Willamette Shore Line: What do citizens want?

Council member, Jeff Gudman has bee championing the idea of making the Willamette Shore Trolly line into a bike and pedestrian path for quite a while, and the Council made investigation into the practicality of doing so one of their goals for 2015.  Gudman has been on a mission ever since.

In a perfect world, a bike/ped path along the river is a great plan.  There are a few logistical, geological, legal and financial problems though, along with public support for building and paying for a path.

• Trimet is looking for "direction and resources."   We're tapped.  Where is the money and demand coming from?
• How many bike users or walkers would actually use the path?  If this was a toll path - how much would it cost each user to pay for it?
• The Elk Rock tunnel is an engineering dilemma for its stability during an earthquake, and a security risk for users the rest of the time.  
• Property owners abutting the right of way might object to people cycling or walking by their homes, 24/7.  Homeowners on the Springwater Trail know don't like it.
• The streetcar was not a widly popular plan for the trolley line.  Without solid majority public support, any plan is a no-go.  But the politicians already know that.
• Then there is that old bugaboo, citizen involvement.  When do citizens get a chance to weigh in on this land use /transportation plan, or the original streetcar plan for that matter?  Before or after all the planning is done? Or is this just a "big boys' and girls'" game and we are just the paying spectators?  
• Why is Lake Oswego taking the lead on this plan?  Does this include the lead investment also?  Who has the most to gain from this plan?

In short, what are Jeff Gudman's and the Council's goals for the trolley track?  Let's find out now, before the train, uh, bikes, get too far down the rails.  Let's also demand a voice in how our city looks in the future, and not just through controlled open houses for the well-connected. 

TriMet offers qualified support for Portland-Lake Oswego bike path
The Oregonian, April 6, 2015  Editorial

Back in 1988, a consortium of seven government entities bought the right of way formerly plied by the Willamette Shore Trolley with the intention of preserving it for future rail use. A proposal to run the Portland Streetcar along the route collapsed in 2012, but the hope remains. 

Gudman is on a crusade of sorts to make better use of the right of way. This year, he urged his fellow councilors successfully to include the development of a multiuse path among the city's goals, and he's sought support among local government officials and consortium members, which include, among @others, TriMet, Lake Oswego, Portland and Metro. The idea, Gudman says, is to move carefully by stages, identifying complications and costs and regularly gauging the interest of those involved in continuing.

The next step for Gudman and Lake Oswego: Convince consortium members to provide, in McFarlane's words, "direction and resources" to TriMet, the group's property management representative, to dive into what is likely to be a tangled property-rights thicket. 

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While the current talk about a bike path continues, it is worthwhile to look back just 4 short years to the streetcar controversy to see why the public is not on board with the editorial's statement, that despite a collapse in plans for the Portland Streetcar along the trolley route, "hope remains."  That hope is held by downtown and Foothills property owners, developers, and pro-development city bureaucrats rather than by the general public who would be picking up the tab for the others' financial gain.

Plan to build $458 million Portland to Lake Oswego streetcar raises questions
The Oregonian, March 26, 2011 By Brad Schmidt

"The streetcar is really a means to an end," said Brant Williams, Lake Oswego's director of economic and capital development. "The end is really what our downtown and Foothills area will look like."

Critics also question the project's close ties to redeveloping Lake Oswego's 107-acre Foothills District, at the end of the proposed line.

According to a predevelopment agreement with Lake Oswego, Portland company Williams/Dame & White -- Homer Williams' company -- can walk away if streetcar planning doesn't move forward. Williams' notable projects in the Pearl District and South Waterfront also feature streetcar access.

"Without the streetcar, the project becomes very unviable from a financial standpoint," said Matt Brown, a development manager for the company.

"It is unconscionable to be spending public dollars on this project that makes no economic sense, that serves so few people, and is basically putting money into the pockets of Homer Williams and his firm, the Obletz firm, and making a name for a few public officials," said Dunthorpe resident Elizabeth English, whose property abuts the right of way.