Does Portland's Transit System Only Serve Those In Power?

12 September 2007 - 9:00am

This column from The Portland Tribune chews out the city's "light-rail mafia" and claims that the only people benefiting from Portland's elaborate transit plans are the power players making the decisions and their developer friends.

"When you get right down to it, just who do all these expensive light-rail lines, aerial trams, high-rise condo developments and proposed convention-center hotels really benefit?"

"If you want to know the answer to that, as good of a place as any to start is a new book by local antiplanning guru Randal O’Toole called 'The Best-Laid Plans.'”

"As O’Toole sees it, the whole planning process has been taken over by a 'light-rail mafia' – which has managed 'to direct rail construction contracts and urban-renewal subsidies to themselves.'”

Source: The Portland Tribune, September 11, 2007
Bookmark and Share
Even if the report overestimates the costs by a factor of two and underestimates the tax-benefit by a similar amount, the conclusion would be pretty much the same: destination resorts cost local government and taxpayers money.