Gettin’ Trammy With It
Want to ride the PHART? Despite the fact the plan approved by the city council called for $1.70 tickets and TriMet passes to be valid fare, the reality is we’re now looking at $4 tickets and TriMet fare is no longer valid. There’s one slight ray of hope, however: you can ride for free on opening weekend (January 27th/28th). The catch? You have to make a reservation. Call 503-418-TRAM to claim your spot. Here’s hoping we don’t have any weather, since a gusty wind will shut it down…
i’ve paid absolutely zero attention to the tram– it’s not really called the phart, is it? holy jeebus, what’s that smell?
see, now, i could’ve saved myself some d’oh! time if i’d just clicked over to b!x’s site. oh, well.
> holy jeebus, what’s that smell?
THE SMELL OF MANY TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF OUR DOLLARS BEING PILED UP IN A HUGE PYRAMID AND SET AFIRE.
You heard about the 86% increased BUDGET for tram operation costs — above the previous projections.
Yes, I think PHART is an excellent name and I bloody well hope it sticks!
well, technically unless “us” is OHSU, the tram does not cost portlanders tens of millions of dollars, but 15% of 55 million.
I look forward to going on a tram ride…
I am a little troubled about the bait and switch maneuver that doesn’t honor the original ride cost or tri-met affiliation… I’d like to know more about the reasoning behind that (obviously money, but what fell short about their original projections?)
Anybody know any details?
The details are that the original cost projections were concocted with hip-waders and a shovel, probably knowingly, and those who said “eew” and held their noses back then were ridiculed as backward, nay-saying nincompoops.
The important thing is to write the Council and Oregonian, and be careful in doing so to call the increase “inexplicable”. Then next Council election, vote for someone who promises to hold the public purse strings as if it was their own retirement money, rather than the play money PDC and Homer Williams, et al., think it is.
Again, I’ll re-post my previous post. The responder was incredibly near-sighted…
> holy jeebus, what’s that smell?
THE SMELL OF MANY TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF OUR DOLLARS BEING PILED UP IN A HUGE PYRAMID AND SET AFIRE.
(snip)
Who in the heck do you think funds OHSU? The state of Oregon. Who funds the State of Oregon? Who funds Multnomah County? Who funds the City of Portland? Who funds the federal government?
US…my friend…US. Unless you can guarantee me that my tax dollars are only going to non-tram-related programs…
gerry,
i didn’t realize that somehow you, or any of us, get a line item veto over what OHSU can do with its money.
either way, its not particularly helpful to look at the costs alone and claim that “we” are paying for it.
its way more complex then that, you give the impression that the city of portland is coming around and draggin’ a couple hundred bucks out of everyone’s pocket for the tram.
that just not how it works. there are possible scenarios where the development spurred by the tram pays beyond what it cost to build and operate it. in that sense, “we” don’t pay a cent over what we usually pay in taxes.
I thought OHSU was private not publicly subsidized. It thought that changed a few years back.
“We” do in fact pay all of it, in one way or other.
OHSU was converted to a “quasi-governmental” agency. All this means is that like the SoWat urban renewal district, it gets to retain funds that other units of the Oregon higher education system, say PSU, for instance, would have to share back to the state. It is still obligated to operate in the public interest and is at least nominally accountable to the State in that regard. To say that its budget doesn’t represent public dollars is silly.
The other pernicious myth is that tax increment set-asides for urban renewal districts are some kind of free money. In fact they represent dollars sucked out of services for the rest of the city. It looks like we are closing a police precinct in North Portland to cover SoWat services, for instance.
i dont think anyone argues that TIF, urban renewal districts, is free money, but money well invested. for example, the city gets around 10k per year per unit on some of those condo buildings. all from a former brown zone.
what is certainly not true is that “we are closing a police precinct in north portland to cover SoWat services”. not only is that station not closing, there is no direct. correlation between the two in terms of budgeting.
anyway, i think the most constructive way to look at the tram is a matter of determining if its a good investment or not. tram opponents are very good at presenting costs, but very bad at presenting benefits.