That’s nuts! We have to show that we are able to be careful with money, if parks have a desperate shortfall that we need a new bond measure, then don’t do this and move unspent funds to parks. Or any other similar example, choices like a household would make..we need a new roof, no new garden or whatever…
Instead of vanity projects like this, we need a lot more basic maintenance. Complicated street designs like this waste huge amounts of money and create infrastructure that just confuses and maddens people. Basic, sensible accommodations for bicyclists and pedestrian safety are good. But PBOT needs to stop its top down, dictatorial, discriminatory policy of trying to force people out of their cars. It's not going to work. I am 80 years old and live on a hill. I now have a fully electric car. It is loaded with many things--groceries, dry cleaning, giveaways, large bags of recycling, the occasional grandchild or dog. There is no way I am going to carry these things on foot, a bike, or transit. There are many, many people like me, who have good reasons to use their cars. They should not have to face obstacle courses when they want to go somewhere.
PBOT doesn't much care about filling potholes (in fact, a young scooter driver died when he hit one of the city's potholes recently). And they really aren't much interested in getting people where they want to go.
Instead, they are yet another city bureaucracy engaged in social engineering. Freely translated: "We'll use your money to make you do what we want you to do."
The city's anti-auto bias--this in a city with notoriously narrow streets and 50 miles of gravel surface--is clear to virtually everyone who drives. Which, in progressive catechism is a no-no.
Here on the east side, far from the interest of downtown media, PBOT is now wrecking Washington St from 82d to god-knows-where...reducing actual ato traffic to one lane with another reserved for buses and--of course!!!--bikes, which are never seen on that stretch of roadway.
This is a duplicate of the bureau's shenanigans on Division, and is in the works for Glisan and (shudder) 82d St., where TriMet is now whispering about bus-only lanes, mindless that the real problem with public transit is...the public.
It simply doesn't occur to PBOT that the increase in pedestrian deaths after Project Zero was instituted also coincided with the bureau's anti-auto road candy diet. Make roads more complex and frustrating and stupid...well, you get what you pay for.
It's confusing and causing delays now because it is also under construction. But once construction stops it should be manageable. And effective. I get the irony that we are doing this at a time when activity downtown is at reduced levels. Hopefully that will rebound soon. If this turns out to be a success then city should consider a complementary southbound project on 3rd. But wait until this is done.
$$$$21 milion??!!
That’s nuts! We have to show that we are able to be careful with money, if parks have a desperate shortfall that we need a new bond measure, then don’t do this and move unspent funds to parks. Or any other similar example, choices like a household would make..we need a new roof, no new garden or whatever…
Instead of vanity projects like this, we need a lot more basic maintenance. Complicated street designs like this waste huge amounts of money and create infrastructure that just confuses and maddens people. Basic, sensible accommodations for bicyclists and pedestrian safety are good. But PBOT needs to stop its top down, dictatorial, discriminatory policy of trying to force people out of their cars. It's not going to work. I am 80 years old and live on a hill. I now have a fully electric car. It is loaded with many things--groceries, dry cleaning, giveaways, large bags of recycling, the occasional grandchild or dog. There is no way I am going to carry these things on foot, a bike, or transit. There are many, many people like me, who have good reasons to use their cars. They should not have to face obstacle courses when they want to go somewhere.
PBOT doesn't much care about filling potholes (in fact, a young scooter driver died when he hit one of the city's potholes recently). And they really aren't much interested in getting people where they want to go.
Instead, they are yet another city bureaucracy engaged in social engineering. Freely translated: "We'll use your money to make you do what we want you to do."
The city's anti-auto bias--this in a city with notoriously narrow streets and 50 miles of gravel surface--is clear to virtually everyone who drives. Which, in progressive catechism is a no-no.
Here on the east side, far from the interest of downtown media, PBOT is now wrecking Washington St from 82d to god-knows-where...reducing actual ato traffic to one lane with another reserved for buses and--of course!!!--bikes, which are never seen on that stretch of roadway.
This is a duplicate of the bureau's shenanigans on Division, and is in the works for Glisan and (shudder) 82d St., where TriMet is now whispering about bus-only lanes, mindless that the real problem with public transit is...the public.
It simply doesn't occur to PBOT that the increase in pedestrian deaths after Project Zero was instituted also coincided with the bureau's anti-auto road candy diet. Make roads more complex and frustrating and stupid...well, you get what you pay for.
It's confusing and causing delays now because it is also under construction. But once construction stops it should be manageable. And effective. I get the irony that we are doing this at a time when activity downtown is at reduced levels. Hopefully that will rebound soon. If this turns out to be a success then city should consider a complementary southbound project on 3rd. But wait until this is done.