The Daily Bray 8/1/2025

99W Corridor Plan

Archive 4/18/2012

The elder, To the chosen lady and her children, whom I LOVE in the truth—and not I only, but also all who know the truth— 2 John 1:1

The Hwy 99W Corridor project is one of the most frightening and enslaving programs Portland’s Metro has ever undertaken. It is not only going to be a transportation and a restrictive nightmare for anyone left with a car, but it is built on nothing more than Global Warming hysteria which calls for planned housing. When you read their documents http://library.oregonmetro.gov/files//fta_aa_grant_app-southwest_corridor-071210.pdf the two things that stand out is the number of times they mention carbon reduction and how few times they mention roads. This is a truly statist style transportation and housing system that will reduce lifestyle choices to a very limited few.

There are two keys to this plan; the first is solving a 2050 transportation problem with 1850 technology. Rather than looking at the most efficient human transportation machine ever invented, the automobile and the anticipated evolutions over the next decade, they want to build slow moving, inflexible trains and the entire expensive and inefficient infrastructure that goes with it. A couple of the highlights of this human freight system are a train replacing cars along 99W so it can arrive at the station every 15 mins. Then to make it even more painful they want to rip out more roads to replace them with bicycle lanes in an environment that rains 8 months a year, is extremely hilly and spread out. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell that this plan is short on human friendliness and long on earth worship.

The second issue, which is less obvious but every bit as troublesome, is their overemphasis on condensed and cheap housing. They continued to talk about the amount of houses needed for the different ethnic groups as if they can centrally plan where every ethnic group is going to live and at what densities. The only solution which has any possibility of actually curing the problem is widening the roads and making them more accessible to cars. The wider roads on 99 and I-5 would solve most of their problems and allow people a healthier lifestyle as they moved away from the core and out into the countryside.

Metro spent unknown amounts of time trying to make trains viable in so many ways and never could make the case. They proved over and over without improving the roads the car was cheaper, faster and more flexible than the train or bus by beating the travel times of bus and train by over fifteen minutes without roadway improvements and unlimited bus and choo choo budgets. They even showed these time savings continuing over the next two decades. By the time the old rail technology begins catching up on travel time the car will have evolved into a hovercraft.

For those people in Tigard and Tualatin who are familiar with WES, the plan for the near term is to increase WES to an all-day train that will run every 15 mins. This sounds like it is going to happen and will begin that extended service in the next year or so. This means rather than having 5-6 riders every half hour they will have 2-3 riders every 15 mins while costing $60/mile traveled. We are really getting our money’s worth on that boondoggle. This will not only become more irritating to the people living and working along the route but will stop the freight hauling that is done during the day when WES of Money is running. The final idiocy the WES planners did was sign a 20-year contract with the Feds so they can’t even stop it to save money on their transportation money pit.

In the end this has almost nothing to do with transportation and everything to do with earth worship. As you read their studies and reports it is nothing more than one cult member writing a document telling the other parishioner how much more they worship the earth then the next. They spend all of their time telling the grantor how much Global Warming it will save and how good it will be for the environment like priests in a church. There will actually be more exhaust as the drivers who don’t have time or flexibility to take a train will be sitting in traffic-burned gas. The fact Global Warming is a fraud doesn’t enter the equation since these are all Global Warming worshipers on both sides of the funding bureaucracy who have no budget constraints. It is very clear from these documents that the researchers are far more concerned with Global Warming and the environment than they are with moving people or goods. These are fundamental Earth believers who will build these trains as proof of their commitment to their gods.

Reading their reports prove over and over these people have nothing to do with making transportation more efficient but want to protect the earth. As Conservatives we are Conservationists who protect the environment we just don’t worship it. With the expansive recent finds and likely future finds of oil and Natural Gas resources it is very likely the auto is going to become even more economical and efficient mode. This is the difference where we weigh all the issues economically, socially and conservational to make a decision that in the end is the most efficient economically. Theirs is a purely symbolic decision to show everybody how much they care about the environment and what good people they are. This usually leads to not only being the least efficient but like WES wastes gas by costing more per mile per passenger than driving a car and is more polluting. This doesn’t matter since it is only the symbolism that matters and symbolically protecting the earth counts in their book.

The taxpayers need to take matters into their own hands and put a stop to this excessive spending and control. They plan on having this 99W corridor decision early next year and then we will have to fight already signed contracts and plans which will be impossible to stop. This plan is a nightmare not only for transportation but land use planning and restrictions which will destroy the livability of this area. We need to fight and stop this with everything you have, if we don’t this wonderful section of town will begin looking like Beaverton and Gresham rail corridors and lose its natural charm. We are the young David against the mighty TRI-METRO and all we have a few petitions, courage and faith to fight the giant paper tiger. We have them right where we want them for an historic battle. Are you ready and willing to fight?

Pray for Oregon