Submitted by mmmarvel on Tue, 08/22/2006 - 5:00am.
Just starting what???? It's obvious you haven't studied the system. Mass transit in Portland started way back in 1872 with mule drawn trolleys but let's not go quite that far back. Mass transit was run by private companies up till 1969 when government took it over; oh, and I might add, the private companies NEVER ran in the red and without public subsidies.
The real joke is how Tri-Met has tried to spin the numbers, if you look when light rail has taken over for bus routes, the numbers on those lines dropped. Yes, they rose over time and with population increase but that would have happened with buses too. It drops because overall, switching to light rail is slower and more inefficent and more inconvient than buses.
It's a complete manipulation by government, before light rail we ran bus lines according to where people lived. If the population moved, we switched where the buses were routed. Since government take over, they now try to make the population move to the transit line (obviously because light rail CAN'T move). It's one of the dumbest moves EVER. It's government telling the people where to live, rather than free choice by the people. Oh, we still have that free choice (to some degree) but if we disagree with government then they make it more difficult by limiting things like mass transit availability. And don't even get me started with the fareless square nonsense.
Just starting???
Just starting what???? It's obvious you haven't studied the system. Mass transit in Portland started way back in 1872 with mule drawn trolleys but let's not go quite that far back. Mass transit was run by private companies up till 1969 when government took it over; oh, and I might add, the private companies NEVER ran in the red and without public subsidies.
The real joke is how Tri-Met has tried to spin the numbers, if you look when light rail has taken over for bus routes, the numbers on those lines dropped. Yes, they rose over time and with population increase but that would have happened with buses too. It drops because overall, switching to light rail is slower and more inefficent and more inconvient than buses.
It's a complete manipulation by government, before light rail we ran bus lines according to where people lived. If the population moved, we switched where the buses were routed. Since government take over, they now try to make the population move to the transit line (obviously because light rail CAN'T move). It's one of the dumbest moves EVER. It's government telling the people where to live, rather than free choice by the people. Oh, we still have that free choice (to some degree) but if we disagree with government then they make it more difficult by limiting things like mass transit availability. And don't even get me started with the fareless square nonsense.