out on Stark and 257th? etc, etc. Crazy idea? Stupid idea? Just wondering.

[2oh1]

Move the entire campus? Oh, hell no. That's crazy... except that it may cost less and accomplish more. You're definitely onto something.

Which makes more sense: Spending $500+ million on a tunnel, or spending $200 million on relocating educational facilities in order to make the tunnel unnecessary, and then pouring the other $300 million into other educational needs? Are there enough other benefits to building the tunnel?

Regardless of the push for distance learning, there will always be a need for physical locations for schools. If Metro is going to spend over $500 million, maybe it does make more sense to spend the money differently if they can do a better job of accomplishing the same goal of giving students better access to the campus.

[PDXDENSITY]

Originally Posted by 2oh1

Move the entire campus? Oh, hell no. That's crazy... except that it may cost less and accomplish more. You're definitely onto something.

Which makes more sense: Spending $500+ million on a tunnel, or spending $200 million on relocating educational facilities in order to make the tunnel unnecessary, and then pouring the other $300 million into other educational needs? Are there enough other benefits to building the tunnel?

Regardless of the push for distance learning, there will always be a need for physical locations for schools. If Metro is going to spend over $500 million, maybe it does make more sense to spend the money differently if they can do a better job of accomplishing the same goal of giving students better access to the campus.

Sinpler solution-- add housing to the campus as transit oriented development. No absurd need to move a campus, and the (hopefully) MAX stop will still be used even if attendance declines (it wont completely).

[bvpcvm]

Originally Posted by PDXDENSITY

Sinpler solution-- add housing to the campus as transit oriented development. No absurd need to move a campus, and the (hopefully) MAX stop will still be used even if attendance declines (it wont completely).

The problem, though, is that Sylvania still isn't on the way to anywhere - adding housing won't change that - and you'd still have thousands of people going there every day - to a place that's difficult to serve for transit (and inconvenient by car). Again, if you move those students to somewhere less peripheral to economic activity, well, that's a lot of people to buy coffee after class, etc.

[PDXDENSITY]

Originally Posted by bvpcvm

The problem, though, is that Sylvania still isn't on the way to anywhere - adding housing won't change that - and you'd still have thousands of people going there every day - to a place that's difficult to serve for transit (and inconvenient by car). Again, if you move those students to somewhere less peripheral to economic activity, well, that's a lot of people to buy coffee after class, etc.

That whole area seems like it could become so much more dense, though, and it's closer than Tigard. I dont get why we should abandon it.

[2oh1]

Originally Posted by PDXDENSITY

Sinpler solution-- add housing to the campus as transit oriented development. No absurd need to move a campus, and the (hopefully) MAX stop will still be used even if attendance declines (it wont completely).

I don't think bvpcvm's suggestion is absurd at all. I think there's genius in asking "With that much money to work with, can we do better by taking a different approach?"

Is simpler always better? You're right, spending $515 million to build a tunnel is simpler. But, what is the real goal? If the real goal is to give students and educators better access by connecting the campus to light rail (yay!), is the tunnel the best way to achieve that goal?

bvpcvm raises a really good question here. Is there an opportunity to spend less while accomplishing more by taking a different approach? And my first instinct is to say, in a perfect world, if there's $500 million budgeted, maybe the best approach is to move the campus for half the cost, and then spend the other half on education projects that we always say we can't afford?

[PDXDENSITY]

Originally Posted by 2oh1

I don't think bvpcvm's suggestion is absurd at all. I think there's genius in asking "With that much money to work with, can we do better by taking a different approach?"

Is simpler always better? You're right, spending $515 million to build a tunnel is simpler. But, what is the real goal? If the real goal is to give students and educators better access by connecting the campus to light rail (yay!), is the tunnel the best way to achieve that goal?

bvpcvm raises a really good question here. Is there an opportunity to spend less while accomplishing more by taking a different approach? And my first instinct is to say, in a perfect world, if there's $500 million budgeted, maybe the best approach is to move the campus for half the cost, and then spend the other half on education projects that we always say we can't afford?

