Saturday, April 25, 2015

Portland exemplifies white privilege

Despite all the ballyhoo about 'equity' and 'diversity' the facts are that Portland is the whitest city in America and is actually becoming whiter as time goes on. There is no 'equity' in this city. Sure all the governmental units have 'equity' officers (who happen to be black) but all of it is for show.

All of Portland's (and Trimet's) policies are focused on the white population (the wealthiest citizens) and the gentrification of Portland continues pushing the minority out of the city completely.

A survey of the transit projects over the last couple of decades tell the story. Remember Portland (trimet) had a 'famous' bus network in the 80's. That bus network has been almost totally dismantled and the following projects replaced it.

Blue Line -property development, revitalize downtown Portland. This is where the Portland "light rail mafia" got its start.(The blue line is the one light rail line that actually makes sense since it does hook Gresham, Portland, Beaverton, and Hillsboro)

Yellow line -property development, replaced bus 5 that went all the way to Vancouver WA, ended the world class bus service along the Portland downtown transit mall where dozens of buses stopped every 2 blocks.

Red Line -tourist/ travelers, people with wealth

Aerial Tram -doctors, students, OHSU personnel, mostly upper class citizens

Streetcar -brings tourists, students from PSU are over to the Pearl and Nob Hill district, cheapest transit fare in Portland for one of the wealthiest areas of Portland. Helped sell hundreds of high priced condo's when the service was completely free. Tiffany Sweitzer, former Trimet board member, made millions.

Orange line complete with Trimet's very own bridge, no cars allowed-the max line replaces the bus 33 line (forcing riders to transfer from what used to be a one mode trip into downtown pdx) and will facilitate property development which the bus line did not. The transit bridge will serve the tiniest percentage of citizens 6% bicyclists , a handful of pedestrians, no cars allowed. Fits right into this cities image of a 'transit nirvana' and helps with the public relations hype and we all know everything about Portland is basically "hype".

WES- was supposed to help suburban residents get into Portland via the MAX (wes is a categorical failure and never even met its first year ridership projections)

Everyone of the projects listed above caters to the wealthier population. There is no 'equity' at all in Trimet's "strategic plan". You don't need to be a college graduate to figure that out after reviewing the above.

Oregon itself was founded as a 'white utopia'. Things have barely changed in this state. Read more below