N(y)et.

It would probably be less subsidized than our SeaPort airline, ( and I don't know if they allow much luggage.) Besides I didn't mean another franchise of Megabus--just using them as a starting reference.

Not sure what you mean here by "inflexible," with regard to light rail. The tracks themselves all connect, just like the freeways or your busways. If rider demand warranted a Washington County-Vancouver line, the tracks and connections are already mostly there (except the missing Expo Center-Vancouver segment). It shouldn't be a massively complicated* project to schedule another rail line on the existing tracks, assuming headways/train separation can be maintained.

*Shouldn't be, but might be anyway. Let's say, "not much more complicated than creating a new, inter-suburb bus line"?

You are looking at the federal lines, not the state, local, and federal total lines.

General Fund: 32.243 Billion
Property Tax and Assessments: 8.279 Billion

Mass Transit: (10.780) Billion

Bond sale interest and repayment may mostly be from user fees, but not entirely. This is presuming.

Being entirely reasonable, about 70% of user fees cover Highway expenditures through user fees. Though, this number may be flexible.

Once again, your post refers to net federal subsidies. No one cares about just the federal side of things.

Also, the FHWA statistics also only cover highway costs, and not local arterial and street costs.

These are just for internal costs not covered by user fees, which don't begin to tell the entire truth behind external costs of automobiles.

Roads do not pay for themselves:

http://www.txdot.gov/KeepTexasMovingNewsletter/11202006.html#Cost

Subsidization of mass transit very well may tell us something about what we are investing in and our priorities, however, denial of our skewed transportation system is complete avoidance of the issue at hand.

I can admit without a problem, mass transit subsidization is an issue. Can you admit automobile subsidization is an issue too? Will you put such opposing arguments on your "debunking portland" website to give a fairer assessment of the topic, are are you willing to further marginalize yourself with the extremist crowd?

They run this route a few times per day - but it was sold out, rather than not offered.

1) Only 57.01% of highway "user fees" cover the costs of our nation's highways:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2007/hf10.cfm

These stats are discounting local roads.
JK: And that stat is only a subtotal. You left out:
18.77% ($1,973e6)from the general fund (more than offset by $5,435e6 of gas taxes going to transit)
8.43% from investment income.
14.4% bond proceeds (which will be repaid by road user fees.)

In short you are wrong again.

You also ignored the U.S. Department of Transportation, : Federal Subsidies to Passenger Transportation report. (Summarized at: portlandfacts.com/Roads/RoadSubsidy.htm) Which states:

* Highway passenger transportation system paid significantly greater amounts of money to the federal government than their allocated costs.
* Transit received the largest amount of net federal subsidy
* federal subsidy to passenger railroads was the third largest, except for the years 1998-2000 (Figure 1), when it was second.
* On average, highway users paid $1.91 per thousand passenger-miles to the federal government over their highway allocated cost during 1990-2002.
* On average, passenger rail received the largest subsidy per thousand passengermiles, averaging $186.35 (in year 2000 chained dollars) per thousand passengermiles during 1990-2002.
* On a per thousand passenger-miles basis, transit received the second highest net federal subsidy, second to passenger rail, averaging $118.26 in year 2000 chained dollars

You have been proven wrong time after time. Please quit wasting our time. Please quit spreading misinformation to unknowing people.

Thanks
JK

Megabus was the cheapest at $38 to get the NY, but unfortunately no return trips were available 7/27 or 7/28.

Amtrak was $110 ($55 each way), but both options took just over 8 hours.

Jetblue is my favorite airline to take to NYC, since I've had the best luck as far as landing close to on time with them. Also they were a lot cheaper than Southwest, down to $54 each way if I switched to 7/23 to 7/28, and only about an hour and twenty minutes.

Sadly Greyhound (which I never took) was by far the longest (9 hours) and was still $88. Megabus is only $8 cheaper, but couldn't serve the return trip, so I can't imagine they're doing that well.

Even when I was a broke college student I don't know if the $16 difference was really going to convince me to take Megabus instead of flying. Amtrak I might take as part of the vacation, but it would cost more than flying.