Building housing on the campus is far simpler. MAX is needed. I don't think this location is unnecessarily complicated given the benefit.

[2oh1]

Originally Posted by PDXDENSITY

Building housing on the campus is far simpler.

FACEPALM.

[PDXDENSITY]

Originally Posted by 2oh1

FACEPALM.

Moving a campus is simpler in your opinion? How... Interestingly misguided.

[2oh1]

Originally Posted by PDXDENSITY

Moving a campus is simpler in your opinion? How... Interestingly misguided.

Absolutely not. That is precisely the point. It is NOT simpler, but it might be BETTER. I never said it's simpler. Quote the text where you think I said it was simpler. I said the opposite. I pointed out that simpler does not mean better. Obvious answers aren't always the best answers. They're just the best answers for people who lack the ability to see the big picture well enough to consider the real goal, the resources available to achieve that goal, and the potential those resources might have to achieve even more if utilized differently.

$515 million. What's the real goal, and is a tunnel the best way to achieve that goal? And let's be honest. That $515 figure will grow.

I wish there were a polite way to ask if you're slow... because, it you are, I certainly don't want to have a discussion with you that is above your comprehensive abilities. That'd be rude and cruel, which is absolutely not my intention. But I don't think you are. I think you're so hell bent on density anywhere and everywhere at any and all costs that you miss the bigger picture.

$500+ million dollars. If Metro can budget that amount of money for a tunnel, can Metro better spend amount of money or less to achieve far more than the tunnel would?

[PDXDENSITY]

Originally Posted by 2oh1

Absolutely not. That is precisely the point. It is NOT simpler, but it might be BETTER. I never said it's simpler. I said the opposite. Instead, I pointed out that simpler does not mean better. Obvious answers aren't always the best answers. They're just the best answers for people who lack the ability to see the big picture well enough to consider the real goal, the resources available to achieve that goal, and the potential those resources might have to achieve even more if utilized differently.

$515 million. What's the real goal, and is a tunnel the best way to achieve that goal? And let's be honest. That $515 figure will grow.

I wish there were a polite way to ask if you're slow... because, it you are, I certainly don't want to have a discussion with you that is above your comprehensive abilities. That'd be rude and cruel, which is absolutely not my intention. But I don't think you are. I think you're so hell bent on density anywhere and everywhere at any and all costs that you miss the bigger picture.

$500+ million dollars. If Metro can budget that amount of money for a tunnel, can Metro better spend the money to achieve more than the tunnel would?

Misguided planning when simply adding housing would shift population density and allow it to make more sense. Leave alone that it already makes sense with the student demand.

Proposing to move the campus is absurd. It will result in terrible waste of the campus. Without connection to transit, that campus will bevome blighted. Forget that it will now have no reason to exist. You're aiming for blight.

I'd argue moving a campus is more simplistic thought process than trying to make the resource we have work for us by adding housing.

[bvpcvm]

Originally Posted by PDXDENSITY

Proposing to move the campus is absurd.

Absurd? I don't think so. Absurd would be, I don't now, insisting on density at all costs, or attacking an idea before you've thought it through.

Look, all of these campuses are major civic institutions with hundreds, if not thousands, of visitors every single day. Unfortunately, they're also relics of late-60's autocentric planning, isolated in park-like settings. They're not part of the city, they're not even really part of our suburban cities. They should be part of everyday life, for the same arguments we make in support of more density to begin with, so they should be (more) central. The PCC campuses on Killingsworth and 82nd are much better examples of what a community college campus should be, and if they expand at OMSI, well, I'll be thrilled. Also, think of PSU, and what all those students add to the city. South downtown would be a ghost town if it wasn't for the economic side effects of PSU. If it were isolated from the rest of the city, say, up at Rivergate, both PSU and downtown would suffer significantly.

