Letter: Light rail won’t solve problems

Opinion Editor Greg Jayne’s March 11 column was right on target — citizens rejected light rail because it won’t solve congestion problems.

Only 1,500 people use C-Tran’s express bus service to Portland. It’s faster than light rail, even in current traffic. At almost $200 million per mile, MAX serves few people at significant cost.

John Charles of the Cascade Policy Institute reports that TriMet’s mass transit serves 2.4 percent of commuters; ridership has been flat for decades. C-Tran ridership is down from its 2011 peak.

When Interstate 205’s Glenn Jackson Bridge opened in 1982, 110,000 vehicles crossed the Columbia River on an average day. Today, there are 300,000. A new transportation corridor provided needed congestion relief back then. But refusing to build new vehicle capacity and new transportation corridors for three decades has caused our problems.

The Interstate 5 Bridge was “at capacity” with 100,000 vehicles when we built I-205. It’s easy to see that we need a third bridge, with 300,000 daily crossings now, and a fourth bridge in the near future.

At $500,000, buses can affordably serve mass-transit needs. Light rail is just too expensive at $200 million per mile. As Jayne says, it doesn’t go where people need to go. The $4 billion would have been better spent on roads and bridges and buses.