I'm really not sure they'd be able to compete with Amtrak around here, for a trip to San Francisco I might take a Megabus, but Southwest is usually less than $150 for a direct flight. To Seattle Amtrak's cheap enough I can't imagine Megabus being worth it. Maybe to Bend, since Amtrak doesn't serve that market, but I really doubt there would be the market to make it work.

ws:Not to beat a dead horse, but we've been through this a million times on this and other blogs. I will not back down from misinformation from being spread to unknowing people, therefore I feel compelled to reply and reiterate the same old:

1) Only 57.01% of highway "user fees" cover the costs of our nation's highways:

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2007/hf10.cfm

These stats are discounting local roads.

2) Mark Delucchi puts the extra costs @ 20-70 cents/gallon for interal costs not covered by user fees - on top of the ~40 cents state/federal taxes + elastic costs of oil.

http://pubs.its.ucdavis.edu/download_pdf.php?id=1139

The higher cost of oil will undoubtedly decrease VMT drastically thus increase the need for even higher taxes at the pump to cover the costs (as demand to drive drops fees drop too).

Note: these extra costs do not cover for external costs of environmental, military, and municipal safety services devoted to automobiles.

From Delucci's paper:

"Furthermore, our estimate here is only of
the difference between user tax and fee payments to government and actual government monetary outlays for motor-vehicle infrastructure and services; it does not include the cents-per-gallon-value of any non-monetary
environmental or oil-use externalities such as global warming or the macroeconomic costs of oil disruptions. Incorporation of these and other external costs could further raise the price of fuel by on the order of a $1 per gallon of motor fuel (Parry and Small, 2005; Delucchi, 2000; Delucchi, 1997). We may conclude, then,
that motor-vehicle users in the US – unlike users in most European countries – do not ‘‘pay their way’’."

That brings the total to $1.60-$2.10 (actually more because he does not include all external costs) needed to be added to the cost of a gallon of gasoline to cover automobile costs. People will not drive nearly as much if we actually add in these subsidy amounts at the pump per gallon. Keep in mind, people were angry @ 4.00 a gallon and we saw a fairly reasonable reduction in VMT.

JK:Transit users need to pay their own way, instead of depending of welfare for 80% of their cost, then falsely claiming that autos are also subsidized.

ws:You apparently want to continue this tug of war, but cheap costs of oil and automobile operation = less dense areas that do not fully support transit.

I agree that mass transit subsidies are an issue. Why don't we stop both?

Assuming we stopped subsidies for all modes of transportation, we'd see denser spaces better served by transit.

The mass transit crowd has a valid point as automobile policies and subsidies are crushing the viability of transit being self sufficient.

BTW, do you think you belong on this list?

http://marketurbanism.com/category/free-market-impostors/

ws: From a construction standpoint, is that even feasible?
JK: Why not? SR-14 is the only one that HAS to be dealt with because of the altitude.
Of course there is no need for “high capacity transit” with only 1650 daily commuters on transit. 81,000 people make daily round trips (or equal) in cars and trucks.

Thanks
JK

2. Subsidies to gasolene autos are a tiny fraction of the subsidies to transit:
Mark Delucchi, ACCESS NUMBER 16 • SPRING 2000, page 12
Summarized at: portlandfacts.com/Roads/Docs/Delucchi_Chart.htm

3. ti.org/antiplanner/?p=500

ws: Yet, the finger pointing continues without any self-reflection, and we will be right back where we started: transit people on one side and automobile people on the other side.
JK: Two things need to happen.
1. Transit supporters need to start telling the truth:
Transit is much more expensive than driving.
Transit does not save energy compared to small cars.
The above applies even the giant high density USA cities’ transit systems.

2. Transit users need to pay their own way, instead of depending of welfare for 80% of their cost, then falsely claiming that autos are also subsidized.

I’ll let John E. point out your errors about the round

Thanks
JK

Bob is funny!

The congestion one experiences further south in the Rose Quarter---during afternoon commutes---has contributory causes much closer to the bridge. So, in a way, having some extra capacity there would help. The problem I see, however, is that it doesn't do much to solve our other transportation needs. Therefore, for the cost, not a prudent investment.

ws:Most of the traffic generated in the area are from people getting on and off around that section of roadway. Not redoing the interchanges would probably put a huge hamper on any real congestion relief.

