Hey TriMet! Should Max cars be billboards?

Webtrends, the on-line survey outfit, has caused quite a stir in Pedaltown by posting provocative signs on Max trains reading “Should Cyclists Pay a Road Tax?”

Wrong question.

How about: “Should tax-subsidized MAX trains be used as billboards?”?

If you want to play Webtrends' little game, which is to show the effectiveness of asking in-your-face questions, you can go to the Webtrends site and tell them what you think. The questionnaire asks for comments. I can think of a few. . . .

Descending Washington Park

Rambled this November afternoon in Washington Park.

Wound down Wildwood Trail (leaf-strewn, color-splashed wild woods — indeed).

Japanese Garden.

Low, late autumn sun casts shadows across stone garden paths. Volunteers prepare exhibit of woven bamboo in the Tea House. One shuts the door. “Sorry. Come back tomorrow.”

Descend through the International Rose Test Garden of a few, faded, still fragrant roses. Pass a plodding, earnest Great Dane puppy. Full-grown, immense feet. “Five-months-old,” says the owner. "Come back tomorrow," I think.

Happen on, visit and linger in the dark, immense agony of the Oregon Holocaust Memorial. Cautionary epic tragedic history etched on its black granite slabs.

Down, down past an idle BMW dealership to Goose Hollow.

Catch the MAX train on the verge of its plunge into the mountain. It rumbles through blackness. Commuters read mysteries in the dark.

Zoo Station. Up the elevator with three smart-assed, foul-mouthed teens. Mercifully brief ascent. Back to the trailhead lot and my waiting car. Home.

The gift of Red Electric history

I’ve just been given a remarkable document describing The Red Electric in detail.

No, I don’t mean this blog but its namesake, the distinctive interurban train that stopped here in Hillsdale for 15 years in the early part of the 20th Century.

The gift is a special issue of “Interurbans” magazine dated Nov. 1949. Nearly the entire issue is devoted to The Red Electrics. The magazine, published in Los Angeles, called itself “The National Electric Railway News Digest.” The special cover price was $1, which was a fair amount in those days. "Interurbans" normally sold for 50 cents.

I came by this yellowed and worn copy via friend and neighbor Ruth Adkins, who passed it on from her mom, Jane Willsea. Jane, who bought it at a Terwilliger Plaza discarded library items sale, was kind enough to give it to me, but it really belongs in a museum. That’s where I will see that it goes when I’ve thoroughly studied its contents. I’ve already scanned most of its pages, which I will post here in the future.

(By the way, if you click on these images, they will be enlarged, and you can see the detail and read the text.)

The issue is a trove of information. As I explore it, I’ll share my findings.

For now, here’s a brief outline of what is in this 24-page. 8.25 inch by 10.75 inch, special “Interurbans” issue. The first 17 pages are devoted to the Red Electrics, which were run by the Southern Pacific Lines. Passenger service lasted from January 1914 to July 1929. The issue carries numerous photographs plus route maps, technical drawings of the trains and timetables.

After a brief forward, it is organized into chronologically ordered sections on “background,” “construction,” “operation,” “abandonment,” and “disposition” of the trains. A separate article deals with the horrendous head-on collision that took place in Hillsdale near what is now the old Raz bus garage on Berth Boulevard, which at the time was the Red Electric’s rail bed.

In an early issue of The Connection, I wrote about the collision using newspaper accounts. The Interurbans article adds much more detail, so I plan to revisit the story using this textured new source as well as my old story. Six of the 92 passengers on board the two trains died, as did three of the 10 railroad crew members.

Another remarkable aspect of the Red Electric story — and that of all the interurbans throughout the country — is their demise, and, in light of MAX and other light rails, their resurrection. The issue blames the fall of the interurbans on the rise of the automobile. More recent histories (vis. the documentary “Taken for a Ride”) have blamed it on the coercion and collusion of the automobile and oil industries.

But for now, all of that will wait for future posts.

Thanks Ruth and Jane for bringing this wonderful document to light.

MAX "Springboard" to Barbur as a linear Pearl?

All that shifting of bus routes to make way for north/south MAX line construction through downtown can be seen as a potential opening for a MAX line down Barbur Boulevard.

In answer to a letter from Wilson High School Senior Daniel Ronan, Phil Selinger, TriMet's project planning director, wrote that the new line between Union Station and PSU will "provide a good 'springboard'" for a Barbur Corridor/South line.

The letter is also evidence that the public needs to have more say in TriMet's planning for such a line.

While the Regional Transportation Plan calls for "High Capacity Transit" near or on Barbur, no formal study has been made for it as part of an anticipated south line, writes Selinger.

He agrees with Daniel that the Barbur corridor is "a good candidate for MAX." The planner even makes passing reference to the old Red Electric rail right-of-way. But he also lists problems such as accommodating two tracks "without taking away existing roadway."

But isn't the idea behind MAX to get people out of their cars so that there is less demand for "existing roadway?"

Selinger also writes that steep embankments are another problem. Strange, they sure weren't an insurmountable problem for the hearty souls who built the Red Electric, or I-5 for that matter.

Selinger says a south line could "reach as far as the Tualatin River, south of King City." That's fine, except it wouldn't provide service to PCC's flagship Sylvania campus. A real oversight.

The south line also would connect to the Washington County Commuter Rail line presently under construction, he says. That would make the Barbur corridor a major feeder for commuters from places like Wilsonville. Sounds like commercial boon for the boulevard.

Another issue cited by Selinger is "sufficient housing and employment density." In other words, more projects like the new "Headwaters" development.

Put all this together and it's not hard to envision Barbur as a kind of Linear Pearl.

Now there's a sobering thought.

The photo shows the next iteration of MAX, the Siemens S70, set to go into service in 2009 on the new Southeast line along the I-205 corridor.