The Oregon Metro website says the idea, still in its early stages, was first floated two years ago as transit agency TriMet looked at ways to address congestion on the Steel Bridge, the double-deck lift bridge across the Willamette River that is used by all four light-rail lines and some bus routes to reach downtown. Only one train can use the bridge at a time, and must operate at reduced speed. And once in downtown, light-rail travel is slowed by traffic on shared roadways, and a point where two sets of lines cross.
A preliminary study by TriMet showed that a tunnel under the river and into downtown could shave almost 15 minutes off travel time through the central city.
“This can be a game changer for transit,” Metro planner Matt Bihn told the website. “A tunnel can really be the backbone of an improved regional transit system because you would speed things so much through downtown, where so many east-west and north-south transit routes converge.”
TriMet and other agencies are now looking to determine what is required for a formal federal study of the proposal, and are seeking public comment.
20 years later, when all the lawsuits and environmental impact studies are complete, it will be too expensive to build…
Tri-Met has to look at going underground as the Steel Bridge (AKA The Bottleneck) will need to be replaced sometime in the next 20 years. More of the local economy is in the far flung suburban areas like Hillsboro and Gresham and no one wants to try to build highways here. Building a tunnel under downtown was proposed over 30 years ago by AROTA but consider too expensive back then. A rather quaint idea from that era was street cars would lend human activity to the much less crowed city streets of that era. As climate refugees continue moving into cities with less severe weather Portland will continue to grow.
So the era of “light rail” a/k/a mass transit on the cheap, is winding down. A hundred twenty years after Boston’s first subway (or London’s), transit managers suddenly realize we need subways, not low speed, low capacity trolley cars fighting their way down crowded city streets.
Amazing that cities that built tens of miles of subways (and tunneling under rivers and harbors), by hand labor, now can’t afford it with all the heavy construction machinery available. In New York a mile of new subway now costs more, or so it seems, than entire subway system did when it was built.
Building a tunnel under streets and a river is too expensive. And, it is so ‘New York City’. The advantage of light rail is running on the surface with dedicated right-of-way for less cost than a darkened tunnel. The bonus is being able to see daylight while in transit during the day.
The reconfiguration of the city streets for dedicated right-of-ways and a new bridge for light rail would be more practical and less labour intensive than tunnelling tonnes and miles of dirt from underground.
Carl Covington: Unclear of your point. Do you mean like Seattle, San Francisco, L.A., Mexico City, Japan, Peru etc? You are safer in a subway than a Hi-rise building.
So they’re thinking of building a tunnel in an earthquake-prone area.
Very good Mr. Privara, nice to hear from someone with an accurate knowledge of history.
Re: It will be “free”,
It will be as “free” as 1 billion dollar F-35’s, 2 trillion dollar wars in the sand-box, unlimited freeways expansion for real-estate developers, and all the airports need to move around the top 20%.
In case nobody has noticed, the budget hasn’t been balanced for generations. And, let’s not forgot that as that great Amercian Dick Cheney said: “Ronald Reagan proved deficits don’t matter”. So, if you don’t like Bernie, that means you don’t like Reagan. (Sounds pretty unpatriotic to me…)
It will be “free”, just like college costs, health care, and all of the other wonderful goodies Bernie and the other socialistas are promising.
Noticeably missing from this announcement is any mention of costs