Austin voters apparently approved the cities foolish $7 billion light-rail plan. San Francisco Bay Area voters apparently approved a regressive tax-increase to support high-income riders of the Caltrain commuter train. But Portland voters have apparently rejected a $5 billion transportation measure that was mainly aimed at building the region’s most-expensive light-rail line yet.
Portland’s rejection of light rail is not too surprising as the region has rejected every transit tax measure that’s been on the ballot since 1996 because voters have learned that light rail costs too much and does too little. Too bad Austin couldn’t have learned from Portland’s experience.
Portland voters also appear to have returned centrist Ted Wheeler to the mayor’s office even though polls showed he was running well behind leftist challenger Sarah Iannarone. Wheeler had earned the ire of Black Lives Matter protesters when he didn’t try to stop police from stopping property destruction in downtown Portland. Iannarone, meanwhile, openly supported antifa violence and wore clothing celebrating Chairman Mao.
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Portland also turned leftist city commissioner Chloe Eudaly out of office, preferring a former political science professor named Mingus Mapps. This was effectively a vote against high-density housing projects as Eudaly had worked hard to undermine the power of city neighborhood associations that had fought such projects. In that regard, Alameda, a city in the San Francisco Bay Area, also appears to be rejecting a high-density housing measure.
As I write, some of the nation’s less important races remain undecided, but it is good to know that supposedly pro-transit, pro-density Portland remains unenthused about these projects and policies.
One good thing about Austin is that it’ll be slightly entertaining to what folks try to wrap their minds around all that money spent on the new lines and yet traffic continues to get worse.
Question – Did the Austin referendum have an explicit spending cap for the project? Or was it implicit because of the limitations of the tax increase for the projects?
“..,because voters have learned that light rail costs too much and does too little.”
Antiplanner over-reaches again. It depends upon the circumstances and the technology. Some light-rail systems don’t have expensive overhead electricity pickup. Some light-rail systems use existing railway track. Some light-rail systems don’t have steel tracks, at all. So it depends.
The wise municipality does the calculations carefully, benchmarking against observed cases around the country and the world.
“Too bad Austin couldn’t have learned from Portland’s experience.”
Many countries and cities in Europe do very nicely with light rail, which confounds Antiplanner’s point.
Other cities without light rail don’t want it, thanks and all that. Bath, UK, has apparently stopped the recent light rail proposal. Bath is too small to have the number of passengers required to pay for it. I guess there are more deserving ways of spending the large sums of money required.
Once again, it’s another example of You get what you vote for.
There is literally not a single light rail line that has ever been, or ever will be, justified by ridership numbers.
Francis King,
Your definition of light rail is a lot broader than the Federal Transit Administration’s, which requires that the trains be electrically powered and run on rails. I know of no light rail system that uses existing tracks and all the ones I know have overhead wires because third rail would be too dangerous for a line that doesn’t have an exclusive right of way. Your definition would include buses, and I agree that buses are cheaper than FTA light rail.
@Antiplanner:
“I know of no light rail system that uses existing track”
Croydon, UK, is partially on existing rail, which is one reason why the cost of the system was so low.
Karlsruhe, Germany, uses existing rails, and is mixed up with heavy rail services. Interestingly, Karlsruhe is very close to the French border, and is the only international light rail service. It has the additional challenge that the vehicles have to accept the heavy rail overhead voltage.
“and all the ones I know have overhead wires because third rail would be too dangerous for a line that doesn’t have an exclusive right of way. ”
It is quite possible to use a hybrid or battery system to power a vehicle, and to use a simple guidance system – there is a Chinese system called ART/Autonomous Rail Rapid Transit like this. So, is it a bus (rubber tyres) or tram (tram layout)? All I know is that China has some very clever engineers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-tyred_tram
I submitted an Argument Against Portland’s Metro Payroll Tax Measure 26-218 (for the light rail line extension) in each of the three counties, making up Metro. Satisfying to see it get voted down.
But Metro will be back no doubt. Metro is about getting the specious federal government monies (matching funds for the light rail boondoggle), and then taking a chunk for the Metro government class of planners and other of its highly compensated staff; then sending out the residual to highly compensated rail development firms and contractors; and also, diverting another share to its friends the well paid equity and social warrior (administrators) of “non-profits.”
From a policy perspective the most difficult part of this is the lack of immediacy in consequences in these plans etc. It takes years if not decades for the impacts to become known and there is plenty of opportunity for the planners and advocates to obscure the real causes of the problems. I was in PDX over the summer visiting friends and one of them told me that the new 1-5 bridge was not built because Vancouver wanted to “keep out the riff-raff.” Ironically, I had dinner with the wife of one of metro’s planners a year before and she used the exact same phrase to described the situation. Also, she show visible distain when I talked about how the project failed because of the useless mandates like adding light rail to the bridge which nearly doubled its cost. Therein lies the problem, if decisions were based upon objective analysis this stuff would get shut down immediately. However, support is mostly based on what I call “story time.” Overcoming such irrational babble requires one hard empirical evidence but also persistence on the part of opponents in the form of public education and activism. Even if things have softened a bit in PDX, I can assure you the planners etc will come back with new stronger waves of propaganda.