JK: Only if you destination in downtown, otherwise mass transit is failure. Its market share of area trips is a low single digit number. Too low to have any effect on congestion. I can even make a plausible argument that it has actually increased traffic congestion, be diverting funds from road building and buses blocking traffic. Then there is the congestion increase on Interstate avenue absolutely due to MAX."

My destination is always downtown. I don't intend to live any further than 40th or 60th street at the furthest from downtown. I build my life around the idea, because that's one of the primary reason I live in Portland. As I've said, I'd rather a free-market transportation industry, but the country as a whole is a LONG LONG way from that.

As for the increase in traffic, even the cities with road specific policy (Atlanta, Jacksonville, LA, etc) have horrid traffic, worse or as bad as Portland's. The fact is, you can't build out of the demand until you put a price on the product - i.e. the roadway. Right now most road users pay vastly less for roads than the minority of road users. With that funding schema it isn't reflective of real market demand because prices aren't associated with usage, aren't reflected in people's choices, and thus road usage has an infinite demand - especially in rush hour. Thus the problem is - being the Government management of roadways won't work to meet demand even under market situations, is that there is no way to truly build to demand unless the interstates, highways, and to some degree even local roads are privatized.

re: Street Smart by Roth and printed by Independant Institute is a great reference for these issues.

As for the literal increase in traffic caused by MAX, maybe that could be true if one where to stretch the influx of people who want to live and commute here because of the MAX. It's not a huge number of people, but it could lend credence to the argument that MAX increased congestion. The problem is that is a stretch, and most likely with all arguments in the hat MAX either decreased traffic or does nothing much to it.

As for Interstate Ave, it seems that the heavy traffic just went to other streets and the traffic on Interstate Ave flows rather well even during rush hour. But then of course, I haven't done a study on it...

As for such and such Guv'ment entity funding such and such roadway or light rail, that I've covered in a million other write ups. I doubt it will ever be as fair or balanced as it could or would be under a market based system. I'd suggest you propose the feds and states stop Guv'ment funding of roadways and let the market (and thus users) truly bear the real cost of such things. I honestly can say there would be room for all services (road, rail, and other) - and not just room for the services, but an outright NEED for those services - but unfortunately we don't have that equalizer.

Anyway, as always I love your retorts, makes me research even more things!