Greetings from Portland
#1
Posted 10 May 2009 - 07:32 AM
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Kara B.
#2
Posted 10 May 2009 - 07:28 PM
#3
Posted 11 May 2009 - 01:05 AM
#4
Posted 11 May 2009 - 08:55 AM
Note the traffic congestion while you are in town. I think Traffic Calming is to transportation what Enhanced Interogation is to intelligence gathering.
#5
Posted 11 May 2009 - 09:53 AM
I bet I know the answer, given what I know of your post history.
#6
Posted 11 May 2009 - 04:47 PM
I can already sympathize with them.
Since we're taking a break, here's a few more photos:
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Kara B.
#7
Posted 16 May 2009 - 05:51 AM
#8
Posted 17 May 2009 - 08:19 PM
Voice & Guitars in Big Heaven
Elementary Music Specialist, FWISD
Texas Wesleyan 2015
Shaw-Clarke NA Alumna
#9
Posted 22 May 2009 - 12:27 PM
#10
Posted 22 May 2009 - 03:00 PM
Que was to construct a 2' square card board box. Insert into the box 2 light bulbs. Turn on light bulbs. Insert face for 20 minutes each day !
That is part of the reason we live in Fort Worth Texas !! Are we having fun yet ? Yes... no box !
Dave still at
Visit 360texas.com
#11
Posted 24 May 2009 - 10:19 PM
Que was to construct a 2' square card board box. Insert into the box 2 light bulbs. Turn on light bulbs. Insert face for 20 minutes each day !
That is part of the reason we live in Fort Worth Texas !! Are we having fun yet ? Yes... no box !
You are pretty sharp, picking states to live in that don't have an income tax.
I agree that Ft Worth is a better place to live year round, but I'm sure you are aware that Oregon is warm and dry during the summer months. The weather is nice enough that we are spending a week at the beach in Oregon this year. Also, you don't get as many pennies in Oregon since they don't have a sales tax, most folks charge a round number for products, it is nice to buy something and find out the price is the price as marked.
The "Go By Streetcar" sign is a knockoff of the "Go By Train" sign on Union Station. I was lucky enough to be in town in 1985 when the sign was restored and lit up again. IMHO bicycles are the thing Portland has done best for all their efforts. The bike boxes at corners were developed in response to a rash of fatalities a few years ago and they seem to have worked.
My comment about congestion in Portland is their own label as the most congested city. They don't use that title when they advertise the city and I'm not sure I would agree, after visiting San Francisco last week. 10% sales tax too.
Portland is going through a very tough time right now, unemployment exceeds 12%, the usual budget shortages, crime on the rise, high cost housing and businesses moving away. The local paper had an opinion column recently (which I couldn't locate online) and the writer said that maybe Portland had gone too far in making downtown into a 20 something pit stop, as well as other reasons for the trouble, but that was the phrase that caught my eye.
Without a sales tax to finance light rail and the streetcar, Portland has an employee tax to operate those systems. That tax is a suspect in business leaving town. The streetcar and light rail are operated by an agency called Tri-Met, locals call it crime-met, because of the problems on the light rail line. They have fare inspectors but locals are so used to not being checked that people have gone years without buying a ticket and it is hard to put fear into a homeless person that uses the light rail as a rolling homeless shelter.
Tri-Met recently announced cutbacks in both bus and light rail service due to budget shortfalls. However they are still planning on expanding with new lines. That left some folks scratching their heads, but I can sort of understand that times might not always be as bad as now.
I know Portland promotes their city as an urban oasis for all the improvements they have made over the years, but I have to think that San Diego is a better example of a well run light rail system that works better for the citizens. Of course, San Diego has so much other stuff going for it, no one even notices the mass transit they have developed.
#12
Posted 02 July 2009 - 10:30 AM
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Kara B.
#13
Posted 02 July 2009 - 10:32 AM
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Kara B.
#14
Posted 02 July 2009 - 10:33 AM
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Kara B.
#15
Posted 02 July 2009 - 10:34 AM
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Kara B.
#16
Posted 02 July 2009 - 10:36 AM
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Kara B.
#17
Posted 02 July 2009 - 10:37 AM
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Kara B.
#18
Posted 02 July 2009 - 10:41 AM
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Kara B.
#19
Posted 02 July 2009 - 10:44 AM
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Kara B.
#21
Posted 09 August 2010 - 02:08 PM
Hate those exposed powerlines for the buses as seen in a few of the photos (although they look much much worse in person). Downtown Portland and Seattle are riddled with them. Hope they never come to FTW.
#22
Posted 09 August 2010 - 04:19 PM
The overhead wires for the streetcar and light rail trains are barely noticeable in person - I don't know how one could hate them, and it's hardly "riddled" with them (two or three streets in the entire downtown isn't exactly "riddled"). The streetcar lines in particular are barely noticeable and get lost in the trees and such. I'll gladly take a little bit of visual clutter for effective electrified rail transit. I hope they come to Fort Worth very, very soon.
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Kara B.
#23
Posted 09 August 2010 - 04:36 PM
#24
Posted 10 August 2010 - 09:19 AM
No no, not the streetcar overhead lines. I don't mind those much at all since as you point out they are generally just a few of them and not very noticeable. I'm talking about the overhead power lines that they put up for the electric buses in places like Seattle and Portland. Basically the entire downtown street grid is covered with those things, and then you've got the busses trailing those ridiculous 20 foot long booms behind them so they can move all around the street while still picking up their electrons.
Perhaps the overheads in your photos aren't for the buses at all but rather for the streetcars. Wouldn't surprise me as my recollection of the bus wires was that they were much more obtrusive and obnoxious, with guy wires screwed into the buildings beside the street- ugh!! Ah yes, here is a link of a photo from google. This reminds me- the intersections are a particularly ghastly sight.
Just to be clear, no one is talking about electric buses in FTW (as far as I know), only a streetcar, which I support wholeheartedly. I merely fear that the buses may become a fallback measure in the event the streetcar is "too expensive."
#25
Posted 10 August 2010 - 10:29 AM
Not sure what you're seeing, then - Portland doesn't have electric buses. They have regular buses, light rail, and streetcars.
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Kara B.
#26
Posted 10 August 2010 - 02:41 PM
Yes, yes, it must be Seattle that I'm thinking of. Although in googling it I guess they call them a trolley bus.
http://www.seattlepi..._trolley17.html
And I guess they are planning to get rid of them soon. I guess it is not state of the art anymore for public transit- apparently only 6 cities in the US use them anymore, including Seattle. My concerns for FTW are unfounded then!
Huzzah the streetcar!!!
P.S. At least I won't stand up in front of a professional in the field and insist that there must be trolley buses in Portland because I had one in front of my house when it was a kid!
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