Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Portland finds new way to increase dangers to pedestrians
As if Portland's bicyclist-killing, er, traffic-calming programs weren't enough, Portland's transit agency, Tri-Met, wants to put light rail through the downtown transit mall in spite of claims that it will make the mall far more dangerous to pedestrians.
"It's just too dangerous," says Pete Taylor, who trains Tri-Met bus drivers. "It sets up my operators for accidents." But Tri-Met and the city have ignored a recommendation to do a detailed study of pedestrian safety.
Tri-Met's solution is to "control" pedestrian movements with fences, flashing lights, and other tools to "channel" people in certain directions. It also has plans to blame all accidents on the pedestrians.
But that won't stop collisions between light-rail cars and buses, each of which will have to weave in and out among the light-rail vehicles more than a dozen times each time they travel through the mall. A single collision could shut down the mall for both buses and light rail, leading to delays throughout the transit system.
Tri-Met is comfortably ignoring all these concerns. It knows that the real purpose of transit in Portland is not to serve the transit riders but to provide juicy contracts for engineering and construction firms that make contributions to all the right political campaigns.
Long-time Portland political writer Phil Stanford points out that there is a power struggle going on in Portland between the Neil Goldschmidt crowd, which has arranged and benefitted from all of these transit projects and associated real-estate deals, and a new group consisting largely of public employee unions. It does not sound like the taxpayers are going to win either way, but it appears that the bus drivers' union, at least, has a better sense of safety than the Goldschmidt minions who run Tri-Met.
"It's just too dangerous," says Pete Taylor, who trains Tri-Met bus drivers. "It sets up my operators for accidents." But Tri-Met and the city have ignored a recommendation to do a detailed study of pedestrian safety.
Tri-Met's solution is to "control" pedestrian movements with fences, flashing lights, and other tools to "channel" people in certain directions. It also has plans to blame all accidents on the pedestrians.
But that won't stop collisions between light-rail cars and buses, each of which will have to weave in and out among the light-rail vehicles more than a dozen times each time they travel through the mall. A single collision could shut down the mall for both buses and light rail, leading to delays throughout the transit system.
Tri-Met is comfortably ignoring all these concerns. It knows that the real purpose of transit in Portland is not to serve the transit riders but to provide juicy contracts for engineering and construction firms that make contributions to all the right political campaigns.
Long-time Portland political writer Phil Stanford points out that there is a power struggle going on in Portland between the Neil Goldschmidt crowd, which has arranged and benefitted from all of these transit projects and associated real-estate deals, and a new group consisting largely of public employee unions. It does not sound like the taxpayers are going to win either way, but it appears that the bus drivers' union, at least, has a better sense of safety than the Goldschmidt minions who run Tri-Met.
Comments:
Randal, your ignorance is showing.
Calgary, Alberta, has operated a transit mall downtown that mixes very frequent LRT service (every 2.5 minutes each way) with frequent bus service with safe results for 25 years. Why should Portland be any different, unless you think TriMet bus drivers and Portland motorists are dumber than those Tory Calgary drivers.
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Calgary, Alberta, has operated a transit mall downtown that mixes very frequent LRT service (every 2.5 minutes each way) with frequent bus service with safe results for 25 years. Why should Portland be any different, unless you think TriMet bus drivers and Portland motorists are dumber than those Tory Calgary drivers.
