Yeah, a much smaller county apparatus could stay to manage those areas. But maybe county functions could be handed over to the city of Portland within city limits, making Portland functionally a city-county while still nominally being Multnomah County.
Could we just hollow out Multnomah County so Portland technically stays part of it but everything inside city limits is delegated to the city? Seems like a reasonable first step.
Generously assuming the best, this illustrates the siloed thinking that plagues these mega-projects. Less generously, hard not to wonder if community benefits are being intentionally held hostage to a wildly unnecessary $1B/mile future highway widening project.
The solution, obviously, is to move the station. Especially in this case since the planned location is bad. It's on top of a freeway and two blocks further from downtown than it needs to be. Just add a hairpin turn and put the station at the C St / 9th St. intersection adjacent to the library.
Glad Vancouver City Council is giving this some attention. No good reason to trim the light rail scope. The reasoning seems to be that the current plans show the Evergreen station elevated above I-5, and if that section of I-5 isn't being built then neither can the station.
Ugh, this is the same passive voice my Trump-loving relatives use to defend the man. It conveniently evacuates language of all moral agency. Just reporting of the vibes, don't shoot the messanger, take it up with the common man
there are limits on how far out of sync a state can be with neighboring states. A moderate sales tax paired with high income taxes for high-earners might achieve better results. Minnesota looks like a good model. 6% overall tax on bottom quintile, compared to Oregon's 12%. itep.org/whopays-map-...
Makes me wonder how worthwhile an income-tax-only tax structure is from a progressive perspective. It would be great, obviously, if it were set up such that there were no taxes on the first $40k and a 15% rate on anything above $100k. But given the realities of tax flight/shielding,
I think, for once, the Oregonian has this right. It's shocking that despite our supposedly progressive tax structure, low- and middle-income households have some of the highest tax rates in the country.
Nick Sortor #5 on Twitter? Lmfao. Also dear God.
I see, I was misinterpreting utilized zoned land as meaning a doubling in zoned density would result in a homeowner paying twice as much....so this would just allocate the fee based on buildable lot area. I like it.
I like the general direction here. One concern though: will this increase resistance to upzoning efforts? Wondering if there's a way to tier it based on proximity to downtown or something like that.
Dear Lord this thing is a monstrosity. Probably for the best since a tasteful addition might end up lasting. Bulldozing this cancerous tumor will be an easy call.
I'm suspicious. Might be unrepresentative data? I have a hard time believing it costs twice as puch to put up a parking garage in Portland as it does in Seattle.
Not sure about local support. But this plan basically recreates the existing interchange. I'm sure retailers are going to insist on ramps from the north. A local bridge from the south requires a new bridge and tie-ins to the Marine Dr interchange, which would all be added cost
Correct, the grades they're showing for the approaches are reasonable and typical for highways. It's only the SR 14 and Hayden Island interchanges that strictly have to be included from the perspective of making the grades work.
Ditto for the tie in to the Portland Harbor bridge. The main problem here will be the large curves and probably guarantee that that bridge will eventually be replaced. But the rest of the scope could absolutely be axed with no negative effects.
Not buying this at all. The only interchange work the higher bridge elevation requires is at SR 14 and Hayden Island, both of which are included in the core set of projects. The tie-in to the north will be at grade as it would be if we were building the full project.
Hawthorne subway! I think that wins by a wide margin. Swing north to Belmont at the west side of the Central Eastside before continuing to Pioneer Square. Also swing north to hit the NW corner of Mt Tabor and Montavilla. End at Adventist hospital.
Wild. I had no idea. No wonder the legislature is broken.
These are proper European plazas/parks--unlike the ill-advised Slabtown square. With the MAX stop right there I could see these being highly active at build-out.
(for whatever that is worth). And would probably reduce the cost of the RQ project by 75%.
To clarify, not sure you'd get to complete RQ removal since I don't see ODOT doing away with the WB I-84 to NB I-5 (and reverse) connections. But it would make just capping the existing RQ freeway without expanding it potentially viable from a traffic engineering perspective
range, and I think at least half of that could be offset through the sale of the riverfront blocks and the creation of an adjacent TIF district. Long-term the cap could be extended to Hawthorne and a six-lane enclosed-lower-deck Marquam Bridge assigned to I-84 rebuilt 70 ft lower.
and then the I-5 mainline could be removed over that 7 block length. Also run the freight RR tracks into this tunnel, then extend the Orange line up the SE 1st Ave corridor to the Rose Quarter. Using current $2,000/sf estimate, the cap would likely be in the $500 million
I think an achievable near-term goal would be shifting the N-S through traffic to I-405 and putting the eastbank I-84 bound traffic in a cut and cover tunnel between SE Belmont St. and SE Ash St (7 blocks). It could be built in the ROW currently occupied by the Morrison bridge tangle of ramps,
Beaverton to Gresham/PDX involve crossing the Marquam Bridge. Shifting the low-volume north-south through trips to the Fremont bridge makes a ton of sense, and we should absolutely do that. But unfortunately there's no way the Fremont Bridge and Rose Quarter could absorb the east-west trips.
The key traffic consideration is that, though it doesn't look like it and it doesn't officially bear the designation, the central eastside freeway is the primary east-west route across the region. 2/3 of trips crossing the Marquam Bridge are going to/from I-84. Pretty much all vehicle trips from
Wild how as recently as 2016 at least 1/3 of Republicans recognized this was a very bad idea.
