The 2025 Regular Session Data
- March 18, 2025
In all the times it has been on the ballot, Clackamas County has never voted for Portland light rail. But Portland planners were determined to run a light-rail line into the urban heart of the county, so they persuaded the county commission to give them $20 million of the $1.5 billion cost of the 7.7-mile […]
READ MOREThe City of Honolulu was so anxious to start construction of its $5 billion rail line before voters could elect an anti-rail mayor that it began without completing the legally required archeological surveys. Only about a quarter of the surveys have been done, and the rest won’t be completed before the end of the year. […]
READ MOREThe Metropolitan Boston Transportation Authority (MBTA, or “T” for short) is in deep financial trouble, with nearly $9 billion of debt and a $3 billion maintenance backlog that is growing more every year. According to a Boston Herald op ed by Harvard researcher Charles Chieppo, the blame for this can be placed on the Dukakis […]
READ MORETriMet, Portland’s transit agency, has made the largest cuts in its history, including reductions in bus service, fare increases, and elimination of free rail rides in downtown Portland (the free bus rides were eliminated last year). Meanwhile, it is using nearly $10 million of money supposedly dedicated to the Milwaukie light-rail line to remodel its […]
READ MOREInternal emails reveal that Federal Transit Administration officials were skeptical of Honolulu’s plan to spend $5.3 billion on a 20-mile rail transit line. City voters approved this line only after an expensive and hard-fought campaign. One FTA email accused the city of Honolulu of “lousy practices of public manipulation” and argued that the FTA should […]
READ MOREA few weeks ago, the Antiplanner questioned a streetcar project in Atlanta. Now comes a response from none other than Portland Mayor Sam Adams, who says Portland’s streetcar once had detractors “were afraid that it would be too expensive and people wouldn’t ride it. We don’t hear that so much these days.” As Bojack says, […]
READ MORE