this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2023
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Public transportation in the US is at best, an afterthought. A lot of major cities have buses/trolleys but not many have trains/subways. Only the largest cities have a workable public trans system such as New York, Chicago, San Francisco.
And as someone who lives right outside SF, yes it's one of the best cities for public transit in the US, but it can still take 2 hours to go somewhere that would take 30mins in a car.
Not all the time - sometimes it's just as fast as a car, but often enough that it's a deterrent.
And mind you, I live literally across the street from a train stop, so public transit is way more convenient for me than for most in the area.
LA used to have one if the best trolley systems, then it got ripped out. It was the sub plot to who framed Roger Rabbit.
Portland is talking about eventually making its MAX Light Rail a cut-and-cover subway over the course of the next few decades. The system is suffering from the effects of decisions made in the 1970's when the system was being created. At that point, it was limited to a stretch from the suburb of Gresham to downtown. Since then, that line has been extended to go to a completely different set of suburbs. So where a train being slowed down by downtown traffic was acceptable when that was the terminus, now that is unacceptable because it will affect many more stops.
The light rail also has all four lines in the current system going over the Steel Bridge. In the event of the Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake, that aging bridge is predicted to crumble, crippling the system for years. It also acts as one of the chock points in the system. Currently that's not the biggest bottleneck - that's hiring drivers - but as system ridership recovers post-COVID it will become a problem for schedules again.
A few things need to happen before Portland's ready. First and foremost is simply having more people using the system. Right now the capital costs are prohibitive given the ridership. I think this will continue to improve over time. Portland has increasingly bad traffic and it's only getting worse. Transit is often faster than going by car, depending on the trip. The city hasn't had much stomach for expanding roads over the past few decades, so I think the main outlet will be transit.