EDItoRIal
2 • The Southwest Portland Post
The Southwest Portland Post
4207 SE Woodstock Blvd #509
Portland, OR 97206
Fax: (866) 727-5336
email: news@multnomahpost.com
Portland to Lake Oswego streetcar
is screaming good deal for region
Regarding the story, “Will a streetcar
from Portland to Lake Oswego cost $458
million?” by Lee Perlman, The Post, Janu-
ary 2011.
I am a resident of Lake Oswego. I live
two blocks from the proposed Albert-
sons terminal in Lake Oswego.
I am volunteering with an organiza-
tion called Next Stop Lake Oswego that
is advocating the streetcar option. I am
a high-tech marketing professional that
has worked in the region since graduat-
ing from OSU in 1984.
My personal reasons for wanting the
streetcar are three fold.
The streetcar and the development
that will be tied to it will attract younger
families to Lake Oswego, a demograph-
ic we are desperate for!
It will provide a comfortable form of
transportation for me and my family to
get into Portland to enjoy what the city
has to offer.
It is a screaming good deal for the
region. It is a $500 million project that
we will pay less than $100M for. It will
create permanent jobs in the Foothills
area of Lake Oswego and over at United
Streetcar in Clack-
amas where the
cars will be built.
The consortium
of Metro, TriMet,
City of Portland,
Clackamas Co.,
Multnomah Co.
and the City of
LO paid around
$2 million for the
Willamette Shore
right-of-way about
20 years back.
The asset is now
valued at around
$100 million. Its
value is included
in the cost of the
project because
its value is used
for fund matching
through the Fed-
eral New Starts
Program.
We will never
again have this in-
expensive option
to take advantage
of additional ca-
pacity in the congested Highway 43
corridor.
You might want to look over this
breakdown of the funding so you can
represent the cost of the streetcar as
accurately as possible.
Recognize that this early in the
project the cost estimates are just that,
estimates.
It is unfortunate that the streetcar
gets portrayed as the expensive option
when, in fact, over the life of the project
it is the most economically viable due
to substantially lower operating costs
and environmental benefits of electric
propulsion.
M arch 2011
Garbage trucks are leaking
hydraulic fluid throughout the area
The local funding requirements for
the project are well below the funding
required for the enhanced bus.
That said, what is really missing in
the current analysis is an accounting of
the development money that will come
to the area due to the streetcar.
The enhanced bus will not bring any
development moneys based on past
experience and the consensus of the
potential developers of the Foothills
district.
Frank Hall
Lake Oswego
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Its about what we can do,
not what we can’t.
We use and appreciate the services
of Waste Management of Oregon.
Although we use only monthly trash
service, we have trucks on our street
every Friday.
We are concerned that these trucks
that come up our hill to remove our
trash, our recycling and our yard debris
ironically all leak hydraulic fluid onto
the street.
We have also noticed this problem
of hydraulic fluid spilling on the
streets when walking the dog in nearby
neighborhoods. When it rains, these
puddles of oil run off our hilly west side
streets into the storm sewers.
This is an environmental problem
in that each one of these leaky rigs is a
point source of pollution. I have spoken
to the drivers who say the trucks are old
and are to be replaced.
In the meantime, however, Waste
Management has a responsibility to
maintain these trucks or take them out
of service.
A contract with the City of Portland
that includes such things as the agreed-
upon lifespan of their equipment does
not constitute a license to splash oil
on our neighborhood streets until the
replacement date arrives.
We’ve written to Waste Management
and asked them to please fix these
hydraulic fittings so they quit leaking.
If this continues we will need to
report this to Portland Environmen-
tal Services and the Oregon Depart-
ment of Environmental Quality.
David and Meg Thompson, Hayhurst
(Additional letters on Page 7)
well
be
…
and well informed
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4207 SE Woodstock Blvd #509
Portland, OR 97206
Phone: (503) 244-6933; Fax: (866) 727-5336
general email: news@multnomahpost.com
web address: www.swportlandpost.com
Editor & Publisher: Don Snedecor
Reporters/Writers: Polina Olsen and Lee Perlman
Retail Advertising Manager: Harry Blythe
Graphic Design: Leslie Baird Design
Printing: Oregon Lithoprint
© 2011 by The Southwest Portland Post. All rights reserved. The opinions of the artists
and authors contained herein are not necessarily shared by the publisher.
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