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Portland, OR Seeking Input On A Proposed Streetcar System

doady said:
Funny how streetcars and LRT attract so much development and increase density so much yet Portland has half the amount of complete high-rises Mississauga does and half the high-rises under construction.
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The streetcar-oriented development in Portland is going nearly as high as the zoning allows. Density does not require high-rises; moreover, liveable cities are better served by a more even distribution of building height -- and cities like Portland and San Francisco understand this.

Portland is a liveable city, while Mississauga is a few condo towers in the midst of single family home suburbia.
 
Yet Mississauga is still denser than Portland.
 
Whoaccio said:
Yet Mississauga is still denser than Portland.
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A very high-density postage stamp plus a sea of low-density sprawl does not a city make. Doubling the height of the existing condo towers in Mississauga would increase the overall density while doing nothing to make it a city and doing nothing to increase the median density.
 
Honestly. What do repeated mentions of suburbs of large cities have to do with the utility of transit infrastructure for Portland?
 
Whoaccio said:
Yet Mississauga is still denser than Portland.
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adma said:
Parisian banlieue are denser than Portland.
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Yet Siu Sai Wan, one of the smallest and newest suburbs of Hong Kong and one of the few to not have rail service, has more highrise than almost anywhere in Toronto and is denser than every neighbourhood here. Subway must be useless to spur urban development and we must have failed as a city, right?
 
mpd618 said:
Honestly. What do repeated mentions of suburbs of large cities have to do with the utility of transit infrastructure for Portland?
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Exactly my point. Just because it worked in one place (which is debatable), doesn't mean it will work elsewhere. You can't make broad, sweeping generalizations about the utility of streetcars from this.

You shouldn't make generalizations of enitre cities either. Portland a "livable city"? Mississauga is just "a few condo towers" surrounded by single-family housing? Is this really an accurate description of Mississauga? Mississauga has very diverse neighbourhoods, and I'm sure Portland does too.
 
Hipster Duck said:
I really think that streetcars bring out an Evangelical Christian-like fervour among certain transit nerds. Basically, streetcars take on shades of Christ because they were both killed by a group of conspirators only to be resurrected in the hearts and minds of followers.
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Thank you.

That gave me the biggest laugh of the day - not only because it's funny, but because it's true.
 
one dollar a ride!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! damn... I wish we were getting more routes then simply new trains... How about a adelaide route or a richmound route or a wellington route or a front street route.. OR a DUFFERIN route!! Dufferen because busses simply arent enough. We havent had north south street cars because of the steep inclines on some of our streets but the new trains can make the hills. I wish street cars were expanding. In the second video you can see curb side street cars. Another idea that should be looked at for future routes. Id rather get on the street car off the sidewalk then in the middle of the road.
 
sixrings said:
one dollar a ride!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! damn... I wish we were getting more routes then simply new trains... How about a adelaide route or a richmound route or a wellington route or a front street route.. OR a DUFFERIN route!! Dufferen because busses simply arent enough. We havent had north south street cars because of the steep inclines on some of our streets but the new trains can make the hills. I wish street cars were expanding. In the second video you can see curb side street cars. Another idea that should be looked at for future routes. Id rather get on the street car off the sidewalk then in the middle of the road.
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After doing a tour of Europe, today LRT's vehicles will have no issue climbing Dufferin and Bathurst hills at all. In Zurich we were doing 25-30km/h climbing the hills there and doing up to 40km downhill. These were steeper than Toronto ones, as well being 5-10 times longer. This was on both new and old vehicles. There is a video up on my site showing one of the runs for the whole route coming downhill.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUZWCtXjkvk

I have push curb lanes transits including streetcars as there is an already platform in place, as well not forcing riders out into traffic.

A number of cities do this and say hell to cars parking on the street by giving that lane 100% to transit.
 
Ive been looking to see some images of the TTC LRT vs the new TTC streetcars. What is the size comparison and how many people can fit on each type. I think we understand the cost of subway construction to be roughly 300millions per km. Lrt somewhere between 60-80 million a KM... How much does it cost to build ROW streetcar per KM and how much per KM for reg street car? It seems there isnt even a Streetcar consideration in the suburbs at all. I wouldnt necessarily want downtown stop spacing but the vehicle and the comfort of a downtown streetcar on a suburban road would be nice. Dufferin and Bathurst both which are too narrow for a complete ROW could have certain sections ROW while the rest in mixed traffic. Sure the new longer busses will help but dufferin is a mess and if bathurst keeps seeing redevelopment at major intersections such as whats happening at St clair and what will happen at Eglinton and possibly lawrence then there will be an increase on that route as well. Anyways Im happy we are getting new trains but I wish we were also getting some more routes.
 
sixrings said:
one dollar a ride!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! damn... I wish we were getting more routes then simply new trains... How about a adelaide route or a richmound route or a wellington route or a front street route.. OR a DUFFERIN route!! Dufferen because busses simply arent enough. We havent had north south street cars because of the steep inclines on some of our streets but the new trains can make the hills. I wish street cars were expanding. In the second video you can see curb side street cars. Another idea that should be looked at for future routes. Id rather get on the street car off the sidewalk then in the middle of the road.
Click to expand...

Don't forget that the Portland (and other cities in North America) get a much larger subsidy than the TTC does.
 
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