Portland

The Continuing Saga of the American-Made Streetcar 0
- January 23, 2013
Portland Streetcar, the non-profit organization that operates streetcars in Portland, is demanding that the city cough up $145,000 to fix its brand-new, American-made streetcar. Let’s take a look at the history of this car. First, the city used its own money to buy streetcars from the Czech Republic for an average of $1.9 million apiece. […]
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Neglecting the Basics 0
- January 14, 2013
Portland is proud of being a livable city. Sure, its streets are crumbling, city buildings are neglected, and its schools are crappy. But don’t worry; it’s a livable city. A building so ugly that Willamette Week newspaper uses the “ugly” tag for any article that refers to it. The Antiplanner noted last February that the […]
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The Columbia River Crossing Is (or at Least Should Be) Dead 0
- November 21, 2012
Taxpayers for Common Sense recently released a report (see page 27) that finds $2 trillion in budget cuts that will allow Congress to avoid the “fiscal cliff”–and one of those cuts is the Columbia River Crossing. The agency planning this bridge has managed to spend well over $130 million without accomplishing anything except to design […]
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Density’s Parking Impact 0
- November 13, 2012
The City of Portland has approved numerous massive four- and five-story apartment buildings in neighborhoods of single-family homes separated by streets of single-story shops. These buildings stress the infrastructure built to handle a smaller population, which is most obvious in the increased traffic and parking problems–especially since many of the buildings are designed without parking. […]
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TriMet Makes More Friends 0
- November 6, 2012
One peculiar thing about almost every light-rail line in the country is that fares are on the honors system. There are no turnstiles, no drivers who demand fares upon boarding (the drivers are in a separate compartment from the passengers), and no fare collectors. Instead, there are ticket boxes at stations and an occasional fare […]
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Playing the Numbers Game 0
- October 29, 2012
Planners for Metro, Portland’s regional planning agency, are playing an interesting game. They did a travel survey in 1994, when gas prices were low and the economy was booming. Then they did another survey in 2011, when gas prices were high and the economy was in recession. They found that Portland travelers in 2011 are […]
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