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List of people who should stop moving to Washington 1. Californians 2. Wisconsins
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Sep 25, 2015 16:37
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Lord Waffle Beard posted:List of people who should stop moving to Washington Yeah what's up with this one? I joined the Air Force to get the gently caress out of WI with no real plan what to do after, and ended up going to the UW because halfway through my contract I was like "ohhhhh, now I get why an education is important" Lately I'm running into a ton of Wisconsinites tho. I sympathize, WI is a garbage state, but why are they all coming here specifically? I'd have guessed Texas would've been a good mix of "hot weather" and "just liberal enough" for most of them
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Sep 25, 2015 16:45
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Son of Thunderbeast posted:Lately I'm running into a ton of Wisconsinites tho. I sympathize, WI is a garbage state, but why are they all coming here specifically? I'd have guessed Texas would've been a good mix of "hot weather" and "just liberal enough" for most of them "Just get on I-90 and keep going until you can't anymore!  "
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Sep 25, 2015 16:54
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MrBlandAverage posted:"Just get on I-90 and keep going until you can't anymore! Hah, that's basically what I did after I got out. Went home for a week and a half, got my poo poo packed, and drove all the way out here. Can't imagine leaving  We got problems out here for sure, but hey, at least we don't have to deal with Scott Walker
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Sep 25, 2015 17:35
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Son of Thunderbeast posted:Yeah what's up with this one? I joined the Air Force to get the gently caress out of WI with no real plan what to do after, and ended up going to the UW because halfway through my contract I was like "ohhhhh, now I get why an education is important" I meet people from Minnesota and Wisconsin out here every day and it's getting weird.
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Sep 25, 2015 18:27
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I know there's a lot of engineers who go to UW(isconsin) then move here to work in aerospace.
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Sep 25, 2015 18:34
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I've wondered for years why they don't cut the aurora bridge to 4 lanes so they have room for a jersey barrier, i'd rather have slower traffic than a car crash. I usually avoid it for that reason.
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Sep 25, 2015 18:58
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effectual posted:I've wondered for years why they don't cut the aurora bridge to 4 lanes so they have room for a jersey barrier, i'd rather have slower traffic than a car crash. I usually avoid it for that reason. I actually think this would increase traffic speed as everyone is scared of that bridge and drives in the center lane.
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Sep 26, 2015 00:25
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I havent met any WI people. Im doing it wrong. 
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Sep 26, 2015 01:34
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Son of Thunderbeast posted:Hah, that's basically what I did after I got out. Went home for a week and a half, got my poo poo packed, and drove all the way out here. Can't imagine leaving It would be pretty funny if you came to the end of 90 before a Mariners game and it took you more time to go the last 300 feet than it did to cross Idaho.
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Sep 26, 2015 01:36
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SyHopeful posted:Bridge of the Gods has metal grating for the roadway, you can stick your head out the window and look down! BOTG is great since you're going 15mph. Imagine if all bridges were 15mph. 
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Sep 26, 2015 19:43
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precious
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Lazy_Liberal posted:BOTG is great since you're going 15mph. Imagine if all bridges were 15mph.
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Sep 26, 2015 20:34
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The other day, I had the bad fortune to get into a discussion with a libertarian on Facebook about light rail. I am curious if there is anywhere where I can read actual critiques of light rail, that is not based on libertarians who think that trains=socialism? In the discussion, the man was just making ridiculous claims (like saying that trains were 100 times as expensive as buses and the tracks were 1000 times as expensive as roads) that could be pretty easily debunked. I can totally understand the viewpoint that light rail looks nicer than it is, and that it seems to be a way to subsidize local businesses, and that options such as increased bus service might work just as well. But I haven't really heard any of those arguments made by people who don't have some sort of axe to grind. Does anyone have a source for good information on the matter? Teach the controversy!
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Sep 26, 2015 23:32
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glowing-fish posted:The other day, I had the bad fortune to get into a discussion with a libertarian on Facebook about light rail. My main critique of light rail comes from riding it almost every day since high school. Tl;dr It is inflexible compared to busses. If a train breaks down or something else blocks the track, welp. No calling another train or doing a reroute. (in the past they've done busses to shuttle people past train blocks or shutdowns, but then why not just use busses in the first place) The light rail doesn't serve lower class areas who might need it for daily transport more than other areas, effectively cutting those neighborhoods off if it weren't for busses making connections. This has gotten fractionally better with the yellow, green and orange lines opening in portland in the last 10 years, but there is also the issue with bus service getting cut down or lines closing. I like the light rail, but I still support buslines as a better overall service to the community.
