plus during rush hour the streetcar is pretty packed. I have remembered many times when I was parking in the NW and commuting via streetcar to PSU, that I would decide to walk back to my car because the train was packed full.
I think streetcars should be placed on high frequency routes throughout the city to add another layer of permanent public transportation. Alot of this debate over which is a better system, bus or streetcar, isnt really that important because who said the city cant service an area with both. At Marshall and 23rd, you can catch either bus or streetcar to take you downtown.
Streetcars also help out with tourism, it is much easier to talk a tourist into riding our streetcar than it is talking them into riding a bus.
It also would be nice to see Portland go the way of Seattle with using electric lines to power the buses throughout the urban parts of the city. Of course the trade off would be those annoying power lines overhead that seem to get into every shot like in Seattle.