A Portland task force has been working to create options to single-occupancy vehicles on the city's peninsula. Would you favor:

If the goal is to drive business out of downtown and into the outskirts, this proposal can achieve it. If the goal of this proposal is to hurt intown residents in their pocketbook this plan achieves it. If the goal is to raise revenue for the city, this plan achieves it. If the goal is to increase emissions of automobiles (increased idle time) this plan achieves it. If the goal is to burn more fuel per mile, this proposal is right on the money.

A better plan would be to beef up and increase mass transit services for the existing bus lines. Bring a subset of the Go_Maine van pool into the city as a low fare alternative to cabs. Re-install the trolley tracks that were fairly recently ripped up and offer a trolley service along the waterfront.

The proposal as outlined will create a scenario where Portland will become like NYC or Boston... Big traffic jams, big pollution, and frustrated drivers. Those cities had similar problems and even with their enhanced mass transit those problems remain. Why would we remotely consider going down the same road and intentionally build a traffic management system that is less efficient?

How about we make Portland more friendly to cars by eliminating the intentionally pedestrian friendly stoplights so drivers can waste less gasoline? How about encouraging an in-town park and ride program? How about an electric golf cart type of area around the old port district (we still need parking)?

The group of bean counters should start looking at the soft dollars of Maine citizens going up in smoke and worry less about their personal agenda as this proposal sounds more like a special interest group mission statement than it does a solution for our largest city.

My very first public policy study after leaving grad. school was doing the background research in major cities on why they aren't adapting mass transit alternatives as part of a very distinguished team of mass transit experts, led by Fred Burke who spent well over a decade as the architect of the Urban Mass Transit Act.

Not only did I get a 'free' education on the in's and out's of mass transit alternatives; but a lesson on how extremely difficult it is for people to give up their cars---for example, people select cars which maximize their personal security in traffic, and prefer to drive than be exposed to various street hazards...very few people are going to ride a bike in traffic; some will take public transit but only if their safety is absolutely assured! The convenience of a car is an overriding factor.

It sounds that the intent of this survey is to force people to car pool or use alternative transportation. This is very difficult to do since it requires a thorough knowledge of 'to-from' trips, even the state of Maine and BIW have only limited success at car and van pooling, since people tend to live far from the workplace...the result to congestion is staggered work hours; making coordination even more difficult.

Good luck with restricting parking or making it more expensive; you'll wind up with more scofflaws than you can prosecute.

The ultimate goal is to create workplace/residential communities where people can walk, bike, van pool or uses buses from home to work. Someone who works on Commercial street can easily live in Windham because they have lakefront.

There are numerous examples. The closed meat packing plant had many people who lived in the neighborhood and walked in; MAINE MED could evolve into this kind of extended community of walkers with some minor design changes and installation of lifts to take people up the hill during commuting hours.

Smaller EURO Cars...drop all taxes, give them free parking spaces---tag their cars if they qualify, and redesign the streets so they are safe for small cars...arrest bikes and others who break lights and run stop signs.

Sprague's railroad could be a people circulator--disneyworld, Seattle, etc. scrap the tourist train and do a monorail which could even use the old RR line and go into Falmouth; with a funicular which moved people to the top of the
promenade; ditto for Maine med.

The OLD ideas barely expressed in this survey is a big part of the problem; understanding the to/from patterns in Portland is a beginning, traveling to similar cities to see how they work and move people to and from workplace and residence is even more important...in case you need someone to travel to a few similar cities and observe 'solutions' that are worth seriously considering, you have my email addy.

The goal of this study was to find ways to discourage people from bringing cars into Intown Portland. On that limited scale, to the exclusion of all other factors, this would then be a "viable" action plan.

But it doesn't take $75,000 and three years of study to conclude if you make it so oppressive for people to drive into Portland, they won't. Anybody can come up with that solution over coffee, and all it'd cost is maybe $4 for coffee.

So this would "work", at least as far as the stated goal, but at what cost? Driving business out of Intown Portland to office parks ringing the city where people are encouraged to bring their cars and park? Moving shops and restaurants out of Intown and out to the Maine Mall and countless strip malls because customers can't reasonably get into town to shop?

Puh-LEEZE!

So this plan meets its previously stated goal in that it absolutely discourages people to drive into and around Intown Portland -- at the exclusion of continued commerce, Intown residents, public access to downtown resources and area employment.

That kinda sets aside the "sustainable" part of this so-called Sustainable Transportation Action Plan. Unless you're addressing it in double-speak terms, I guess.

