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About The Southwest Portland Post. (Portland, Oregon) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (March 1, 2011)
3 • The Southwest Portland Post N EW S M arch 2011 CAC votes in favor of Portland to Lake Oswego streetcar line By Lee Perlman The Southwest Portland Post Last month the proposed Lake Oswe- go to Portland streetcar route received an overwhelming – and expected – en- dorsement from the project’s Citizen Advisory Committee. However, the project faces other, more meaningful votes, and their outcome is anything but assured. The CAC vote was 17 for the streetcar extension from its current location on Southwest Lowell Street, three of these by absentee ballot, one for No Build, two for an Enhanced Bus route, and one abstention. Three others were not present and did not vote. Two dissenters from Lake Oswego, Joy Strull and Elizabeth English, raised procedural objections. Both said the communities they represented were at best divided on the issue, and if any- thing opposed to the route. Strull said she personally did not have the clear mandate from her con- stituency that would allow her to vote and added, for the group as a whole, “I question whether a commitment of this magnitude makes sense without a clear majority.” She also questioned whether the CAC was representative. Chair Ellie McPeak conceded this last, saying, “We are a very imperfect body, as are most decision-making bodies.” She was less impressed by accounts of public meetings, saying, “If 80 people come to a meeting they’re a self-selected group out of 36,000.” CAC member Beverly Bookin, rep- resenting the Johns Landing Owners Association, told Strull, “We’ve been charged with making a recommenda- tion. It’s time for the people who have sat around this table and considered the information to decide. If you’d prefer you can abstain, but some mushy state- ment is not acceptable.” Still to come are votes by the Portland and Lake Oswego City Councils, on April 6 and 12, respectively. The latter includes members who ran for office last year on a platform of opposing this project. Not only that, but opponents have raised money and hired a team of professionals to aid their cause. One of these, consultant Len Berg- stein, spoke at a late January meeting of the Portland Planning and Sustain- ability Commission. “The inconvenient truth is that this is fatally flawed,” he told the Commission. “It costs too much, delivers too little, offers no ap- preciable relief from congestion. The impacts are overlooked, there’s no guarantee of federal funding, no fund- ing plan in place.” Assuming a 50 percent federal match, this would cost $144 million, which “competes with other projects and Tri- Met’s service to other transit-oriented PoSt ClaSSIfIED aDS Lessons MUSIC LESSONS = HIGHER SATs Extraordinary Piano and Violin Lessons. Home of the Complete Instruction Method. Visit www.EliasonMusic.com or call Eliason School of Music. (503)293-2390 Purchase a Classified Ad! Print Only is $32 per column inch (up to 15 words per inch) Includes design! Print and Online are $64 per column inch. Frequency discounts are available. Online Text Only is $2 per word (15 word minimum). E-mail (preferred): ads@multnomahpost.com Online Form: www.multnomahpost.com Phone: 503-244-6933 Massage communities.” A re- cent public meeting revealed “Lake Oswe- go is split right down the middle. It doesn’t garner broad public support.” He added, “I’m not asking you to say no, but to say ‘whoa!’” However, he had ear- lier said that additional study of the project would be “money down a rat hole.” Portland Streetcar stops at Gibbs Street in the South Bergstein’s reference Waterfront neighborhood. (flickr file photo courtesy of to 50 percent federal pchurch) funding is based on “I raised four children and dogs, and the level of support for the $1.5 billion I only lost one duck to the train. My Portland to Milwaukie Light Rail Proj- bedroom was 20 feet from the middle ect. Streetcar advocates say they are of the tracks, but you got used to it; you confident of 60 percent federal funding worried if you didn’t hear it. This area for a streetcar project. was developed by rail.” Commission member Chris Smith, She would receive some of the right a strong streetcar advocate, replied, of way if it was abandoned, she said, “If we applied your reasoning to the “but it’s still not right.” Her neighbors Columbia River Crossing, we’d have who oppose the project moved in later, abandoned that long ago. We could she said. “This has been done success- have built this with what we’ve spent fully in Boston and New York, but not studying that.” in California where they come from. Lying between Portland and Lake Eisenhower built us all a ‘wonderful’ Oswego is the unincorporated and freeway system; have you driven I-5 wealthy Dunthorpe/Riverdale commu- lately? nity, which historically has been solidly “They saved the right of way 20 years against any transit project through its ago, and 20 years later we’re still dis- territory. At the Commission meeting, cussing this. The time is now. We’re way however, the streetcar received a strong behind the curve on this. Don’t dawdle boost from longtime resident Mertie any more. Build this not only to Lake Muller. Oswego, but all the way to Bridgeport She lived in the community when Village.” it was an active freight line, she said.