At a recent Citizen's Advisory Committee (CAC) meeting, Tri-Met presented a further study of Harold street which appears to conclude that ridership/households served would not provide an adequate project return on investment, in addition to adversely impacting the trains' schedule with the additional stop. The average cost of the Harold station built at-grade, is estimated by Tri-Met to be between $4M to $5M. I would expect the price tag closer to the $5M range, since there would need to be at least 1 or more pedestrian bridge features at this station to accommodate Union Pacific's train tracks and McLaughlin Blvd.
In the ridership and cost/benefit study presented to the CAC, it was also found that the overlapping service radius of Holgate and Bybee stations covered portions of the proposed Harold street service area, reducing the potential ridership of households serviced by the Harold platform.
To illustrate this point, Tri-Met presented a graphic which I have attempted to recreate here (and is not to scale). Harold services approximately 1,800 households in the service radius. When looking at the overlap of the Holgate and Bybee radius, the Harold service area is reduced to only approximately 800 households (see below).
Do you live in the proposed Harold station area? Do you feel that this station would be needed on the MAX line or would you rather not have a station at this location and prefer to use Holgate or Bybee?
Please feel free to post a relevant comment answering the questions above. You can also send email to me, Mike at southeastmax@gmail.com and I will make your views known at the next CAC meeting. Even better, attend a CRC meeting (schedule linked on the right) and provide public comment to the committee.
8 comments:
I am a resident in the area of the Harold street station. I live at the corner of 17th and Harold which on your map is just beyond the outer band of the Holgate station.
Trimet needs to consider another factor beyond strictly numbers and that is economic demographics and population & housing density. This area of Westmoreland has the largest number of apartment homes and townhouses in the neighborhood. Additionally it is less economically developed than other sections of neighborhood (mostly because housing values are kept down by the rail yard and number homes bordering McLoughlin Ave.).
I cannot speak for other sections of the neighborhood but since I live right beside a bus stop I witness daily excellent transit ridership on a daily basis regardless of the hour of day. This ridership deserves to be served by a MAX station without having to wait for buses and transfers or buses and walking or just plain long walks.
It's easy to underestimate the distances on a map but from my house the proposed Holgate station is about 20 minutes by foot and the Bybee station is 30-35 minutes (and at 6'1", I'm a fast walker).
I understand Trimet's needs to keep the cost down but long walks and/or transfers turns a 20 minute MAX ride downtown into an inconvenience that will serve as a barrier to greater transit adoption. That's the real loss here not the additional $5m increase to a $220m project.
I think Trimet is being short-sighted and I'm disappointed by this suggested outcome.
Stuart,
Thanks for the time to comment on this issue. I'll post a follow-up to this issue. I am working to get Metro and Tri-Met out to discuss this issue at a SMILE meeting.
One follow up. Thanks for following up with this at CAC and please encourage Trimet to engage SMILE on this.
What is CRC?
Clackamas Regional Center
Columbia River Crossing
Something else?...
Hi Mike,
Thought I'd let you know that I thought this post was full of good info... so I posted about it on my blog. Have some thoughts about this proposed station over there...
Really like the blog!
Stuart:
CAC = Citizens Advisory Committee
CRC = Columbia River Crossing (popular reference to that project).
Hope that helps!
Trimetiquette:
Looks like a great blog, thanks for the link! Actually, your link didn't work in the comments so I am leaving it here:
http://www.trimetiquette.com/proposed-harold-street-station-information/
As the excellent editorial in the May edition of the Sellwwod Bee points out, a key benefit to adding/retaining this station is the inclusion of a pedestrian bridge linking the Harold Station with Reed College and the REED neighborhoods.
This factor alone would add significant households and ridership to the stations capture area. These are households and populations that are much more likely to need or want transit access.
Check the Bee editorial here http://www.readthebee.com/letterseditorial.html
The decision to eliminate the Harold Street Station due to cost concerns is outrageous.
After spending tens of thousands of dollars and countless hours in meetings to gauge public opinion, the bureacrats and bean counters stuck with their original plan.
This station had overwhelming support from the surrounding neighborhood and was endorsed by the Tr-Met Citizens advisory council, and the Sellwood (SMILE), Woodstock, and Brooklyn neighborhood Associations.
Each time that support for the station surged, the Metro planners would come out with another inflated (and yet unsubstantiated) budget projection for the cost of the station and bridges.
The planners can't seem to explain why two proposed bridges for Harold, most recently quoted at $18 million, cost so much more than the three Springwater Corridor pedestrian bridges, which only cost $4.7 million.
http://www.oregonmetro.gov/index.cfm/go/by.web/id=17437
Unlike the majority of the other car focused "park and ride" stations, Harold Street is positioned to serve pedestrian and bicycle commuters. To truly compare the cost of this station with the others, we need to see the costs of parking structures and lots tied to the other stations.
The failure of the steering committee to acknowledge the public and community support for this station is not only an insult to our citizens vision, but a mockery of the so called collaborative planning process.
I am thoroughly disgusted with this outcome, and will remember the decisions our elected officials made when the next election comes around. I would urge you all to do the same.
I appreciate your comment about the cost vs. Springwater Corridor bridges.
I will be posting soon on further, upcoming hearings in July at the PDC, City Council, Multnomah County and Metro where the LPA proposal will be reviewed.
Continue to call and write your City, Metro and County officials!
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