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Sep 26, 2015 23:47
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Error 404 posted:My main critique of light rail comes from riding it almost every day since high school. That seems like a reasonable answer, although there are points where a motor vehicle failure can be almost as bad, like a truck breaking down on the Glenn Jackson Bridge. I guess the biggest answer to that is that when a MAX breaks down, they need a lot of buses to shuttle people. Imagine all those buses needing to run, all the time, every day between Gateway and Downtown. The daily ridership for the Yellow Line is 15,000 riders, which divided by a bus carrying 40 people, means 375 buses a day. Across a 14 hour day, that works out to...around 25 buses an hour. Can you imagine having to run 25 buses from Rose Quarter to Delta Park every hour? That averages out to a bus leaving every 2 minutes, and more during rush hour. Of course, some of the people taking that MAX would have been taking separate, parallel bus rides (the 6, the 4, the 40), but it still seems like just in terms of numbers, there isn't a lot of ways to move that many people.
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Sep 27, 2015 01:20
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glowing-fish posted:That seems like a reasonable answer, although there are points where a motor vehicle failure can be almost as bad, like a truck breaking down on the Glenn Jackson Bridge. Yeah, all valid points. In terms of sheer numbers, Max all the way. I'd never want to shut the trains down at all. I just feel like the busses don't get much attention, and they should.
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Sep 27, 2015 01:43
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glowing-fish posted:libertarians who think that trains=socialism
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Sep 27, 2015 06:08
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Trains for sheer numbers, busses for flexibility and coverage. It's like debating which is better, freeways or residential roads.
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Sep 27, 2015 06:54
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just say you stand for everything they don't i'm guessing whatever discussion/lack thereof that ensues will be about as productive as a "reasoned" debate
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Sep 27, 2015 07:25
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Ernie Muppari posted:just say you stand for everything they don't A useful trick is to ask them if there is anything that could make them change their mind on the issues, and if so, what that might be. Of course, that led to me discovering one of my old friends considers peer reviewed journals and research compilations too biased to accept on anything and Wikipedia a quality source because somehow it's not.
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Sep 27, 2015 07:58
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Error 404 posted:Yeah, all valid points. Well in the case of Portland it is mostly about operating costs, the MAX is actually quite a bit cheaper than buses per passenger and Trimet is very limited funding system that promotes cutting back on costs. A MAX ride actually costs around $2 per passenger, so Trimet actually makes a profit off of sales, while an average bus ride is around $3. If anything max riders help subsidize bus riders, and the reason Trimet is so gun ho about light rail is the cost efficiency. That said, Trimet does have pretty poor bus service overall, and there are plenty of lines that are overburden but that is going to require higher taxes to fix. One thing now that the Orange line is finished probably should happen is more subtle capital improvements like signal priority and bus lanes, especially in areas like the SE there is no possible way to build light rail. Another thing is to have at least a handful of late night buses. It is just dangerous not having some type of transit running when the bars let out even if Uber/Lyft has somewhat filled that niche. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 09:08 on Sep 27, 2015 |
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Sep 27, 2015 09:03
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So basically light rail has (much) higher initial capital costs but lower operating costs compared to buses?
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Sep 27, 2015 09:14
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Cicero posted:So basically light rail has (much) higher initial capital costs but lower operating costs compared to buses? More or less, cost savings equalizes the expense over time. In addition, Portland has a history until the Orange line of having the federal government paying 65-90% of capital costs which meant local outlays where actually quite minimal. The Orange line was a 50/50 split due to a change in how funding works. In the case of the Green line, state and local expenses were around $200 million, and Trimet (using some rough back of the napkin math) saves about $8.5 million a year. In addition, light rail is a fixed investment which usually boosts property values and development along its ROW, which in turn expands the tax base. The Orange line came in around $750 million in state and local expenses, largely due to the costs of building the Tilikum bridge and lower federal subsides. The MAX for the most part makes financial sense, the problem is it isn't designed to handle increasing volumes of ridership well but neither is Portland's road system. In addition, a lot of the "low hanging fruit" of potential lines have already been built out, and there does need to be more of an effort to get more ridership out of buses especially since they are handling ridership from areas that the MAX isn't likely ever to go. In some ways, the entire irony of the SE is as a whole is the MAX doesn't serve it because of its small streets and residential nature, the very reason so many people like living there in the first place. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 13:39 on Sep 27, 2015 |
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Sep 27, 2015 11:32
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Which is why we need a monorail instead.
