Allen Alley opposes light rail to Milwaukie and using Urban renewal money to back fill the project.
Why? Because it is not sustainable and is burying Tri-Met in red ink.
This is a bold and common sense statement by the candidate.
Besides the Sellwood bridge [1] is crumbling and should have been replaced 20 years ago.
The Milwaukie line will mostly, turn bus riders, into train riders.
The users will only pay 20% of the operating cost and none of the capital construction, by way of the fair box.
Light rail is 100 times more expensive than a bus, but it is not 100 X’s better.
It does not make sense to pay $1.4 billion to replace the existing bus lines.
The voters voted twice, to not build the project and they are building it anyway.
Most of the Portland Metro light rail lines, use urban renewal to pay for the local matching funds. Urban renewal money comes from Schools, social services, fire and police. Then the Schools, Social Services, Fire and Police departments have to look for new sources of income, or higher taxes on everyone. Urban renewal is a pot of money the politicians use to build their pet projects, like Light rail.
“But Clackamas County Chairwoman Lynn Peterson criticized [2] Alley’s proposal. Peterson said the light-rail line will add needed capacity along the Highway 99E corridor that is increasingly hard to do by expanding roads in the built-up urban environment.”
But the line will not add capasity to our road systeem or reduce congestion on the corridor according to Tri-Met and the environmental draft statement. So what is she talking about?
Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder [2], who headed the region’s transportation planning body for several years, noted that the region would wind up losing hundreds in millions of dollars because the federal government is funding half of the light-rail expansion
Rex Burkholder forgets about the hundreds of millions in local matching funds to build and run the line. Much of that coming from urban renewal and other funds. Or Schools, social services, fire and police departments.
We cannot afford to build another light rail line that is not self supporting by the riders and does not reduce congestion. It is refreshing to see a candidate that realizes that and is looking out for real solutions not more pipe dreams.