Why the Portland Streetcar Loop is Broken
Over at VanPortlander there is an entry about the Portland Streetcar system being broken down toward the South Waterfront area. After a few discussions I found out what the deal is. The switch on the southern section of the loop is broken. The switch component needs shipped from Germany, and this is in process. Needless to say parts don't come overnight from the other side of the planet.
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I've fussed about the excessive costs that Portland has spent on the Streetcar System (2x as much as almost any other system, except Seattle's).
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I've fussed how economically unfeasible, with those costs, the Streetcar is as a real solution even as a catalyst for development (because eventually it needs real maintenance, and who is going to pay for that in 10-20 years?).
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I've gone on how the Street COULD BE an excellent alternative to major bus corridors and act as feeders to the light rail/high capacity heavy rail systems.
With all the money they've spent on this, you would THINK that these guys would have bought track and systems from someone in the US. If there is anything the US can do, it is lay and maintain tons of track. The US still beats every other country in the world in total track miles (120k+, even now with less than half of what we had 50-60 years ago (220k+ miles). It is insane that we are purchasing parts from some German Company when it could have been purchased here and maintained by a local entity! Couldn't BNSF or UP be paid to do this? There are also dozens of track maintainers and builders in the US, what are we doing waiting for a part from Germany when we could do it ourselves? Have the Unions pushed that out of the country too? I don't know, but this seems just another absurdity to add to the list of absurdities proferred by the Portland Streetcar System Management/Politicians!
Does anyone contest? Is there a substantial or good reason for this failure of service?
[Google Document]