If Kevin Donoghue wants to ride his bike around town, let him. If he wants to be able to do it by driving out Intown residents, businesses, shops and restaurants because he believes nobody should/can be able to drive a car in Portland anymore, he should go out in the sticks and buy a private place he can turn into his own utopia. Or shove this Action Plan where the sun doesn't shine.

Oh, that's right ... he'd rather establish his utopia at all OUR expense instead.

So let's set aside all this bogus, oppressive "planning" to destroy Portland by turning it into a bike park and come up with some constructive suggestions for making making Portland more habitable and reducing Intown Portland car traffic.

1) Improve Portland Bus Transportation

a) Offer Significantly Reduced Prices for Monthly Bus Passes to Intown Portland Residents and Workers.
Currently, monthly bus passes are priced at the equivalent of 30 adult trips, or the equivalent of three work weeks of to/from work travel. Reduce workday traffic by dropping that rate to the equivalent of 20 trips, or two work weeks of travel to/from work, alleviating the need for Portland/SouthPortland/Falmouth residents to drive Intown, and for Intown residents to drive out to their Portland/South Portland/Falmouth jobs.

b) Use Larger Buses for Busy Routes/Peak Commuting Periods.
I do use the bus to travel around town as I can. The smaller blue-and-white buses are packed, standing room only, throughout morning and evening rush hours. Longer routes -- the South Portland/Maine Mall #5 bus and the Westbrook/Brighton Avenue #4 bus, to name two -- those smaller buses are packed most anytime during the day. Use the older, larger buses during peak periods and on the longer routes so there's enough room for everybody.

c) Establish Feeder Routes to the Larger Main Routes.
METRO could make money NOW by soliciting money from business along the Allen Ave. Route from Forest Avenue to Main Street/Westbrook, the Riverside Industrial Park and the outlying Outer Congress Street/Westbrook Office Park area by establishing commuter/feeder routes to reach those areas between 6-9 am, noon-1 pm and 3-6 pm. This wouold be a great use for those smaller buses relieved of main line duties.

2) Improve Regional Bus Transportation.
If I have to spend $50 or more a week to drive in from Gorham/Buxton, Freeport/Durham, Gray, Lewiston/Auburn or Kennebunk to drive to work in Portland, I'm not going to be interested in parking a mile away and taking a feeder bus to the office or store. But if I can leave my car in a secure commuter lot close to home and SAVE that $50 a week, I'd be more than willing to spend half that on commuting by bus to the office.

That's Positive Results!

I'm really excited to see this plan, and I can't wait to see if any of it makes it to reality! I live in the Brunswick area and work at Unum, out by the jetport. If there were bus or train service from Brunswick to Portland, and bus or trolley service to get me from there to my office, I'd be on it in a flash! Many other professionals would as well.

I've tried taking the bus around Portland, but the busses are too infrequent and too indirect. Last time I tried taking a bus downtown, I had to walk 1/4 mile to a bus stop, ride around for close to 45 minutes to get to my Congress St stop, and walk a few blocks to get where I was going. But to get back to my office I had to walk to the main bus terminal on the other side of the hill, because that was the only place where I could catch a bus back out to the jetport area. All told I spent more than 1 1/2 hours getting back and forth when I could have made the round trip in 15 minutes by car. I think THAT is what keeps people off the busses in Portland!

I know a lot of people here who drive to train stations outside Boston or New York, catch a train into the city and use mass transit for their stay. I think they'd use mass transit in Portland too, if it were convenient. Start with trolleys and more busses around Portland, as outlined in this plan, and a campaign to get people on them. But make them frequent and plan the lines to follow where people are driving now.

Then how about a plan to start trolley or light passenger rail lines out to Brunswick/Freeport/Yarmouth/Falmouth, Scarborough/Biddeford/Saco, Gorham/Westbrook, Windham/Westbrook, SoPo/Cape Elizabeth that connect to Portland?

The problem with the train from Brunswick to Portland is it truly does not resolve the issue. If I consider the NYC model, where many residents do not own vehicles, the streets are still completely full of automobile and light truck traffic. The one difference is that for residents the subway, cab, or bus options actually work efficiently most of the time (just don't try an hail a cab at the Javitts center at 4:30pm).

Plus, many commuters can take the train into the city from a high population suburb. Maine does not have the population density to support the investment. It is just a fact that doesn't require a well funded study to figure out the math. When I commute to Portland I often need to bring larger parcels with me that simply cannot be carried on public transportation and then carried by me manually to my destination. The result of this plan is I would simply have to raise prices for my Portland clients to cover increased fees and increased inefficiency.

