Portland is a PR machine for light rail & streetcar

Here are Some Facts About Portland Oregon          

“It must always be remembered how cost-effectiveness works in the public sector: the cost IS the benefit.” - author unknown

Transit Can’t Reach Most Jobs in an hour commute!

A 2011 report by the Brookings Institute studied transit in our 100 largest cities and found that transit can only get people to 30 percent of the jobs in 90 minutes.  Further only 25% of low and middle-skill jobs are reachable within 90 minutes.

For comparison the average automobile commute is  25.2 minutes

Here is the data for the Portland region from  Appendix 5:

Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA

7.85 percent of jobs are reachable in 45 minutes

16.9 percent of jobs are reachable in 60 minutes   

39.9 percent of jobs are reachable in 90 minutes

For comparison the average automobile commute in Portland is 22.4 minutes

Data from https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/0512_jobs_transit.pdf

Part of Brooking’s description of the methodology (from page 5 of 64):

A specialized GIS extension called Traffic Analyst was used to create a model that analyzes travel

time via transit between each census block group (origin) and every census tract (destination) within

each of the 100 largest metro areas. The model uses population-weighted mean centroids (developed

using Census 2000 block population data) as the origin point for each trip, and standard geographic

centroids for the tract destinations. Note that the origin points are limited to only those neighborhoods that have a transit stop within a 3/4 mile radius of their population-weighted centroid.29

The model analyzes the morning commute—between 6 AM and 9 AM—on a Monday morning, when

transit is typically much more frequent than on weekend days.30 It assumes a traveler departs from

the origin every five minutes (using random times within each interval), and combines the results of

these 36 trips to create an average travel time to each destination. The model accounts for walking

times and speeds (from the origin to the transit stop, between transit stops when transferring, and

between the final transit stop and the destination centroid) as well as in-vehicle time. All transit systems within a metro area are treated as one network, allowing seamless switching between systems.

 (Bold added. The stray numbers are references that appear in the original))