From a construction standpoint, is that even feasible?

42 Bicycling routes
http://www.pedaling.com/searchRides/ListingRides.asp

100 popular hiking routes
http://www.trails.com/catalog_product.aspx?productfamilyid=10839

Perhaps on a seasonal basis?

The reality is, though, that it is not "all by itself." Some of our density is good old fashioned "sociological phenomenon" (i.e. a shift in market realities) and some of it is miscalculated planning enthusiasm. Portland, as its name indicates, is a 'port city" and the market realities are always different in seaports than in interior cities. I don' think districts like the Pearl or SOWA are significantly contradicting the realities of this city becoming, as it has been in the past, a major port of entry into the US.

But that is just my marginally informed opinion.....

If you had a model of infrastructure workable for Salt Lake City, Wichita, KS, or Omaha, Neb---it probably wouldn't transfer to a port city.

ws:I feel there are other city examples for growth and transportation in the US, though you are making it out like each city utilizes a vastly different method. Hardly. Portland and Houston just happen to be at the extremes of one another.

There may be 100 cities out there to look at, but there's not 100 different ways of operating metro area's transportation system.

I'm all for change in our transportation system, but it seems there is little recognition from automobile-jihadists to admit that their form of transportation is incredibly subsidized. Yet, the finger pointing continues without any self-reflection, and we will be right back where we started: transit people on one side and automobile people on the other side.

John E:"But light rail and our planning arena is a deliberate effort to do the opposite under the boogeymen concerns of "induced demand" & "sprawl" with more Beaverton Round failures continually presented as remedies."

ws:Pointing to the Round as a failure is premature, not to mention it is merely one example. You are simply avoiding the many other developments that do work that are of this nature.

I would like to note that the Round is simply an island, and future development around it may make the area work.

Or would you like for me to go around the metro area and take a bunch of pictures of unbuilt subdivisions that have been sitting there for a year already and point to that as a "failure"?

I don't find much utility in doing that.

Your usual and unwelcome habit of insulting people aside, it is also not your choice as to who gets to bring up Houston and who doesn't. You've exhibited no reluctance in the past at mentioning Houston. You don't get to dismiss WS because it was mentioned here.

Either engage in a civil, factual discussion, or go away. I don't care which.

The context ws awas using was Houston as the only alternative to our insanity.

YOUR pitch was that Houston is always raised by critics as the choice for Portland.

AND I did not raise Houston in that context at all. The only reason I even raise Houston, Atlanta and LA is because you planning loyalists ALWAYs trumpet them as the evil we can only avoid by more of OUR same. Forever skirting around the obvious litany of other approaches available.

And as ususal you avoid the other more cogent points.
Primarily that our approach is a failure and a deliberate overcrowding chaos.

Another would be the insane promotion of more WES and More Beaverton Round-like development to go with it. Or any number of other specific examples around the region.
The shiny wrapper of theories PT likes to cling to has degraded beneath using for any more discussion.

Most of Portland would be free flowing if we had spent the money of roads instead of rails.

The other major congestion creator in Portland is increased density, as density, all by itself, increases congestion.

Nick theoldurbanist Says: Unfortunately, the rail nuts captured the transit agenda here, and now we are stuck with an slow inflexible system which will damage the Metro area in the long run.
JK:How true.
Rail nuts and developers. (Development being the real reason for building rail.)

See PortlandFacts.com

Thanks
JK

Shouldn't they?
JK Says: Transit costs don't magically go away once the capital costs are paid for. Fares should pay the full cost in "perpetuity".

Shouldn't they?

JK Says: BTW, there is no good reason to have tolls on the bridge. The tolls are to pay for the toy train and intersections rebuilds. Strip those out of the project and there is no need for tolls.

Thanks
JK

But light rail and our planning arena is a deliberate effort to do the opposite under the boogeymen concerns of "induced demand" & "sprawl"
with more Beaverton Round failures continually presented as remedies."

>>>> Even if light rail does get extended to Vancouver, to go to Washington County from there would involve taking one all-stop inflexible light rail line and transferring downtown to another all-stop inflexible light rail line, a trip which would take about or over an hour.

