I got the letter below in response to an email I and others sent to Bob Stacey expressing our lack of enthusiasm for the direct of the Powell/Division BRT. It was nice to see a reply to this.
I was one of the person's interested in a larger scale (raised LRT, or BRT) project and am of the thinking that this sort of project is a short sighted. I don't really think just because there is federal money available we need to just take it and spend it unless it is actually going to be a real benefit.
"Dear Neighbors,
Thanks for sending me your thoughts and concerns about aspects of the Powell-Division bus rapid transit project, particularly the proposal to make it an all-Division alignment. I appreciate your insights, and am sharing your letters with project staff here at Metro so that they will be part of the public record to be considered by the project steering committee, which I co-chair.
I’ve received seven emails in response to the letter in last week’s Portland Tribune. I’ve also reviewed a large number of comments that neighbors have shared on Nextdoor online. Forgive me if I don’t respond in detail to every point you have made. However, I want to share my perspective with you.
The effort to improve transit in the Powell and Division corridors began three years ago. The project steering committee includes government representatives from Metro, TriMet, Oregon Department of Transportation, Multnomah County, the cities of Portland and Gresham, and Mt. Hood and Portland community colleges; and community members representing Southeast Uplift, the East Portland Neighborhood Coalition, Gresham neighborhoods, and community-based organizations including APANO and the Jade District, OPAL Environmental Justice, and the East Portland Action Plan. The project goal was (and is) to improve the ride for the 17,000 daily trips taken on the 4 Division and 9 Powell lines, two of TriMet’s busiest bus routes, and to add capacity for future growth in that ridership.
The project finance plan includes up to $100 million in “Small Starts” funding available from the Federal Transit Administration for qualifying “Bus Rapid Transit” projects. TriMet could build a lot of transit improvements for the 16-mile corridor from Portland to Gresham for $100 million, plus the required local match money: a fleet of 90-passenger bendy buses, smart traffic signals to get the buses through intersections, stations with better passenger amenities, sidewalk and crossing improvements, and even some lengths of preferential transit lanes (on Division east of 82nd). A core consideration for federal money is that the improvements also reduce the time needed to traverse the route.
The initial route favored by the steering committee followed Powell Blvd from the Tilikum Crossing to 82nd Avenue, up 82nd to Division, then east on Division to Gresham and Mt Hood Community College. That alignment takes advantage of the widest streets, and directly serves neighborhoods with greater needs for active transportation and pedestrian safety improvements than inner Division’s neighborhoods, as well as lower median household incomes.
Unfortunately, ODOT--which owns Powell and 82nd, both state highways—rejected any consideration of transit improvements that would reduce the car and truck traffic capacity of either street. Widening the right-of-way to provide room for transit-preferential lanes would have been beyond the project’s feasible budget; and operating buses on this “zig-zag” alignment without such transit improvements would take longer travel times from Gresham to Portland than either of the existing bus lines that go straight down Division and Powell. That led the Steering Committee to begin looking at an all-Division alignment earlier this year.
I’m a regular rider on the 4 Division, and have been been for 40 years—beginning back when the Division bus was a branch of the old 52nd Avenue line. I’ve been passed up by full buses in the morning and evening peaks. So I strongly believe transit riders in our neighborhoods on inner Division will be better served by higher-capacity buses.
I also remember the disastrous experience TriMet had in the 70s and 80s with the Crown-Ikarus articulated bus fleet, which were poorly designed and underpowered. I have ridden modern bendy buses in many other cities, including Vancouver BC, Seattle, Eugene and just across the river in Vancouver USA. They’re much better machines nowadays, and they operate as well as or better than standard 40-foot transit buses in tight urban environments. So I also believe it’s a great improvement to deploy these 60-foot buses, with their greater passenger capacity, on the 4 Division line.
I live five blocks south of Division, so every time I ride I walk at least six blocks to my stop. So I’m very aware that stop spacing is an important consideration for rider convenience and for accessibility for all ages and abilities. I appreciate the feedback the project is receiving about TriMet’s efforts to reduce the number of stops along the Division route in order to reduce the total travel time. My own view is that while two or three blocks between stops is inefficient and unnecessary, more than five blocks is just too far.
Finally some have expressed great disappointment about the scale of the transit project, arguing that it’s not true bus rapid transit because it lacks the exclusive lanes that allow transit vehicles to avoid being slowed by other traffic, the way MAX travels in its own lane or other right of way. We can’t get that level of BRT within the funding limits of the federal “Small Starts” program; but the federal agency folks continue to tell our staff that the level of time savings we’re looking at from signal improvements, quicker passenger loading and unloading through three doors, and, yes, fewer stops along the 16 mile route can qualify as “BRT” under their rules.
Others have argued that the region should focus on a bigger, faster, higher-capacity transit project, such as a light rail alignment along Powell from the Tilikum Crossing out to Gresham. We can’t do that on a “small starts” grant budget, and the Portland region is already pursuing federal approval of a major light rail investment (from a larger federal grant program called “New Starts”) in the Southwest corridor along Barbur and I-5 from downtown Portland to Tigard and Tualatin. We simply don’t have the resources to go after two projects of that scale at the same time, and the feds are not likely to help fund two at once, either.
But I don’t think this is an “either-or” transit choice for southeast Portland. Every frequent-service bus line should get the kinds of improvements we're trying to get for the Division line. And Powell should keep its status in the regional high capacity transit plan as a high priority alignment for the next major regional and federal investment in light rail.
Again, I’m grateful for your input and encourage you to continue to be engaged as this transit planning continues. There will be a project open house this Monday, August 15 at St. Philip Neri Church on Division at 17th, at 5:00 pm. The project steering committee will meet next in late September. You can follow the project online at
http://www.oregonmetro.gov/public-pr...opment-project and take the public survey that’s available at that website.
And of course, continue to let me know what you think.
Thanks.
Bob
Bob Stacey
Metro Councilor, District 6
bob.stacey@oregonmetro.gov
503-358-1655 (cell)"
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