This during a decade that saw over 97,000 jobs added to Portland's three county metropolitan area. Light rail was supposed to revitalize our downtown, but all such schemes here and elsewhere are fighting a powerful world-wide trend. As people become more affluent, many prefer to both live and work outside the central city. Costly, slow, inflexible transit systems won't reverse this trend. Light rail actually put more cars on the road because in order to funnel commuters onto the trains, Portland's public transit agency shut down some of the most productive bus routes into the city.
More transfers equals fewer riders, pure and simple.
In our case, Portlanders find spending other people's money on trains a relatively painless way to express their politically correct aversion to the automobile. In case you haven't noticed, cars are almost as loathed in modern America as tobacco, and are probably more addicting. It may be too late for Portland. We've perfected the art of wasting other people's money without solving our transportation problems. I hope it's not too late for Phoenix.