quote: "By comparison to the byzantine Bay Area Portland has its act together."

Hardly.

About a decade ago the Hawthorne Bridge was rebuilt, and the bridge is designed to carry the weight of a LRV - when it was rebuilt, the plan was for the bridge to be used as a LRV alignment, just like the Steel Bridge is.

Thanks to the SoWhat development (which already has a Streetcar line), the powers that be (most of whom are in bed with various real estate developers) want to extend MAX as a second light rail line to SoWhat (because Streetcar meets the definition of Light Rail). So this second line, barely registering eight miles in length, will cost regional taxpayers nearly $1.5 billion dollars - fully one-half of that for a completely unnecessary bridge to serve SoWhat.

Using the Hawthorne Bridge would significantly reduce the overall project cost, eliminate a totally unnecessary light rail routing to serve SoWhat, and provide transit connections to the inner eastside.

Thanks to Metro's grandiouse planning, Portland has the worst bus system of all major metropolitan areas on the west coast, not to mention one of the most expensive to ride - because Metro and TriMet keep allocating more money to light rail. 65% of TriMet's passengers, however, ride the bus.

Portland has its act together, if you like more light rail. However, just as someone doesn't live, work and breathe all on one single street, light rail doesn't serve the total needs of most folks. Most folks need connections to other destinations. Imagine, if Portland had just one well paved street, and everything else was ungraded dirt roads.

That's TriMet.