NOW, if we had done the most efficacious thing for Portland Metro and built a good busway system, you could offer direct one seat express buses from Vancouver to Washington County, if the demand warranted. Wanna bet trip time would be HALF?

Unfortunately, the rail nuts captured the transit agenda here, and now we are stuck with an slow inflexible system which will damage the Metro area in the long run.

Train Wreck

John E. said: "Oh BS, Bob ... If you look at the archives everywhere you'll see that Houston is brought up by you and yours time and time again ... Houston is a boogeyman ... you use to collapse discussion on real problems"

From the archives:

"John E.", April 15, 2008 9:20 AM:

From Forest Grove to Gresham we are heading towards a deliberately overcrowded mess without any advantages over LA, Phoenix, Houston, or Atlanta.

In at least one other thread you were the first to bring up Houston at all. So drop the righteous, demeaning tone and move on with the discussion. If WS wants to bring up Houston to make a point, that's fine.

But light rail and our planning arena is a deliberate effort to do the opposite under the boogeymen concerns of "induced demand" & "sprawl"
with more Beaverton Round failures continually presented as remedies.

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2009/07/beaverton_rounds_central_plant.html

I am not saying planners should not be aware of the future.

The last major transportation planning brouhaha we had started about 1970 and lasted through the defeat of the Mt Hood Freeway proposal and the building of the Gresham MAX. Now thirty years later we are once again in a major discussion. I think it would be really bad if these major discussions occurred at a ten year frequency---or worse yet were constant.

But we do have some major needs. The SW Washington RTC had identified some of them ten years ago, as my previous comment noted. Connecting Vancouver more directly to the projected growth in Washington County---and relieving traffic from the overflowing I-5--seems pretty obvious to me.

A kind and observant recording secretary at the Bi-State coordinating committee summarized this as "induced population growth." Runaway growth would also be a suitable term.

ws,
If you honestly have never heard of the many other options besides Portland or the "rapid highway expansion" of the Houston boogeyman there's NO sense attempting to provide them now. If you have any genuine interest there's the Internet and at least a 100 metropolitan areas with different approaches you pretend to be unaware of.

An honest first step would be to echo Burton's recogniition 9 years ago that we are facing utter chaos.
And it's hardly because we haven't rapidly built enough rail transit which many around here seem to think.

Forget "rapid highway expansion". Our chaos way is none. Our chaos making includes the deliberate avoidance of any accommodating of growing traffic volumes under the convenient notion that it will only induce more.

There have been a few improvements in our region, like other places in the country, where intersection, road, lane and other changes improve flow of traffic without a boogeyman following. Unfortunately our public official's irrational exuberance and emphasis on rail transit has left us growing the chaos Burton described.
And here we are with the loyalists endlessly touting the apparent end of times Houston as what we avoid by doing so. Never mind the rest of the country or the various traffic components in Houston itself.

WES was insanity ushered along with a government agency dishonest campaign to advance rail transit at all costs. The insanity of it is even more easily demonstrated by the calls to expand WES even in the face of it's horrific failure. Same goes for our TOD, smart growth, attempt to heavily subsidize the region into some Beaverton Round, SoWa, high density mixed use utopia with affordable housing. What an endless campaign of nonsense while our region also has our own terrible traffic congestion and poor air quality problems.
With the abolition of traffic capacity accommodations and the campaign to deliberately worsen traffic by clogging thoroughfares with rail transit Burton's chaos will certainly worsen until your favorite electeds are removed from office and control of their chaos making transportation planning.

What options would you propose? Keep in mind, rapid highway expansion would be the "Houston" way.

I don't disagree that some (or even many) light rail lines may not be feasible. I actually haven't taken a look closely at the map in detail to say I agree with it or disagree with it as a whole.

And yes, I mentioned Houston because it's supposedly the "solution" for urban development and urban mobility in the US - when in fact they have terrible traffic congestion and poor air quality.

I agree that it's a worn-out bromide, because if you look at the archives around here you'll see that Houston is brought up as a shining example time and time again by critics of Metro and Portland (city of) policies, so I think criticism by commenters of a Houston-style approach is more than fair.

That worn out bromide is nothing but an excuse to continue with more of the same which Burton acknowledged.

