Quote:
Originally Posted by hat
I agree somewhat. It would be much more practical and direct to have a straight run to Tualatin. But why not have two alignments, i.e. Yellow1 and Yellow2, one Portland to Tigard, the other Portland to Tualatin? Tualatin and Tigard are already connected by WES.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/101004...7/10231367446/
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I'd guess it more has to do with paying back Washington County for not complaining they've only gotten the WES since 1998 when the West Side Blue Line (at about $950 million) opened. Since then Portland got the Yellow and Red Lines, as well as stops on the Green Line (which finally made it to the third TriMet County) followed by the soon to open Orange Line (which mostly serves Portland with two stops in Clackamas to help justify getting the state to throw in a bunch of cash.)
The WES was about $165 million.
The Orange Line is estimated at about $1.5 billion. The Green Line was about $575 (cheaper because much of the ROW was purchased for I-205 I think), the Yellow Line was about $350 million. The Red Line was about $125 million.
The SW Corridor won't be cheap, but apparently the Metro area has run out of cheap expansions that can be done?
I'd think they could extend the Yellow Line to Hayden Island or replace the Lloyd Center - MAC areas for cheaper than the SW Corridor, but I guess we've go to try to give everyone MAX before we can upgrade what we have.