Jane

Two things. First, we are using "peak oil" as a mantra to spend 100's of millions of dollars on a particular transportation solution when there is significant disagreement about the peak oil argument. Peak oil *may* be true, but what if it is not? What is we develop new oil sources, and then transition to electric and fuel cells? Will Portland be ready?

Second, Sam often employs a Rockewellian vision of Portland in the 1920s, with a web of streetcars. It's an attractive vision, except that we have experienced nearly a century of economic, political, and social change since the 1920s. Why would we believe that a transportation model that worked for the 1920s America will work today?

I'm not saying it won't, but it is going to take a lot more than rose colored visions of the 1920s to convince me.