SkyTrain for Surrey, not LRT!

7+ hour shut-down after Portland streetcar hit by truck

COMMUTER CHAOS STORY 7+ hour shut-down after Portland streetcar hit by truck FROM: Portland, Oregon – September 5, 2018 For the second time this year, a Portland streetcar was derailed off of tracks in downtown Portland. According to The Oregonian, KOIN and others, the streetcar was derailed just after 3:30PM after a truck collided with […]

Commuter chaos: Crash shuts down Portland MAX LRT during PM rush hour

COMMUTER CHAOS STORY Crash shuts down Portland MAX LRT during PM rush hour FROM: Portland, Oregon – July 19, 2018 Just yesterday, Portland’s MAX light rail system was disrupted during the afternoon rush hour after a collision between a MAX LRT train and a truck on the Portland’s Steel Bridge. If a similar incident had […]

Commuter chaos: Portland streetcar shut down for entire day after streetcar derails in crash

COMMUTER CHAOS STORY Portland streetcar lines shut down for entire day after streetcar derails in crash FROM: Portland, Oregon – May 25, 2018 Portland’s streetcar system was put through a full-day shutdown after a collision knocked a streetcar off of the tracks and into multiple other vehicles. If a similar incident had occurred along one of […]

Mode-share shift to transit prevalent in Vancouver, but not in Portland

Late last month, the online blog Price Tags by Simon Fraser University CITY director Gordon Price published a blog article titled “Vancouver demolishes Portland: A transit comparison“. The analysis found that Vancouver “demolishes” Portland in attracting riders onto transit service and encouraging transit trips rather than vehicle trips. As a continuation of this analysis, we’d […]

Portland: LRT ridership drops; Canada Line continues to outperform

Light Rail Transit (LRT) ridership in Portland, Oregon has for whatever reason dropped this year. TriMet has published new ridership data for the month of June 2012: [CLICK HERE].  TriMet also conducted a media release about these numbers, viewable at [CLICK HERE].  While TriMet reported that the transit system has reached a record ridership, this […]

Canada Line outperforms entire LRT system

Readers of Peace Arch News, Surrey Leader and Surrey Now may have spotted the claim by our campaign Chair Daryl Dela Cruz that the Canada Line has attracted more riders than the entire Portland MAX (Metropolitan Area eXpress) Light Rail Transit system. These are the numbers: System Opening Year(s) Average weekday boardings (2011) SkyTrain – Canada […]

Poor fare revenue and LRT ridership cause free fare zone removal in Portland

MEDIA RELEASE – SKYTRAIN FOR SURREY ORIGINAL WRITTEN CONTENT Poor revenue and ridership cause free fare zone removal in Portland FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – June 18, 2012 – Surrey, BC Light Rail advocates in Surrey love to triumph Portland as a successful example of North American Light Rail Transit implementation. However, there is a side […]

Portland, OR: LRT is so cost-ineffective, unable to operate at promised frequencies

There were a number of interesting facts pointed out by The Cascade Policy’s John A. Charles, whose research we have cited before (see references #39 and #79), about the Portland MAX in his latest article, called: Transit Hypocrisy. It is notable that he points out that that it has been said that there is a […]

REPORT: Portland: subsidies and not LRT attracted economic development

Portland Oregon illustrates the benefits of LRT Portland erected their first MAX LRT line in 1986, and today has a network of 4 lines with 85 stations.Portland has gained $8 billion in new development around these rail stations. They’ve also seen a 69% increase in the rate of development in station areas, compared to non-station […]

Light Rail Ineffective: Portland transit mode-share unchanged despite $4 billion+ in LRT spending

Recently we came across the results of a study and article on Portland transit mode-share released not too long ago on the Human Transit Blog, written and managed by professional public transit planning consultant Jarrett Walker. The article is called “Portland: A Challenging Chart“.  Walker and his friend Adrian created a chart which shows the […]