Portland: The city who's politicians love to spend money on transit We don't actually ride transit, only about 2.3% of the total trips taken each day use transit, and only about 7.9% of commuters in the metro area use transit down from 10% when Portland only had bus transit. And we continue to lose ridership: "APTA’s latest ridership report reveals Portland’s transit agency, TriMet, carried 1.6 percent fewer trips in 2016 than in 2015. The American Community Survey says that the share of commuters taking transit to work fell from 8.1 percent in 2014 to 7.9 percent in 2015." More below. Before Portland spent $5 billion on idiotic rail, and tram transit just under 10% of commuters rode the bus to work. After wasting the $5 billion ridership has declined to 7.9%. Sadly that likely means the city will need to spend $5 billion for each 2% decline, meaning we are going to need to spend $20 billion to finally get transit ridership to zero. Sigh!!!
"The region has already spent between $4 billion and $5 billion on light rail. Before commencing construction on the city’s first light-rail line, 9.9 percent of commuters took transit to work." I wonder how many people use skateboards to commute to work, or for their daily trips? I am guessing that more than 2.3% of daily trips are taken with skateboards. "In reality, as the Antiplanner wrote in 2007, Portland is “the city whose officials love to spend money on transit.” That also remains unchanged, as TriMet is preparing a regional transit strategy that calls for more streetcars, more light-rail lines, and exclusive busways. To top it off, TriMet wants to build a light-rail subway through downtown, which will probably cost almost as much as all of Portland’s previous light-rail construction combined." Bracing! That would bring the Portlandia total rail bill to $10 billion, about half way, and should reduce ridership to 4% or so. Although the self drive car will likely be the final nail in the transit coffin, quickly reducing ridership to near zero, at a tiny fraction of the cost of transit, and with fewer pollution emissions, and lower carbon output. Regardless, this will be decried because . . . well, honestly I can't think of a valid reason to decry this advent, but it will be decried, loudly. "Of course, nothing in any of Portland’s transit strategy documents hints at the impending arrival of driverless cars. Who cares if demand is falling today and is likely to fall even faster in the future? The real point of transit is to spend money (especially federal money) and to give the city an excuse to subsidize developers to build high-density housing near transit stations." Once this all shakes out, Portland will be a very strange city with little islands of density dotting the landscape, but without any rhyme or reason why those islands of density exist. The rail transit which once connected them will soon cease to be used by anyone, and eventually even Portlandians will realize that spending money running choo-choo trains with no passengers makes no sense. This will take a while, the average Portlandian is all but impervious to rational, sensible thought when it comes to government spending, especially government spending on transit. Once rail transit fails I expect Portlandians to begin subsidizing the skateboard commuters. Why not.
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