Swell.
And rail on 99W and Tualatin-Sherwood road?
Pure insanity.

Shouldn't they?

BTW, SW Washington Regional Transportation Commission had proposed almost ten years ago some new high capacity corridors, including Columbia River crossing. One would link up with the corridor in Troutdale area---the 13D-13. Another was to the Terminal 6 -Hayden Island area. A third one was between 1-205 and the Lady Island crossing area- I think we could forget that one.

Just two bridges and were set---forget the CRC I-5 project. The CRC and the resultant I-5/I-405 loop replacement would probably cost together $20 billion. We certainly could meet a LOT more other pressing needs with that money--and save metro regional travelers a lot of frustration.

seems like this will be the same for barbur and mcloughlin... you either drastically reduce the lanes on these major streets or go grade seperated.

You have some notion that congestion can be conquered. How well has Houston done at getting rid of congestion with some of the most highway miles per capita? Oh, I forgot, they have near the worst congestion in the US.

"Traffic congestion is bad and getting worse.
It is a nightmare for commuters and it is choking freight mobility.
There is no more clear illustration of our inability to meet growth needs than our failure to address our transportation needs.
Within the transportation arena we are facing utter chaos."
From Metro Executive, Mike Burton's State of the Region Speech, 2000

This is Amerika don't forget.

My name is Daniel Mantilla, I live in Venezuela and I am at the end of my Environmental Engineering career at the Universidad Nacional Experimental del Tachira (www.unet.edu.ve).
i´m very interested on the fuel cell buses, i want to design a complete transportation system bassed on hydrogen for a new all city that will be builted on the next few years.

My country is what you called a third world country with a lot of political and economic problems, living in base of Oil industry and with very little concern about the terrible situation that our planet is going to, even that we have a lot of different laws to protect our environment, but we still don’t have the education in the people to aply those laws and improve our sosiety.

just a few people is working very hard to improve the way that we control the situation, but there is millions of problems ass others countries.

To be able to finish my studies I have to do an Internship in a company or a professional aplication investigation. for around 16 weeks around September 2009. I have a little girl, she is just 3.5 years old, so I have been thinking if I could find a place where I can complete my requirements to get my degree but also get some knowledge to help in one of the many areas in trouble, maybe I will manage to have a cleaner environment for her to grow up in.

I know of many things that big countries like yours are doing for other countries in the world please help us to have more control of what is happening to our earth, because of poor education. Help us to prepare people like me. i have been in University for 5 years just dreaming and planning how we can save our planet.

Please let me know if you have something available in any of the areas that I can help with,

Thanks for your time and thanks for helping countries less lucky than yours,

Looking forward to hearing from you,

I suppose the real question would be, is it reasonable to assume that there will be plenty of future orders here in the US for railstock -- which is certainly the assumption behind building streetcars in the US.

Elevated from 17th out to I-205 is my dream. It will be expensive to buy the right of way, that is for sure.

Ray

Regarding motives, the sponsors obviously thought that if they could get tolls in place, this would force the project forward. I think Kulongoski calculated that instead it might force the project off a cliff. I think it is a calculated risk either way, and it is not clear if the opponents benefit one way or the other.

In any case, if the special rail is close to 90 lbs. per yard, that is about 160 tons per mile of track, and I would think that a minimum order of at least 1000 tons might be needed to make it worthwhile to machine special rolls. So perhaps this would be in the ballpark.

I'd assume that since it's pretty much illegal under federal law to toll existing IHS infrastructure he's attempting to prevent the problems that would come up if we don't have the new bridge complete before the tolling deadline came into play.

As mentioned in another topic here, one of the upcoming routes is SE Powell. The capital cost of building that corridor would likely have been higher than building the Green line as is, since the ROW was almost all already accounted for. Eventually it'll help to create a MAX grid around the city at least, and would allow future expansion between CTC and PDX.

The last US producer of girder rail was Colorado Fuel and Iron, which still produces standard "T" rail. CF&I was bought out by Oregon Steel Mills, which itself is now owned by Evraz Group SA, a giant Russian outfit.

I expect that you need a pretty large run to justify the setup costs for rolling girder rail. I think we would be lucky to get a single US producer again.