December 01, 2003
City Council To Approve Light Rail On Transit Mall
Following up on the recent approval by two groups of the proposal to add light rail to the downtown transit mall, the Portland City Council will take up a resolution to do the same at this Thursday's session, at 3:30 PM.
That day's agenda includes the following item for that time:
Adopt the South Corridor Project Downtown Portland Mall Segment Locally Preferred Alternative Report and Recommendations and the South Corridor Land Use Final Order
While I'm still unclear as to just what the Locally Preferred Alternative report says, exactly, a spokesperson for Commissioner Francesconi, who is introducing the resolution, said last week via email:
This Council action simply says that "light rail will be on the mall." Council will make decisions about exactly what light rails presence on the mall will look like later.
Regular readers will know that I've been confused by the various stages of this proposal, since the public for months has been asked to weigh in on the various station configuration alternatives (left-side, island, or right-side platforms), but the spectre of new possibilities was suddenly raised at a public hearing on the matter back in October.
Last month, I passed along some information from the Portland Office of Transportation which spelled out the timeline on everything, which includes further public comment, including the new station options, beginning sometime after the revised Conceptual Design Report is made available in January.
I haven't yet gotten a chance to go get a copy of Thursday's resolution, so I'm not sure precisely how it says "light rail will be on the mall," nor have I seen the LPA report.
But with the South Corridor Policy Committee and the Mayor's Steering Committee (according to the Oregonian story linked above) having recently approved the proposal, this Thursday is the next opportunity to hear clearly where the project, at this point, is headed, to be followed by the approval of Metro in January.