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Portland's transit system is OK. The MAX works well, but it has been neutered by NIMBYism: the new orange line has only a few stops in Milwaukee and goes no fur
by ppseafield 8y ago
Portland's transit system is OK. The MAX works well, but it has been neutered by NIMBYism: the new orange line has only a few stops in Milwaukee and goes no further. (And for that they hired three full time cops when it opened). The green line was supposed to be a loop, but it simply goes out to the Clackamas Town Center (just a few miles south of the border with Portland proper). The yellow line stops short of Vancouver, WA across the river, and we spent $4.5 million on coming up with several failed plans for a new bridge. The new line headed SW has to be voted on by the city of Tigard. It'll go up to the bottom of the OHSU hill, but they chose to simply increase the number of shuttles.
The buses are mostly reliable and can get you downtown. But several areas feel underserved, especially if you live outside Multnomah county.
- ppseafield 8y agoAlso the MAX slows to a crawl downtown, where it shares the street with cars and busses and stops every 2-4 blocks.
- edaemon 8y agoThey're closing a few downtown stops that saw low usage to speed things up, but it will still be sluggish. I think the only real solution would be to move the Red/Blue lines to the transit mall and put all the downtown track underground with a cut-and-cover tunnel. Also, the attempts to get the Yellow line into Vancouver fell through because the Washington legislature voted against it. There are renewed efforts to build it, though.
- ppseafield 8y agoYeah, not much we can do about WA. But that bridge is so old and has no shoulder. Any car accident means a huge slowdown. It'd be nice if we had elevated trains that didn't have to share with busses, cars, bikes, and pedestrians.