One thing I'll bet we can agree on is this: a transit line is probably less effective if its route zigzags. Likewise, a transit line is probably more effective, faster, and more efficient, if it's more linear. Tunneling to Sylvania adds a half-billion dollar zigzag that does little to make the Sylvania campus more central to anything else. Tunneling to Sylvania is conceding to the victory of the automobile and suburbia because it enables it to continue. You want density, right? So do I. It seems obvious to me that moving Sylvania would add to density, wherever it's moved to. Whatever's developed in its place, at the top of a mountain will not be another SOWA, Lloyd or Pearl, it'll probably be relatively low density - but that's still more dense than what's there now! Even if you left the campus where it is and just redeveloped the parking lots, you'd still never have anything like SOWA, Lloyd or the Pearl.

BTW, have you ever driven up there? If you come from the south, your only way up the mountain is on Lesser, which is a residential street with no sidewalks. If you come from the north, you go down 49th, which is much better suited to handle the traffic, though it's certainly not on the way to anywhere else. It's just not a great spot to have a destination. In fact, the very fact that OHSU is expanding to SOWA makes that clear; after all, if it were such a great idea to have a destination on top of a mountain, they'd be expanding up there.

If it were up to me, I'd bulldoze all four of those campuses and move them all right next to MAX stations. Except for CCC, there's land available for all of them. Regarding Sylvania, I realize that this expensive idea probably doesn't have much of a chance, but to me that's due to reasons of finances (just because we want to spend $515m on a tunnel doesn't mean that we can magically use some of that to move PCC), and, essentially, lack of vision. I'll bet there were people back in 1990 who thought the idea of redeveloping the railyards north of Burnside was a bad idea too.

[hat]

So, I'm not an engineer or architect. To me the cut and cover idea seems a little overboard for one simple reason: the train will pass within 1500 ft of the campus even if it follows Barbur. I know it's a bit hilly (I actually went to Sylvania for my first couple years of college), but I'm not sure what impediments there are to simply putting a station on Barbur below campus. Anyone know why this–with improvements in sidewalks–isn't being considered? With a shuttle that runs every ten minutes traveling the 1500 ft, perhaps a much cheaper solution can be had?

In this case perhaps parts of Lesser park can make room for expansion toward the station while returning some of the vast parking lots to some state of non-desert.

[bvpcvm]

That is an option being studied, but the street improvements would be along 54th, which looks to be more than 1500 ft. And it's lined with houses, which would make expansion in that direction more complicated.

[65MAX]

Originally Posted by bvpcvm

That is an option being studied, but the street improvements would be along 54th, which looks to be more than 1500 ft. And it's lined with houses, which would make expansion in that direction more complicated.

It's actually 53rd, and it does look to be about a 1/3 of a mile, possibly a 1/2 mile if you want to get to the center of the campus from Barbur. It's a pretty hefty (uphill) hike, but I think instead of a tunnel for hundreds of millions of dollars, an all-day, every day shuttle bus or even a short people mover would be far less expensive and just as effective. In fact, maybe more effective because it would deliver students and faculty right into the center of campus instead of just skimming the northern edge of the campus (where the tunnel station would be) and having everybody walk several hundred feet more than if a shuttle had brought them closer in. Yes, it involves a transfer of sorts, but if the shuttle/people mover is running continuously, there'd never be more than a 5 minute wait.

I think this would be a far better solution than diverting the MAX through a zigzag tunnel at a tremendous cost.

[hat]

Originally Posted by bvpcvm

That is an option being studied, but the street improvements would be along 54th, which looks to be more than 1500 ft. And it's lined with houses, which would make expansion in that direction more complicated.

What sort of street improvements? Are they considering acquiring ROW?

[2oh1]

I think bvpcvm's original idea deserves a bit more thought.

I'm a problem solver by nature, and it seems to me there's logic in looking at the resources available to accomplish a goal ($515 million to build a tunnel for the MAX to reach PCC Sylvania) and asking if the resources can be used in another way to better accomplish the real goal (giving students and educators better mass transit access to the school).

