By Naomi Inman
Letter by John A. Charles, Jr.
This week, Cascade Policy Institute president John Charles sent a letter to the members of Oregon’s House and Senate about Metro’s Regional Rail Futures Study, prepared in response to a 2024 legislative mandate in Senate Bill 5701, Section 503.
SECTION 503. In addition to and not in lieu of any other appropriation, there is appropriated to the Department of Transportation, for the biennium ending June 30, 2025, out of the General Fund, the amount of $500,000, for distribution to the metropolitan service district organized under ORS chapter 268 to study the use of existing heavy freight rail assets in the Portland metropolitan area for passenger rail alternatives to existing transportation modes.
John attached a published report by Cascade adjunct scholar, Randal O’Toole, who reviewed the study which identifies major problems with regional passenger rail in the Portland area, including high operating costs, the need for major infrastructure improvements, congestion on existing freight lines, limited high-ridership along many corridors, and weak ridership prospects in some corridors.
Yet despite those findings, Metro declined to rule out regional rail and instead continued to encourage large-scale rail-oriented investments and additional land-use changes near freight corridors.
That approach reflects a larger planning problem. Portland-area transit has long been organized around downtown as the central hub, even though downtown now represents a small share of regional jobs compared with a century ago. In today’s metropolitan economy, over 90 percent are dispersed across the region, not centered on downtown Portland. A transit strategy built around fixed rail and a single dominant hub does not match reality.
A more practical approach would focus on improving bus service and designing a network that better serves the region as it exists today, including suburban employment centers and other major destinations outside downtown. Buses are more flexible, less expensive, and better suited to adapting to changing travel patterns than rail.
John’s letter and supporting report asks legislators to give careful consideration about whether state support for regional passenger rail is justified in light of Metro’s own findings.
READ JOHN CHARLES LETTER TO OREGON LEGISLATORS ON RAIL STUDY
READ RANDAL O’TOOLE’S REPORT, “A REVIEW OF METRO’S REGIONAL PASSENGER RAIL FUTURES STUDY”
Naomi Inman is External Relations Manager at Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market public policy research organization.
John A. Charles, Jr. is President and CEO of Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market public policy research organization. He researches, writes, and presents testimony and analysis on state and local issues important to the freedom and opportunity of all Oregonians.
