The failure of WES

Written by Neal Berlin


The real problem that no one is talking about in shutting down WES is that TriMet took Federal moneys to build this and if they shut it down TriMet could be on the hook to reimburse part if not all the money they received to build this folly.  The reporter repeated many of TriMets  PR propaganda on why WES is not preforming up to expectations: ie , lower gas prices( that excuse has been debunked by many national studies) ,the closure of certain businesses , therefore the loss of employees ridership ( really?  How many riders?  Not many!  Even when those businesses where viable WES never met any of the projected ridership goals).  The deep buried and forgotten history of WES goes back to very beginning before ANY tracks where laid was the scandal of acquisition and procurement of the rail cars.  That is another long story but has one common theme: the incompetence of TriMet with taxpayers money.

The equipment that TriMet bought from The Colorado Rail Company that was going bankrupt and leave TriMet without any cars, after they had given lots of money already for no cars that had yet to be delivered.  So what did TriMet do?  Bought the company, funded it against many Federal and State regulations.  Like most white collar crimes in the State of Oregon do not prosecuted or really investigated, especially if one is politically connected and is a liberal.  By the way when those cars did finally arrive from Colorado Rail, they can with multitudes of problems that still exist today.  I have talked to some of the maintenance personnel who work on them and they say they have job for life trying to keep them running!  Hence they they bought those 1950s cars from Alaska, with no computers built in and added just what was needed.