CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY Using a hypothetical 100-passenger surface effect ship, travel times for five routes were estimated, and those estimates were then compared with travel times for buses. For example, a one-way trip from Vancouver to Portland on the bus required 61 minutes. The same trip by boat would require 72 minutes, or 12 minutes longer, according to Metro’s study. A ride from Rivergate Industrial Dictrict in North Portland to Milwaukie took 39 minutes by bus, 41 minutes by boat. Out of the five routes, only one was found to take longer by bus than by boat — the ride from Swan Island to Portland took 34 minutes by river and 47 minutes by road. Likewise, a ride on the same route from St. Johns to Portland required 41 minutes by boat and 43 by bus. Strike one. Next, the Metro study compared the operation costs of a river transit system, again using buses partson. The annual price for three surface effect ships, for comoperating including labor, fuel, maintenance and administration, was $1,864,000. An equivalent number of buses, six, would cost only half as much, $715,000. The major difference was in fuel. Surface effect ships drank up diesel fuel four times faster than buses. Another element of cost was the fare. It would cost, said Metro, $2 per ride to pay for the more expensive river system, compared to $1.25 for a bus. Assuming fares for both bus and boat were set at 75 cents, government subsidies would have to pick up one- third of the cost for bus transit, while subsidies would have to pick up two- thirds of the cost of river transit. Strike two. As far as ridership, Metro concluded that since the cost of river transit was more expensive and travel time generally longer, fewer people would utilize the river system. Strike three. As far as Metro was concerned, river transit was out. Those who support river transit are wary of Metro’s conclusions. They contend that Metro’s analysis was hardly even handed in its approach to "Here is a city with a unique and beautiful waterway running right down the middle o f town, and it isn't being used fo r anything but freight and pleasure boats. " the subject. “Metro’s study was a disaster,” says Rose. “ Their study compared the cost of buses to the cost of boats. What Metro can’t understand is that we wouldn’t be competing with buses, we’d be competing with automobiles. The idea is not to compete with the bus system, but to tie in with it, to enhance it.” Furthermore, Rose says, the Metro staff ignored the most valuable aspects of river transportation. There was no mention of the value of creating a system which does not disrupt land as do new or expanded roadways and light rail systems, nor could Metro attach a value to the aesthetics of waterborne transportation, the character it would give to the development of the city, the value to education, or tourism. Rose, as well as other critics, contend the engineers judged the mode of transportation more as a challenge to their nearly completed regional transportation plan than as a potentially advantageous addition. The transportation plan, which Metro has made one of its principal goals, is essentially an agreement among local governments that the transportation problems in Portland and from Portland to Vancouver can be solved by emphasizing the use of buses and carpooling with a little light rail thrown in for advancement’s sake. Currently, the plan is in its second draft and Metro is hopeful a final version will be adopted by the Metro Council by December. River transit is nowhere mentioned in the regional transportation plan. “ If there’s a cost-effective way to utilize waterborne transportation in Portland, if it is cheaper, easier and less fuel consuming than it is to use buss or light rail,” says Burton, “ I’d be ill for it. But it’ll have to come fron the private sector. All we’re say- inj is we don’t want to spend any more money on investigating it.” No One is Interested To the last one — city, county, port and transit company — transportation planners have stood behind Metro’s decision not to pursue river transit in Portland. “Generally speaking,” says Steve Matoff, director of service planning for Tri-Met, “ we’re going to have to put our money in proven, practical modes rather than something already found to be not very cost effective. There are so many needs all over the region.” Doug Wentworth, systems planning director for Tri-Met, echoes that feeling. “What scares us are the hidden costs, the start-up costs of a new mode, the cost of interfacing with the other modes,” he says. “ We’d need park-and-ride centers, ways to get from the bus to the boat and from the car to the boat. Riverfront property is not cheap.” Congressman Robert Duncan (D-Portland), an ardent supporter of river transit, is chairman of the transportation subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. So convinced was he that river transit would be successful in Portland, he secured the Surface Transportation Act of 1980, $10 million for a waterborne transportation demonstration project in Portland. “We have a 900- to 1,000-foot highway running down the middle of Portland,” says Duncan. “ There are no neighborhoods to displace, no easements to obtain, and we have vessels that ride on a cushion of air to transport people along it.” Duncan laments that he cbuld not convince local governments to explore river transit in greater detail, even with the $10 million just ready for the picking. He blames what he calls “ mass transit idealists” who worship a particular mode of transportation and are not tolerant of any other form. “ They see any other form as a challenge to their own,” Duncan says. “We’ve spent $20 billion on mass transit since the early ’60s and we haven’t been successful yet. I think it’s because we’re trying to squeeze people back into systems that have already reached their peak. The horse was replaced with the bus, and now the bus has been replaced with the automobile. Now we have to replace the automobile. We have to keep experimenting.” Rose would like to get his hands on that demonstration money, but this is not destined to b.e. A local jurisdiction must create an agency or department on river transit before the federal funds can be dispersed, and no one is offering to do so. Private corporations may not apply. “We’ve done the whole song and dance,” says Sam Anderson, Duncan’s assistant. “Metro didn’t want it, the Port of Portland didn’t want it, Tri-Met didn’t care; the only person interested in it was a mayor who won’t be mayor much longer. “All the city would have to do is set up a water transit office. It could hire a contractor to run the system. It could hire Rose. But no one has shown any real interest in it. They have so many other things going on. It’s too bad, because the project is going to be done someplace — on the Ohio or the Missouri or the Mississippi.” Exactly what Rose plans to do now is uncertain. There is some talk of attracting a private financier to the cause, but these days money is difficult to come by. And since there hasn’t been a form of mass transit developed to date that doesn’t require a government subsidy to operate, the success of a privately owned system would be doubtful. With a $10 million plum just out of reach, with everyone except a lameduck mayor and congressmen against even exploring the subject further, Ken Rose is undaunted and optimistic. “ We are being beaten down by the system,” he says. “We have been beaten down before and probably will be beaten down again. But river transit is a community cause. I go to neighborhood groups and they support me. This time the community will win. How can residents of Portland, the most livable city in the country, soar like eagles when they are dealing with a bunch of turkeys?” Ed Blatter is the editor o f the St. Johns Review. YOUR SEWING CIRCLE Homeof the DOLLARTIE andother GREAT DEALS! THE SEWING CIRCLE 1034 SW 3RD 227-7985 HERBS-SPICES—FRUIT Open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wholesale Monday - Saturday Retail 1026 S.W. Stark — Portland — 224-6797 6
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