I admire the intent and I know that cultures can change when required, but the method of this plan is to implement behavioral changes before implementing solutions. The cart is before the horse on this one and if anyone thinks the majority of people want to pay more for anything than they may as well be back in the 1970s.

BTW: Doesn't Portland expect residents to shovel their own walks in wintertime? That would be a very large can of worms if the city expects residents to shovel public walks for free yet pay to park in front of their homes.

Commuting from Brunswick/freeport/yarmouth/ falmouth to Portland is very doable when you use the air space in the I 295 corridor R.O.W to run lite rail or monorail.

The 'to-from' trips are wedded to this corridor, i.e. that's where all the workplaces are 'plugged into' and and most shopping zones; so you are stuck with maximizing it. It is easier to get people to park n' ride a lite rail car to their destination that getting them to abandon the car and take mass transit convenience which goes out of their accustomed route. There are some old street car routes which could used as spurs to a lite rail backbone.

If government wants to get forceful; FORCE the Maine Turnpike Commission to pay for a twin track monorail in the middle of the pike...put the rails where the cars are and you'll fill the cars.

Buses are nice, but jittneys, i.e. smaller vanlike vehicles are better allowing shorter trips and better pickup times.

I don't think the people who are doing the 'fantasizing'...no planning data is backing up these recommendations that I've seen...for example we will go to Whole foods to shop and perhaps a movie in the OLD Port and dinner somewhere. That's our 'trip'. and then there are all the others, eventually patterns emerge upon which mass transit at its fundamental level emerges.

I've analyzed bus ridership patterns...you want to really find out who is going where, talk to a bus dispatcher.

What I found out in St. Louis was that working class Black and Hispanic workers packed buses to and from the defense plants, and the income was used to buy and run largely empty buses to white suburbs. That's liberal politics at its worse.

Best of all, the street car lines which ushered in the age of electricity in the Greater St. Louis SMSA---electric generating plants were built in outlying towns and used to power the street cars in and out of St. LOuis; were built on the original Indian trails to and from the river. We still would find track bed in back yards perfectly located for a lite rail line!

My ideal concept for Portland is to retain the North to South generalized flow of traffic as a replacement for the earlier waterfront to the outskirts flow.

This way some one could drive in on I 295 or commercial Street or congress, i.e. as the 'spine' in a new system; park and then use a people mover to go to their destination. Mass transit corridors could be carved out to get downtown residents in and out of the city and from Prom to Prom or beyond.

Now that takes a bit of planning and analysis of traffic patterns.

Tourist traffic management, and weekend recreational traffic management is an interesting subset to contemplate.....Tour boat people walk..but not that far; Islanders have fairly predictable travel patterns; and weekends are events, clubs, entertainment.

As a bike rider, I find them a pain in the ass when unregulated. While careful, I always run stop signs and some lights, ride on sidewalks, and depending on the traffic patterns mostly with traffic, but if I'm doing a left turn I'll cross over and ride against traffic before making the left turn...I adapted most of these riding habits in Washington, D.C. which is exceptionally dangerous to ride in traffic...bike pathes, hah! Talk about a commuter rush, do it on a bike.

Before you sign on to the bike hysteria; spend a weekend in Montreal---one of the world's great cities and observe the intensity of the bike traffic and how this city accomodates them; and drivers react to them.

Do a bit of research into the recent---started in May, crackdown on bike scofflaws and outlaws by the police and its impact on the huge number of car/bike/pedestrian crashes. Bike riders are a major health, economic and even social problem in Montrael; and you can put up all the signs you want, but law enforcement is the real thing that works to regulate deviant agressive bike riders who regard breaking traffic rules a sport.

I was looking at my wall and there it was... a cover of the old MAINE TIMES --80's with a rending of a monorail and a long article on bringing innovative alternative MASS TRANSPORTATION to Maine.

I was heavily featured and I guess convinced Ed. Beem and a few others, that monorail in the Turnpike's R.O.W. was a pretty viable idea.

It was ignored, like most of my visionary ideas that were way before their time; but perhaps it's time to consider their benefits.

So for those of you planning a trip to Seattle, DISNEYWORLD and other monrail users; think about how you'd put one in the Greater Portland area and remember how impractical it is to rely on AMTRAK to provide commuter rail service or dedicate the track to Rockland to a tourist train that at best hauls 30 tourists a trip from Brunswick to Rockland..two people per 82 passenger car hauled by a belching diesel engine that burns 2,000 gallons of fuel a day isn't really a wise use of current resources or a subsidy, IMHO.