Will TriMet light rail ever come to Vancouver? (Seattle, Ridgefield: sales, condo)

[FSF]

If so, when?

[leastprime]

Only if WA decides to fund it pay their share.
WA didn't want to fund the I-5 bridge replacement 10 years ago. OR had already spent $$$ for the feasibility studies.
OR and WA needs replacing current rail bridge with a heavy rail bidirectional bridge.
We also need to replace the I-5 lift bridges.
Got 'any' money, honey?

[FSF]

No doubt it all has to do with money and politics but it's WA that needs that bridge more than OR so I would think they would try to play along to some extent.

[StealthRabbit]

I-5 Light Rail crossing is really a 'no-starter' since it would connect to the existing 'North Interstate' MAX. (Street level, slow, dangerous)

It would be faster to connect a I-205 LR crossing to the 'segregated / dedicated' I-84 MAX line. (This would be faster to construct and also be a quicker way from Vancouver to Dwtn Portland / office and commerce). But Vancouver, WA would need to create it's one LR network / loop to serve their region. (Very possible to do with existing 'right-of-ways' from previous rail)

30 min Battleground / Ridgefield to Portland should have been the goal. 10 min from Vancouver.

If you take the North Interstate MAX line, you are stuck with a 40 min route for what takes 7- 20 min to drive / bus.

IMHO TriMet is not ever coming to Vancouver in the format / routes that currently exist.

Fed Government may interfere and force WA to join an very inefficient MAX transport method.

No one will be happy with a forced solution (except politicians).

[texasdiver]

Here on a Vancouver forum you will get lots of fear and loathing of light rail.

But the politics are such that if Vancouver or Clark County wants a new bridge of any kind across the Columbia they are going to have to accept light rail, or some sort of dedicated right of way mass-transit equivalent. Clark County is not in the driver's seat. The OR and WA legislatures and governors are, as well as Congress. And they are all pro transit and pro light rail.

Oregon (which means Portland) is going to be entirely unwilling to build any new bridges that do not contain a MAJOR mass transit element. Portland has no interest in spending billions of dollars for a bridge and highway project that guarantees a lot of increased commuter traffic from Vancouver without providing any investment in mass transit from Vancouver. That is simply not going to ever happen. And the WA legislature and state government is now completely dominated by Puget Sound transit advocates. Oregon is going to tell Vancouver. "You want to increase your regional integration into the Portland metro economy, then you need to put on your big boy pants and increase your participation in regional transit as well."

What I expect will happen is that Clark County will drag its feet as much as possible and then end up with some sort of rump system that punches across I-5 to downtown Vancouver and Clark College and will just tie into the already slow yellow line as sort of the lowest compromise. They will try to insist on bus rapid transit instead of rail, which is the stupidest of all possible ideas because it wouldn't mean bus rapid transit all the way into Portland as a system duplicating the yellow line. It would mean bus rapid transit across the bridge to Delta Park where you have to get off and change to rail anyway. At that point just might as well let commuters board the light rail in Vancouver if they are going to be riding it anyway. Because NO ONE is proposing taking a car lane from I-5 and turning it into a dedicated bus rapid transit lane. Which is what an actual bus rapid transit system from Vancouver to downtown Portland would look like.

What SHOULD happen is Clark County leveraging some future bridge and transit project into MAJOR improvements on the Portland side of the river to speed commuting from Vancouver into Portland and points beyond. For example, nonstop express service from Vancouver into central Portland on dedicated rights of way. Other major cities have both express and local transit service. If Portland doesn't want Vancouver cars on its streets and freeways, provide express non-stop mass transit service from Vancouver into Central Portland. Then Vancouver can focus on things like expanding bus rapid transit like the Vine along other corridors.

But that's not going to happen because Clark County politicians are going to approach any sort of negotiation and planning from the point of view of "How do we minimize our investment in rail" rather than "how do we leverage Portland into providing the most improvements to help Vancouver commuters."

So we will probably end up with some sort of crappy solution that does nothing more but extends the yellow line by 2 or 3 stops as part of a compromise bridge replacement project.

