Can you believe it? Our city is broke but on August 28, 2013, “officials from Santa Ana conducted a one-day site visit to learn more about the highly successful transit and streetcar system in Portland, Oregon.”
That’s right. We paid to send a bunch of Council Members and city staffers to Portland, Oregon, to look at their light rail system. Now why in the world would our city leaders do this? Well, they allege that “Out of the 15 systems currently operating and the 40 under design or construction throughout the country, Portland’s has been seen as a model that reflects the Transit Vision for Santa Ana’s proposed streetcar system.”
But is that true? Does Portland really have anything in common with Santa Ana?
Before we ponder that question, consider that the brain trust we sent to Portland included Santa Ana City Council Members David Benavides, Vince Sarmiento, and Roman Reyna, who were accompanied by Interim Santa Ana City Manager Kevin O’Rourke, and staff. That’s right. We sent a lawyer, a realtor and a a guy who has been setting up volleyball games at local parks for some twenty years to look at a light rail system. No, we didn’t send the one engineer on the Council – Mayor Miguel Pulido, who by the way has been representing our city on the Board of Directors of the Orange County Transportation Authority for a very long time.
But let’s get back to the point. Does Portland really have all that much in common with Santa Ana? Consider Portland’s demographics:
Portland is an hour and a half from the beach and is centered next to a river. The entire area is heavily wooded and surrounded by forests. So how in the world does Portland at all compare to Santa Ana? Consider Santa Ana’s demographics:
Our city is surrounded by other cities but on the positive side we live closer to the beach than the folks in Portland. So what did our Council Members learn on their expensive one-day field trip to Portland?
Yep. That apparently is the totality of what our Council Members came away with after flying to Portland where they no doubt spent a small fortune on limo’s and gourmet meals. The worst part of all this is that these guys could have just clicked here to watch a bunch of videos of the Portland streetcars.
You want to know what is up with their streetcars? Here you go:
Did you learn anything? I bet you did – and watching that video was free. I learned that there is no way this is going to work in Santa Ana. Our streets in Downtown are very narrow and are already crowded. And the stupid thing about light rail is that it costs a fortune and then you are stuck with the tracks where they are. You cannot move them after the fact.
Click here to learn more about the silly Santa Ana light rail system options.
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What in the world is Kevin O'Rourke doing flying to PDX with only a month left on the job?
These three couldn't even keep the OC democrat HQ in Santa Ana., instead sending it to Orange. I am told, in part because of Michele's ongoing fued with Julio Perez.
Portland........Santa Ana as similar as water and baseball.