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
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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.