Honestly what they should do is replace the freeway bridge with larger flyover bridges that are car-only with no drawbridge, combined with a street level multi-purpose bridge with a draw bridge that serves rail, bikes, and local car traffic. But I've never seen that proposed. It is less than ideal to force bikes and trains and pedestrians over steep high freeway bridges that are tall enough to clear all the river traffic. So keep them at grade level while the car and truck traffic flies overhead.

Where I expect mobility to go in the next several decades or generations is a lot more small electric propelled personal vehicles like e-bikes, electric scooters, electric vespas, small lightweight urban electric vehicles, and that sort of thing. We should be building any future bridges across the Columbia with that sort of thing in mind as much as stuff like rail. So that someone can hop onto their 30 mph electric vespa or e-bike and travel the 9 miles from downtown Vancouver to downtown Portland in 18 minutes without risking death by car traffic. That would be a game changer.

[FSF]

texasdiver, everything you say makes good sense. But on a selfish level, I've been specifically waiting for those 2 or 3 extra stops for almost 10 years now. It would be nice if it would happen in the next decade. I do agree it is not a very good use of resources from a fiscal standpoint. I'm becoming more settled into the idea of spending the last 10 years of my working years in probably downtown Vancouver in a larger condo with good views. Retirement may send me across the river to the Pearl District near the northern parks but then again, the state tax is still a deterrent.

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by FSF

texasdiver, everything you say makes good sense. But on a selfish level, I've been specifically waiting for those 2 or 3 extra stops for almost 10 years now. It would be nice if it would happen in the next decade. I do agree it is not a very good use of resources from a fiscal standpoint. I'm becoming more settled into the idea of spending the last 10 years of my working years in probably downtown Vancouver in a larger condo with good views. Retirement may send me across the river to the Pearl District near the northern parks but then again, the state tax is still a deterrent.

You will be lucky if they break ground in the next decade. And finish 5-6 years later.

I had a friend who was a highway engineer in Seattle. Perhaps half of his ENTIRE professional career was devoted to one project: The I-90 tunnel through the Mt. Baker neighborhood of Seattle. I think they started planning the tunnel expansion in the late 1970s, started construction in the early 80s and didn't finish until the mid 1990s. And that was just one freeway tunnel.

[SusVelo]

One thing on the small vehicles texasdiver is the truck/commercial traffic that is heavily using I-5 and I-205. Maybe self-driving trucks will make that more manageable, but they still need to be considered in the design since a bypass west won't ever happen.

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by simply1

One thing on the small vehicles texasdiver is the truck/commercial traffic that is heavily using I-5 and I-205. Maybe self-driving trucks will make that more manageable, but they still need to be considered in the design since a bypass west won't ever happen.

We already have self-driving trucks. They look like this:



All those containers are driving themselves right across the country in a far more energy-efficient manner than any new self-driving truck. One train can carry 200 or more containers and replace that many trucks. It seems utterly ridiculous to me to be talking about building out new rights of way and infrastructure for a new fleet of self-driving trucks. When we already have one of the world's most extensive railroad networks.

I can understand why the trucking industry might want a trillion dollar public subsidy to build out self-driving truck rights of ways across the US that will allow it to increase profits exponentially by eliminating the jobs of millions of truck drivers. And allow that industry to avoid competing with existing railroads. But I honestly don't understand why us taxpayers should be paying a dime for any of it.

[Disgustedman]

The problems I see are cost, value and results.

Cost: they claim 4-5 billion. That's mostly for light rail expansion. Frankly I have read claims that it will double.

Plus tolls ranging from $1.55 early morning, to $16 daytime.

I'd not be surprised on residents parking their cars in oregon, riding bus home and the other way in the morning.

Value is subjective. For 5 billion, we're stuck with this. The tolls will only increase. It won't stop people from going to Oregon to save sales tax, they'll just wait and do bulk major purchases at one time.

The result is a long commute, 5-7 years of hassle and no appreciable increase in value for what will possibly be a waste of money.

Oregon needs to revamp the roads leading to the bridge. 5 lanes each way. Washington also, but there's no room for expansion. Either way, we're screwed.