↑ Even is the rail cars were reconfigured to allow movement between cars, etc. the train, itself, cannot block a downtown intersection.....fire and police codes. With the short blocks the only way you will be able to have longer trains downtown is to go underground.
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ban cars from downtown
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here's metro's corridors which have made it this far, converted from pdf:
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y23...rr_ranks-8.jpg some of these corridors don't make a lot of sense to me. the ones that do are the ones we nerds always bring up. Some seem to duplicate current service - maybe they would make sense in the distant future, but not yet: 32 (tv hwy), 17a (sunset). others - 54 (columbia blvd), 43 (us 30), 16b (gresham-damascus), 28b (205 from o.c. to tualitin) are very far away from the urban core or don't really go anywhere near current/planned population centers as to make me wonder about their viability also. among corridors that do make sense, 11 (barbur) is the most obvious one, 34 (217) is clearly needed - as a complement to wes - 9 (mcloughlin to o.c.), 10a (powell, east of 205), 13 (gresham to mhcc), 12 (hillsboro to forest grove), and 29b (milwaukie-lake o. - tualitin) all seem to be worthwhile. some that have been cut seem to be pretty bizarre - check out 53, which would have gone from hillsborog to *scholls* to sherwood. glad that got cut. note also 11T - a tunnel from burlingame to downtown. |
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Which, if I remember correctly, the only issue with that would be the Washington tunnel. Isnt there something about having only one train in each half of the tunnel at a time? |
Haven't heard of that restriction, but even if that is the case, it's no more than 2-3 minutes in the tunnel on each side of Washington Park station. Shouldn't affect frequency much, if at all. The bigger obstacle to train frequency is the Steele Bridge and the red lights downtown.
So frequency and length of trains are both severely limited on the surface, a double whammy. My guess is system capacity will reach its max in about 20 years. Then what? A THIRD surface alignment through downtown? |
Looks like all the Corridors are worth studying.
But, will they study all of them before deciding which corridor should be built next, ie. prioritizing them? |
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I can't really say much for the downtown to st. johns via Helens Road - this is already a fast bus route that gets very little ridership. Seems like a dog either way. |
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-- Several locations along NW and SW 1st (ideally the skidmore fountain) -- Yamhill/Morisson between Broadway and 10th -- Several locations along SW 18th (though I'd suggest just PGE park) Three stations is enough to serve downtown, which is essentially what a tunnel would do. Instead of bankrupting the region for decades to come, we can do essentially the same service by closing stations and spend relatively very little "fixing" the RQ/Steel Bridge complex by banning vehicles there and add some additional tracks. A tunnel sounds glorious, but would be quite challenging to burrow below the river and would need fairly steep grades to get back up to Goose Hollow. $2+ billion to shave five or so minutes from a reduced station option? I'm all for making MAX faster through downtown, but just doesn't seem cost effective.. especially considering there are other ways to address capacity and speed. I think we should be looking more innovatively at the public roads and space government currently has and find ways to make them work better. There should also be more bus-only lanes on east and south side streets leading to downtown - Burnside, Hawthorne, Belmont, Powell, Barbur, Macadam, etc.. Before someone starts spending billions, let's consider what can be done with what we got. |
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The cheapest option would be just to close Park ave and move the downtown stop between Broadway and 9th. That way they could accommodate 4-car trains. However, according to Trimet's own studies, they are almost at the maximum frequency for trains downtown and once the Green line opens, there really won't be anymore expansion possible. At peak they already have trains backed up all through downtown and the bigger problem is that all it takes is something to block the tracks (traffic, accident, etc) and the entire system could grind to a halt. |
^ Except Portland doesn't have any HOT lanes. We don't even have articulated buses, even though they would make a lot of sense, particularly for routes like the one up 39th, 82nd, #14, #12, which have high ridership #'s.
Also, a super high density Damascus is probably decades away. http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index..._damascus.html |
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I realize Trimet is concentrating on building the spokes first, but very soon they're going to have to admit to the public that the hub needs to be rebuilt. Quote:
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Portland's subterranian areas downtown are VERY old...
Building the new Transit mall disrupted sewer lines... what do you think tunnelling a subway would do? It would be VERY expensive... |
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Personally I am fine with the above grade trains, sure it would be cool to have a subway system in downtown, but it really isnt needed. |
The whole expanding to Damascus never really made much sense to me. I wouldnt be surprised to see that area be the countryside town within the UGB.....but thats a different topic.
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Tunneling under downtown AVOIDS all the utilities (sewers, electrical, gas, phone, cable) because they are close to the surface. The only surface disruptions would be at the station locations and at both ends of the tunnel. It's actually LESS disruptive than any surface alignment. |
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http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...oyd/trains.jpg ....That and, as designed, you can turn around a team of four oxen and a covered wagon in the 132' wide street. |
^ holy cow! You don't realize at first the scale until you see the trains.
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You mean to tell me SLC is running 4-car trains already?
Meanwhile, we're limited to 2-car trains, and a severely restricted capacity as a result. And some of you want to argue that a subway here is not needed?!? Seriously?!? |
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I didn't say it was the best way, just the cheapest. I personally think that Trimet will just let the MAX get super crowded, as nobody here in Portland wants to spend serious bucks on big-ticket items. We really don't have that bad of traffic, in my opinion, to justify a Seattle or SF like transport project... YET. The suburbs, on the other hand, have some really gnarly traffic on the freeways. Quote:
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