Quote:
Originally Posted by emathias
I agree. Biking is faster than MAX, walking is faster than the streetcars.
At the least, if they did cut-and-over under Broadway and under Taylor right now and then routed the NS trains under Broadway between the Steel Bridge and Lincoln, and routed the EW trains under Taylor between Broadway and Jefferson, you'd clear the worst parts. You could repurpose existing tracks for short circulator streetcars, especially from Old Town in 1st Avenue and then Morrisson and Yamhill to Prudence Park. That way MAX would be fast but there'd still be rail service connecting the waterfront to the center of downtown, and about 2.5 miles of underground track. You'd want to reduce the number of stations, but still probably seven stations underground. If it was $150 million per mile for tunnels plus $100 million per station, it'd take just over $1 billion to do that, but greatly enhance the utility of MAX.
Right now it takes 15 minutes to get from Providence Park to Old Town on MAX during rush hour. That's 1.5 miles, so an average speed of only 6 mph. If it were tunnels, it could be done in probably 8 minutes, or an average speed of around 12 mph. At that point it competes favorably with auto travel.
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I don't know much about rail construction, do you need a certain type of soil to support a tunnel? Most of downtown as far I know is loamy and sandy so if it ever liquefied things might get messy! how about a monorail! everybody loves elevated systems. while were doing upgrades, lets destroy the steel bridge and build a...... not crappy, 100 year old, double lift span with a pedestrian deck, auto deck, max train lane, and heavy rail underneath, which is not seismically retrofitted, but responsible for all north south heavy rail from Washington to California.....bridge! they spent all that time and money to EXPAND max south to milwaukie, and they built a brand new bridge to do so. they got it reversed. they should have built a replacement for the steel bridge and reworked the traffic at the rose garden....that f()cker is a mess.