| The increase in private vehicle usage
was particularly strong during the last year. From 1995 to 1996, annual
person miles traveled by private vehicle increased approximately 1.75
billion, to more than 15 billion annual person miles. By comparison, total
transit passenger miles were 272 million. The increase in private vehicle
use was more than 35 times the total light rail usage and more than six
times total transit usage.
Further, the
average route mile of the light rail system carries substantially fewer
person miles than either a freeway lane or a surface arterial lane (city
street).
Light rail carries an estimated 10,600 person miles daily per route mile.
The average Portland Freeway
Lane carries nearly five times as many person miles as Light Rail, at 54,700.
The average Portland surface arterial lane
carries more than twice as many person miles, at 21,300.
http://www.publicpurpose.com/ut-porhwy96.htm
|
Letter to
the Oregonian
Re: I-5 North Expansion
14 May 2001 - To the editor:
I note with interest that the
Bi-state Task Force alternatives
include light rail supposedly to
reduce traffic congestion.
What makes anyone think that
light rail can do in the Vancouver
corridor what it has failed to do in
the much more highly urbanized
east and west corridors already
operating?
Wendell Cox Principal, Wendell Cox
Consultancyhttp://www.publicpurpose.com/ut-por-i5.htm |
