In applying for preliminary engineering, TriMet sent the transit administration a six-foot stack of documents on the project.What a waste of paper. I'm sure everyone has a copy.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Milwaukie Max Gets into PE
I hope that means that the New Starts Report lists are coming out soon. Can't wait for that data mine. Makes me wonder what other lines made it into Preliminary Engineering. Here's an interesting look though into what happens when transit agencies submit to the FTA.
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Ignoring their cash-crunch, things are looking incredible for Trimet. Vancouver MAX and Milwaukie MAX are looking cut and dry, and it would seem from the outside, the following are coming online shortly (prelim studies within a couple of years):
-Foster/Powell MAX (neighborhood leaders are sounding more and more amenable to the idea)
-Barbur MAX/BRT (More opposition, but the resources to study it are there)
-Line extensions to Cornelius/Mt. Hood CC
-Extending Red Line service
-Rumblings of an Eastside bypass
Of course, there are absolutely no-none-zero-zilch-nada proposals toward the undergrounding or fixing of the Downtown MAX lines. Then again, crosstown MAX traffic could be less of a priority if Portland focuses more offices downtown.
why would you want to go underground. Everything underground provides can be done cheaper if you just fix up signalling priorities and road use.
(Even capacity can be be done cheaper - given underground's factor of 10 increase in implementation cost, you can built 10 parallel lines for the cost of an underground segment.)
njh: you can't run trains more than two cars long on the streets of Downtown Portland, because then when the train is stopped, part of it will be blocking a street. It's a pretty fundamental limitation imposed by Portland's rather short blocks. At some point, the Steel Bridge will also reach capacity, though if they really want to, maybe they'll be able to build two more tracks and convert it to an exclusively rail/ped/bike crossing, but having a drawbridge at the very heart of your system doesn't seem like a recipe for reliability to me.
the steel bridge has been having a lot of mechanical problems recently tying up the entire max system. it literally is the heart of the system, its the only section of the whole system that all the lines go over, on both ends of it the lines split in their various directions.
a downtown subway is definitely in the High Capacity Transit study for expanding the transit system over the next 30-40 years.
i dont know how they could build a subway under downtown and the river (replacing the steel bridge) without having to tunnel under the lloyd district which of course just adds to the cost, plus they would also need a tunnel branch from about city hall to goose hollow via jefferson. now the costs really add up.
the long talked about barbur max line could possibly be built in a several mile long tunnel out of downtown with 2 underground stations one serving the hilltop OHSU medical campus (largest employer in PDX; aerial tram runs up here), the other a metro designated "town center".
i havent heard too much lately about the lake oswego streetcar. the eastside streetcar one minute is a go ahead, the next is being tied up by the feds. this week its back to being tied up by the feds.
vancouver max looks good unless you dont mind it being part of a 12 lane $4.2 billion replacement freeway bridge (replacing the current 6-lane bridge). there is a big rally planned tomorrow in portland against the 12 lane behemoth.
an extension to oregon city is another major line that is likely to be in the HCT plan, either as an extension of the u/c I-205 green line or the milwaukie line.
so run more trains, not longer trains. Surely you can use one of the 385673 bridges already crossing the river too.
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