Years ago, I worked for a company that never wanted to spend a dime on resources, but damn, they'd pay to keep talent. So, fine. I fought like hell for a raise I didn't deserve or even need (Oh how I miss the days when I was overpaid! LOL!). When they caved and agreed to give me the money, I said (paraphrasing) "Fine. You just committed to [dollar figure]. I don't want it. I never wanted it, and my contract says I'm not even entitled to it - but now it's in the budget. Here's a better way to spend it." I listed a bunch of stuff we needed that added up to the amount I'd asked for, and I told my boss to buy that instead of giving the money to me. His jaw dropped and he thought I was nuts, but he agreed. Look at the bigger picture: by buying the tools I'd asked for, everyone in my department's jobs became easier. We started leaving work by 5:30 instead of struggling to get out the door an hour later. SWEET. I didn't get more money (which I wasn't entitled to anyway), but I got more happiness, and so did everybody I worked with. Sometimes, it pays to Think Different.

Here, we have a potential budget of $515 million. Is a tunnel really the best use for that money? How much would it cost to move the school? No, really. How much? I know we're just guessing here, but still... how much? Anybody want to guess? What about the improvement for students in terms of educational experience and quality of life? What about the improvements for the community where the school is moved to?

Moving the school - and possibly others - makes so much sense to me, assuming the money for the tunnel is budgeted, and assuming moving can be done for less than the cost of the tunnel. How much money can be made by selling the old campus afterward? Where can that money best be used on either transit or education?

I'm certainly fascinated by the idea!

[65MAX]

Originally Posted by 2oh1

I think bvpcvm's original idea deserves a bit more thought.

I'm a problem solver by nature, and it seems to me there's logic in looking at the resources available to accomplish a goal ($515 million to build a tunnel for the MAX to reach PCC Sylvania) and asking if the resources can be used in another way to better accomplish the real goal (giving students and educators better mass transit access to the school).

Years ago, I worked for a company that never wanted to spend a dime on resources, but damn, they'd pay to keep talent. So, fine. I fought like hell for a raise I didn't deserve or even need (Oh how I miss the days when I was overpaid! LOL!). When they caved and agreed to give me the money, I said (paraphrasing) "Fine. You just committed to [dollar figure]. I don't want it. I never wanted it, and my contract says I'm not even entitled to it - but now it's in the budget. Here's a better way to spend it." I listed a bunch of stuff we needed that added up to the amount I'd asked for, and I told my boss to buy that instead of giving the money to me. His jaw dropped and he thought I was nuts, but he agreed. Look at the bigger picture: by buying the tools I'd asked for, everyone in my department's jobs became easier. We started leaving work by 5:30 instead of struggling to get out the door an hour later. SWEET. I didn't get more money (which I wasn't entitled to anyway), but I got more happiness, and so did everybody I worked with. Sometimes, it pays to Think Different.

Here, we have a potential budget of $515 million. Is a tunnel really the best use for that money? How much would it cost to move the school? No, really. How much? I know we're just guessing here, but still... how much? Anybody want to guess? What about the improvement for students in terms of educational experience and quality of life? What about the improvements for the community where the school is moved to?

Moving the school - and possibly others - makes so much sense to me, assuming the money for the tunnel is budgeted, and assuming moving can be done for less than the cost of the tunnel. How much money can be made by selling the old campus afterward? Where can that money best be used on either transit or education?

I'm certainly fascinated by the idea!

I like the idea in theory, and it should definitely be explored, but I don't think you would be able to use money allocated for transit capital improvements as seed money to relocate the Sylvania campus.

[PDXDENSITY]

Originally Posted by 65MAX

I like the idea in theory, and it should definitely be explored, but I don't think you would be able to use money allocated for transit capital improvements as seed money to relocate the Sylvania campus.

It's entirely wasteful of existing real world resources totally ignoring allocation of funds.

[bvpcvm]

And tearing down bungalos isn't?