I guess with gas being what it is these days, more & more Vancouver residents are in favor of having some sort of light rail.  The big question now is - where will it be?

The easiest way would be to extend TriMet’s Yellow Line over the Interstate Bridge and into downtown Vancouver.  But, as someone who has worked in downtown Vancouver and also has family living near there, after 5pm on weekdays downtown Vancouver is almost a ghost town.

If you go a little east from downtown, there’s more activity.  Walmart, I-205 & considerably more shops & restaurants bring in more people around that area.  Could you build off of the red line at the Parkrose Transit Center so light rail goes over the Glen Jackson Bridge and to Mill Plain?  Then again, it gets quite congested there during rush hour… and where would you have the line go?

While Vancouver might be ready for light rail, it’ll be a tough decision on how to implement it..

Stumbled across this really nice blog post about a vacation Patrick and his fiance took to Portland.  I was going to just say the nice word they said about using TriMet (specifically the MAX) but the whole post is a really nice write-up of Portland and things to do if taking a vacation in PDX.

But since this is TriMetiquette, I suppose I should quote what they said about their TriMet experience:

“The TriMet is Portland’s light-rail system, and was clean, reliable transportation from the airport to downtown, and around the region. It is a fantastic asset to the city who seems to pride itself on making alternatives to car-based transportation an affordable commodity.”

Definitely recommend a read for this really well-written blog post!

Jon DeVore has his own take about the Vancouver light-rail forum which I wrote about that took place last Wednesday. Jon brings about some good ideas, including this one:

“As I’ve stated before, I think the decision to bring light rail across the river is a tough one. The tipping point for me is that Portland already has an extensive system, meaning the potential benefit to the region is high. And let’s get real here. We’re talking about running LRT from the Expo Center to Clark College, a distance of several miles at the most.”

Very nice & comprehensive write-up!

Read a recap of Wednesday’s light-rail forum for Vancouver over at the Columbian today. The meeting reportedly brought out 100 Vancouverians (is that how you call them…?).

The forum was to bring about a discussion on the Columbia River Crossing Project (which installing a light-rail system is included in the four billion dollar project in replacing the I-5 bridge)… instead, the discussion mainly hovered around the future of gasoline & the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan.

One of the best things in the recap article written was about Michael Ennis, transportation director for the Washington Policy Center. He presented conclusions after studying the light-rail systems for Portland, Sacramento, San Jose, San Francisco, Los Angeles & San Diego. His conclusions were that light-rail systems:

• Serve about 2 percent of the work force.
• Remove only 0.39 percent to 1.1 percent of cars from freeways and roads.
• Require government subsidies to cover 73 percent of operating costs.
• Cost 35 to 100 times more to attract a new riders to light rail than it would to a traditional bus system

“Cars are the solution,” Ennis said. “Cars are not the problem.” Really? Cars are indeed the solution when we bring about a means to end our oil dependency. They’re the solution when more than 2% of the population (an estimate) drive a hybrid.

From how I see it now, and with how our slow adoption rate of hybrids and looking for cleaner fuel alternatives, thinking that “cars are the solution” is a way of saying, “Let’s use oil til the last drop and then figure out another way to drive the main mode of our transportation system.”