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Sep 27, 2015 12:23
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http://www.oregonrecalls.org/ What the gently caress is this? Does anybody know anything about it? I see the billboard all the time and finally remembered to search it. Is this like Oregon FReep?
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Sep 27, 2015 14:46
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Dusty Baker 2 posted:http://www.oregonrecalls.org/ The worst thing about that page is that it has terrible formatting, but not terrible enough to actually be funny.
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Sep 27, 2015 18:57
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Dusty Baker 2 posted:http://www.oregonrecalls.org/ My state senator does informal constituent meetings once a month and the months before the legislature voted on that bill he was talking about how completely insane his email inbox was. He was getting thousands of emails a day and his staff couldn't identify a single person writing in protest of the bill who actually lived in his senate district.
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Sep 27, 2015 22:45
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:I meet people from Minnesota and Wisconsin out here every day and it's getting weird. Duh, Norwegians and other assorted Scandinavians. They do Syttende Mai in Ballard, why? My wife's family (her father's grandfather) bought a farm in Wisconsin in the 1870's. The former owners, the people they bought it from, they moved out here to the Seattle area. This is one of the reason I moved to the area six months ago. Large number of Lutherans and especially Norwegians have been moving here for a long time. There was some kickass farming land out here. Thus my wife is comfortable out here. Seattle ice and Minnesota nice are the same thing. This is why you have something like Pacific Lutheran University here. They've been coming out here since the railroad came here.
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Sep 28, 2015 05:21
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So who in the hell are these shitheads and are they a meaningfully large group or just a bunch of rabble? They're apparently going to protest the building of the new research lab at the UW this Friday and I presume were part of the protest a few months ago where someone chained themselves to some construction equipment. I hope they take their protest to the cancer ward at Children's next, so they can explain to all the parents sitting there why their children don't deserve new, life saving treatments.
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Sep 28, 2015 06:19
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BrandorKP posted:Duh, Norwegians and other assorted Scandinavians. They do Syttende Mai in Ballard, why? P.S. I am a Minnesota/Wisconsin transplant
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Sep 28, 2015 08:32
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:P.S. I am a Minnesota/Wisconsin transplant It's okay, we can say "refugee" now
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Sep 28, 2015 16:13
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glowing-fish posted:That seems like a reasonable answer, although there are points where a motor vehicle failure can be almost as bad, like a truck breaking down on the Glenn Jackson Bridge. The biggest thing about train density isn't even the equipment or congestion costs of running the equivalent number of busses, it's the labor cost. Trimet says a Type 5 MAX train can carry up to 375 people. If we assume 40 people per bus (having a hard time finding any capacity specifications on Trimet busses), that's 10 bus drivers to carry the same load as a single train driver. If we further assume a (very simplified) average yearly cost of $60,000 per driver, that's an extra $540,000 per year to carry those people on bus instead of train. Train and rail costs are capital expenditures that can be done in spurts using construction bonds and (as already pointed out by someone else) federal funds, and are enduring investments. Trimet is still using the original rolling stock that was purchased for the first MAX construction back in 1986; that's nearly thirty years of service, and with a bit of refurbishment they're still fully viable and effective vehicles.
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Sep 28, 2015 18:41
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:The biggest thing about train density isn't even the equipment or congestion costs of running the equivalent number of busses, it's the labor cost. Trimet says a Type 5 MAX train can carry up to 375 people. If we assume 40 people per bus (having a hard time finding any capacity specifications on Trimet busses), that's 10 bus drivers to carry the same load as a single train driver. If we further assume a (very simplified) average yearly cost of $60,000 per driver, that's an extra $540,000 per year to carry those people on bus instead of train. The issue at this point though is the easy options for expansion for the MAX have largely been taken especially in central Portland, so at this point you have to go the "hard way" and provide more buses because a MAX line isn't going to fit on Burnside or Division. The MAX system was decent for a town with Portland size and resources, the problem is the city just simply designed for the amount of people that want to live in it. That said, it goes for the road system as well. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Sep 28, 2015 |
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Sep 28, 2015 18:45
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That, and the initial MAX build-out was so easy in large part because the lines were going in on the old streetcar right-of-ways that dated back to the early 20th century. There's no way to "fix" Portland's transit and housing issues without knocking down neighborhoods. That's a non-starter, so the problem won't be resolved. Who wants ice cream? Completely unrelated, I recently heard someone claim that Portland had far more single women than men, but the last time I saw catchy infographics about the topic, the balance was tilted the other way. Is there any actual data on this?
