Transportation chair favors tax increases over prioritizing

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Co-Chair of the legislative committee for Oregon highway transportation (Representative McLain, photo to right) and the director of the Oregon Department of Transportation (Kris Strickler) hold road maintenance and snow plowing hostage by threatening sharp cuts to it if gas taxes and transportation fees are not increased.

Here's the link to the Tualatin Chamber of Commerce conference McLain and Strickly speak at, some two weeks ago now, regarding the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) budget for the next two years and beyond:  

  TUALATIN KEY LEADERS BREAKFAST (youtube.com) 

ODOT director Strickler discusses indexing the gas tax and other ODOT fees to an inflation index, so as inflation pushes costs/prices higher, the gas tax (an ODOT revenue source) would go up correspondingly.  This discussion occurs around the 32-minute mark of the video link just cited.  Talk of not adding an auxiliary lane to I-205 at its Oregon City segment is discussed at the 41-to-44-minute mark in the above video link.  Road user fees are talked of as a new tax funding source for ODOT at the 51-to-54-minute mark.   

(posted by Elvis Clark on September 29, 2024)

The most congested stretch of Portland Highway is said to be from I-405 onto I-5 and up to the Columbia River I-5 Bridge.

Here's the link to KOIN's reporting on this traffic congestion finding:

 Portland traffic congestion worsened in 2023, study finds (koin.com) 

(posted by Elvis Clark on July 13, 2024)

Here's KOIN news' reporting on increasing traffic fatalities in the City of Portland - as against Portland's ten year plus planning goal called Vision Zero (transportation plans for achieving zero traffic fatalities, that is):   Portland's traffic deaths increased in 2023 despite Vision Zero initiative (koin.com) 

You would think Portland city officials and staff would step back and say to themselves:  'maybe closing off neighborhood roads to drivers with diverters and cramming parked cars on main roadways is causing the city to see an increase in traffic fatalities, and not the publicly communicated goal of reducing traffic fatalities.'

The City of Portland used to have a great street grid system, whereby drivers could drive more simply on almost any neighborhood street without encountering heavy traffic.  But the City of Portland did away with its highly effective street grid system for vehicle drivers, replacing it with a street grid system more resembling a matrix where drivers come to abrupt dead ends because of diverters placed in neighborhoods.

Unfortunately, the City of Milwaukie has bicyclists and Portland planners on its Transportation System Update committees who want to put in these maddening road diverters, ultimately making Milwaukie's road system the same maddening transportation system maze as that of Portland.  Portland has also been big on population infill and limited off-street parking requirements for new housing developments, causing streets to be lined and crammed with parked cars.  Parked cars limit visibility for bicycle riders, pedestrians, and drivers.

(posted by Elvis Clark on April 18, 2024)

Milwaukie is updating its Transportation System Plan (TSP), and as usual the City has created a committee composed mostly of bicycle activists and planners who work against the vehicle needs of most of Milwaukie's residents.  The TSP uses "save-the-world" policies like Climate and Equity to try narrowing roads and putting in diverters that hurt vehicle mobility for car drivers.

So, please tell the City bureaucrats to back off and let people drive their cars.  Here is the link to Milwaukie's Transportation Survey:    

Transportation System Plan: 2023-25 Update | Engage Milwaukie (milwaukieoregon.gov)

(posted by Elvis Clark on March 22, 2024)

This new traffic signal technology is being implemented with nighttime speeders in mind when the road (Southeast Powell Boulevard) is emptier than at rush hour.  It seems worth a try to improve safety.  Maybe one day, traffic signals will be smart enough to see that there is no cross traffic coming and allow red to switch to green for drivers waiting for green at an intersection redlight.  

But the issue might be complicated because traffic signals are currently synchronized with each other to keep traffic flowing more continuously.  And so having these smarter traffic lights might throw off synchronization.  But that's the beauty of experimenting and seeing if the smarter traffic lights improve overall traffic flow and safety.

Here's KGW's reporting on Portland's new traffic light experiment:

PBOT's new pilot program hopes to reduce traffic deaths | kgw.com

(posted by Elvis Clark on March 17, 2024)

I find it always kind of funny that Milwaukie officials point to the Orange line as to why Milwaukie's population has grown in the last few years.  This official narrative, though, is just a bunch of crock.  

The Orange line Max runs most hours of the day very empty.  It is almost like a ghost train.  In fact, the Willamette Week recently reported - unbeknownst to me and probably most other Milwaukians - that the Orange line had permanently cut its hours of operation during the grave shift hours and substituted bus service for the hours cut.

Here is the subhead line in the related story about the permanent cutting of Max service to the airport in the very wee hours of the morning.

  TriMet Plans to Cut Late-Night MAX Service (wweek.com) 

(posted by Elvis Clark on January 28, 2024)

Redmond (Or) based Samson Sky tested, in-flight, its car-plane concept (photo of such a car to the right).  It was the first in-the-air test for the company's flying car concept, test date of early November 2023.

The Samson Sky flying car is called Switchblade, because the wings are retractable when operating as a car.  The car is powered by a hybrid gasoline-electric engine - hybrids requiring less weight than an all-electric power system.

Here's the KGW news reporting link for this flying car concept:

Flying car 'Switchblade' completes first test flight | kgw.com

Meanwhile, Donald Trump in his 2024 presidential campaign has talked about building 10 new cities using federal lands, and these cities would be designed to allow for flying cars - maybe also to accommodate more drone Amazon-like home delivery shipments.  Sounds fascinating, too me.  CNN news reports on Trump's proposal in the link below.  It questions how these new cities would be funded.  But I should think selling the underlying federal land to a consortium of builders and planners might just fund and make reality such new type cities.

'Freedom cities' and flying cars: Donald Trump unveils latest proposal | CNN Politics

(posted by Elvis Clark on November 24, 2023)

Cascade Policy Institute which has long been a critic of TriMet's operations, commissioned a rather thorough review of how TriMet can be redesigned to meet the changed demands of public transit riders in the Portland Metropolitan area.  It recommends redoing TriMet's service lines to not waste commuter's time by having them had to ride into downtown Portland, only then to have to transfer to another line to get to their cross-town destination.  Downtown is no longer the dominant center that commuters want to access.

Here's the link to Cascade's newest TriMet Review:    

Cascade Policy Institute Report: Ways TriMet can modernize transit for the 21st Century | The Oregon Catalyst

(posted by Elvis Clark on October 7, 2023)