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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2018
Opioids: Law requires
medical providers to register
with monitoring program
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Clatsop County Historical Society
A trolley travels on wood planks at 14th and Commercial streets in 1905 downtown Astoria.
Transit: Sunset Empire not the first mass transit network
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of a state transit grant. By 1999,
Sunset Empire had taken over
all public transportation ser-
vices in the county.
“By creating the spe-
cial district, we were able to
enhance service throughout
the county, to get communi-
ties connected, especially this
north-south route between
Astoria, Seaside and Cannon
Beach,” Hazen said.
But Sunset Empire wasn’t
the region’s first mass transit
network.
Before buses
“In 1888, Astoria had a
population of 8,000 needing
transportation to employment
in over a dozen salmon can-
neries, two breweries, three
sawmills and two box plants,”
wrote historian Jim Dennon in
the Clatsop County Historical
Society’s quarterly magazine,
“Cumtux.”
Nearly 180 years ago, Asto-
ria Street Railway Co. began
running a fleet of horse-drawn
streetcars between the city’s
downtown and Uppertown
neighborhoods.
“Fare was 5 cents,” Den-
non wrote. “The street railway
operated daily from 5:45 a.m.
to 11 p.m. at intervals of not
more than 20 minutes apart.
Each car was pulled by a sin-
gle horse.”
The system began convert-
ing to electric-powered street-
cars in 1889, and expanded via
a trestle bridge to Alderbrook
on the east end.
Around the same time, rail
connections were being estab-
lished between Seaside and
Warrenton. By 1897, the first
trains had crossed Youngs
Bay on a newly built trestle. A
year later, the first train arrived
in Astoria on a line along the
Columbia River from the town
of Goble upriver.
By 1900, Astoria’s streetcar
system had gone bankrupt.
“Before automobiles could
be blamed, riders were too
few,” Dennon wrote. “Reve-
nue was insufficient to retire
the $25,000 indebtedness
incurred when the company
electrified the system.”
The 13 canneries in Asto-
ria had dropped to one, sap-
ping ridership, he wrote. The
property of Astoria Street Rail-
way Co. was taken by General
Electric to satisfy debt. Gen-
eral Electric reorganized the
streetcar network under Asto-
ria Electric Co., improved
equipment and expanded the
network to Alderbrook before
the entire system was acquired
by Pacific Power & Light Co.
in 1910. A new trestle to Alder-
brook opened in 1917.
Taken by fire
Fires would eventually
doom Astoria’s streetcars.
The Hammond Lumber
Co., which employed more
than 600 people east of Asto-
ria, burned Sept. 11, 1922.
On Dec. 8., 1922, a larger
fire swept through Astoria,
destroying much of downtown
and Pacific Power & Light’s
streetcar tracks, power distri-
bution and gas mains.
The company abandoned
the lines in 1924 because of
continued financial losses and
the cost of rebuilding down-
town, Dennon wrote, and nei-
ther the city nor the Port of
Astoria were interested in tak-
ing on the lines.
Local car dealer Sherman
Lovell and W.E. Young, oper-
ator of the Linnton Transit Co.
near Portland, formed Asto-
ria Transit Co. The company
secured a bid to offer the city
bus service in exchange for
complete abandonment of the
trolleys.
Six 25-passenger Mack
buses arrived June 27, 1924,
and two days later the street-
cars stopped running. Most of
the rails were left in the ground,
covered up or removed during
road improvements. Some of
the streetcars were scrapped,
while some were sold to other
communities.
Astoria in 1998 received a
1913 streetcar from a former
system in San Antonio, Texas,
that ceased operations in 1933.
After a restoration, the volun-
teer Astoria Riverfront Trol-
ley Association began running
the streetcar, called Old 300,
as a tourist attraction along the
Astoria Riverwalk.
suffering from the disease
of addiction,” the executive
order states.
Reducing barriers to com-
prehensive behavioral health
care could help “lift a bur-
den” off of families, hospi-
tals, law enforcement, pris-
ons and the state foster care
system, Brown said.
The governor signed the
executive order and signed
House Bill 4143 and House
Bill 4137 during an event
at Lines for Life, a south-
west Portland-based non-
profit agency that provides a
24-hour substance abuse and
suicide crisis line.
House Bill 4143, pro-
posed by the governor, is the
work of her Opioid Epidemic
Task Force, which began
convening in September.
Among other things, the
law requires medical provid-
ers to register with the Ore-
gon Health Authority’s pre-
scription drug monitoring
program. The monitoring
system allows physicians to
look up patients to find out
if they have misused opioids
or have been shopping for a
doctor who will prescribe an
opioid.
Woodburn Police Chief
Jim Ferraris, who represents
the Oregon Association
Chiefs of Police on the task
force, said doctors should be
required to look up a patient
in the monitoring program
before prescribing an opi-
oid. However, the law only
requires that doctors be regis-
tered with the program.
“It really should be man-
datory use, but this is a first
bite of the apple; this is a first
step,” Ferraris said.
In 2016, 245 Oregon resi-
dents died from opioid over-
doses, according to the most
recent statistics from the
Oregon Health Authority.
That’s about six per 100,000
residents.
House Bill 4137, by state
Rep. Tawna Sanchez, D-Port-
land, sets deadlines for the
Alcohol and Drug Policy
Commission to develop a
framework for a statewide
strategic plan for addiction
prevention, treatment and
recovery by Sept. 15 and to
submit the strategic plan to
the Legislature by July 1,
2020.
The Capital Bureau is a
collaboration between EO
Media Group and Pamplin
Media Group.
Carts: Nourish Juice
Bar opts to open a
brick-and-mortar store
Continued from Page 1A
Good Bowl and Snackle
Box were previously located
in a parking lot on property
near City Hall farther up 11th
Street with two other food
carts.
The property was in flux,
however, and some cart own-
ers weren’t sure if they could
continue to lease space.
Judith Stokes, the owner of
Snackle Box and a tenant at
the property, leased space to
the other carts. She remained
a while longer but eventu-
ally closed the makeup shop
she maintained at a building
on the property and moved
the food cart. The owners of
Nourish Juice Bar opted to
open a brick-and-mortar loca-
tion on 14th and Commercial
streets. The fourth cart, DJ’s
Vinyl Vegan, has new owners
who have not launched their
business yet.