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Sep 28, 2015 18:52
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:That, and the initial MAX build-out was so easy in large part because the lines were going in on the old streetcar right-of-ways that dated back to the early 20th century. Also, the Portland Streetcar itself couldn't be used as a mass transit system even if they wanted to, it does fine as a urban circulator around the CBD and nearby areas but that is about it. So yeah, people want Portland to "stay the same" which means it is going to end up for mostly upper middle class white people more than it already is. That said, there will be probably be a new pan-asian food cart with $20 dollar sandwiches for them though, so it all balances out.
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Sep 28, 2015 19:00
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quote:There's no way to "fix" Portland's transit and housing issues without knocking down neighborhoods.
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Sep 28, 2015 19:04
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Cicero posted:Subway + protected bike lane network? One thing is that Portland is just not dense enough to require a subway, at least not yet and it is going to be extremely expensive, no way it would be funded. Hell, not even LA can develop a real subway network. A protected bike lines means a traffic lane has to go, and most of Portland's streets are pretty narrow as it is. You could pull it off here and there but it wouldn't effect more than a statistically small amount of commuters. The best option is probably putting money into larger buses/BRT, a new MAX line or two and maybe throwing some more cars on existing lines. However, it probably isn't going enough to really even slow it down. Basically, Portland has to the point of being so congested, expensive and bland would ever want to move there in the first place to reach a equilibrium point.
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Sep 28, 2015 19:13
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So basically "it's kind of bad now, but it has to get SUPER bad before we should do any serious improvements to fix it"? That just seems overly cynical to me.quote:A protected bike lines means a traffic lane has to go, and most of Portland's streets are pretty narrow as it is. Plus, it's not necessarily true. For one thing, you could upgrade existing painted/buffered bike lanes to protected ones. That seems like a pretty easy win in terms of land use: you're already dedicating the space to bikes, so why not make it more efficient by increasing usage? The other possibility besides removing lanes of car traffic is to remove lanes of on-street car parking.
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Sep 28, 2015 19:21
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Wanna fix Portland's transportation network? Start converting streets into transit corridors or multiuse pedestrian/cyclist/light vehicular ways. Pull up parking, and get Portlanders to invest in first-floor garages like in San Francisco. It's very doable, but we aren't at that critical point yet that there's public support for that kind of thing. Ignoring it will be easier until the gridlock is constant.
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Sep 28, 2015 19:41
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Cicero posted:So basically "it's kind of bad now, but it has to get SUPER bad before we should do any serious improvements to fix it"? That just seems overly cynical to me. I am just saying what is almost certainly going to happen not that it should. There are only so many options on the table and the money Oregonians would be willing to pay for them. Now you could do much more than that but that isn't going to be politically possible. The issue is that many of Portland's streets are one lane in each direction with parking, and that parking almost certainly used, especially on commercial boulevards. Most businesses would be very unhappy to lose what parking they have especially since those areas are already becoming dense. You could get away with it like I said in certain circumstances, but for the most part, the physical infrastructure itself is pretty inflexible. You got essentially so many feet of asphalt and businesses want their parking. (Oh btw, and in order to promote density, developers get out of providing their own. Oops) Also to be honest, biking for commuting is only going to be useful in certain neighborhoods simply based on the distance. The issue really isn't those neighborhoods either way but the rest of the metro that uses cars almost as much the rest of the US. As far as multi-use corridors, Portland essentially has some but they simply don't help with the major bread and butter traffic. So yeah you could get rid of parking on division and put a bike boulevard, hell shutdown all traffic on it, but it isn't going to stop people from commuting from Vancouver and Gresham. So ultimately, what is far more likely to happen is a piece meal approach where there is a new line here and there, maybe some BRT and maybe a bike lane or two but the process is going to go on until no one wants or can afford to move. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Sep 28, 2015 |
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Sep 28, 2015 19:52
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