Seattle's South Lake Union is home to Amazon and other technology companies and is a rapidly changing neighborhood. Pictured in August 2018. (Andrew Theen/Staff)

This Pacific Northwest city has world-class coffee, plentiful beer and the nation's top public transit agency.

Wait. Seattle?

For years, Portland sat atop an invisible pedestal, routinely recognized as one of the nation’s top transportation cities.

Bike lanes, TriMet’s light rail network and the resurrection of the urban streetcar set the blueprint, in some ways, for other cities to step up their transit game.

Many have done just that, including Seattle. But now, in many ways, the city to the north is eating Portland’s brunch on transportation ideas, and we’re playing catchup.

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The inner workings of the cutting head of "Bertha," the massive tunnel boring machine currently stopped underground near downtown Seattle while waiting for repairs, is shown at the bottom of a 120-foot access pit after a 270- ton section of the front shield was removed and lifted to the surface with a crane, Thursday, March 19, 2015 in Seattle. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, Pool)

While Portland is poised to finally act on some big projects, and TriMet plans its biggest bus expansion in its history, the city has undeniably stalled in addressing its transportation issues in recent years. Seattle, meanwhile, has been forging ahead with voter-approved projects costing in the tens of billions and transit ridership is up double digits there.

The Emerald City in recent years has bored long stretches of tunnels for cars or transit, spent more on light rail and buses per capita than any U.S. city and dwarfed Portland's protected bike lanes infrastructure. And elected officials have demonstrated political leadership in putting transportation at or near the top of the city's priorities list.

Things are far from perfect up there. Seattle drivers, like Portland’s, are socked in by stifling congestion on major freeways. Much of the city feels like it’s an active construction zone, and more headaches are to come as key projects will shut down major sections of downtown for years – Seattle is calling this era the “Period of Maximum Constraint.” Costs overruns have angered taxpayers. Portland experienced its own issues with cost overruns on the aerial tram connecting OHSU to the South Waterfront.

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Not all agree Seattle, which can appear as one big gnarly construction site, is on the right track. It’s had its share of boondoggles. But others say the short-term pain will bring long-term gain and give people more options other than driving alone.

The state – and region – acted with several large transportation packages in part because the public demanded action in the face of the gridlock.

There’s also no way to just add more freeways – or freeway lanes -- to our dense cities and build our way out of the mess. So, Seattle, which feels like a real-life version of Sim City right now, has gotten busy and passed massive transportation plans, invested in creative ways to move people around and set the roadmap for a more transit-friendly future.

Seattle offers both a cautionary tale for Portland and a glimpse of what is possible.

This transportation reporter/tourist recently took a trip north earlier this month to get the lay of the transit land. And while I experienced Seattle through emerald-tinted glasses, I saw many examples of our frenemies to the north being bold where Portland has stood still.

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Seattle's protected bikeway infrastructure is expansive in parts of the city, and the City Council is pushing for plans to build out the downtown bike network as soon as possible. (Andrew Theen/Staff)

PROTECTED BIKEWAYS

Minutes after arriving in Seattle, I landed on a beautiful, physically separated bikeway on Broadway near Capitol Hill. This was largely by accident. I’m no Ferdinand Magellan, though I did later locate a handy Seattle bike map. My great fortune of finding comfortable bike streets happened several times over the course of a day and a half while exploring the city sans car.

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Separated bikeways in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle, pictured in August 2018. (Andrew Theen/Staff)

Portland has historically landed national accolades for being one of the nation’s best bike cities, but did you know Seattle has nearly three times as many miles of physically separated bike lanes (16 miles) as Portland (5.8 miles), with another 7 under construction and expected to be finished this year?

This despite Portland being significantly larger – 145 square miles versus Seattle’s 84.

Those totals don’t include the miles of waterfront multi-use paths in Seattle along Elliott Bay or elsewhere.

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Andrew Theen/Staff

And local politicians there aren't content with the status quo. A majority of the City Council in July signed a resolution calling for a connected series of downtown protected bike lanes by 2020, The Seattle Times reported. Like Portland, many downtown bike lanes aren't contiguous, leaving spotty connections for riders.

Portland’s nearly 6 miles of protected lanes doesn’t include the seasonal Better Naito project downtown or multi-use paths elsewhere in the city, nor 17.4 miles that are funded but yet to be built, according to transportation officials. Portland, of course has 85 miles of multi-use trails such as the Springwater Corridor, Willamette Greenway and Marine Drive trail.

Because of a 2016 voter-approved gas tax and charges collected on new development in the city, Portland has money to make some big changes in coming years. It's hoping for "world-class" bike lanes downtown. The City Council is expected to discuss creating new protected north/south bikeways and other projects in the central city next month, and construction could begin on some of them in 2019.

But there’s yet to be a full-throated endorsement from Portland’s elected leaders on the level that Seattle’s leaders have embraced in recent years.

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A water taxi in downtown Seattle (Andrew Theen/Staff)

FERRIES/WATER TAXIS

The Pacific Northwest offers few simple joys comparable to riding a ferry across Puget Sound, watching Seattle’s skyline slowly shrink from sight -- not unlike the Seahawk’s playoff futures.

Washington's ferry system started in 1951 and is the nation's largest. Last year, the 22 vessels moved 24.5 million riders. Terminals serve suburbs to the north and south of the Emerald City, but Seattle's two routes alone moved a combined 9.3 million in 2017. There's also the private Clipper service, which runs to the San Juan Islands and Victoria, British Columbia.

In the mid 1990s, the metro region added passenger-only water taxis to serve West Seattle and Vashon Island. Those moved nearly 600,000 passengers last year.

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The Bainbridge Island ferry from downtown Seattle is one of the busiest routes in the state. Washington has the most robust ferry system in the country, carrying nearly 25 million passengers per year. (Andrew Theen/Staff)

In Portland, we have the Big Float.

You know, the citizen-led bootstrapped event that brings thousands of people to the river that one time each summer.

Oh, we also have the Beer Barge. And the Portland Spirit dinner cruise boat.

We’re not suggesting Portland should, or could, rival Seattle’s water system, which is aging and has its own slew of issues.

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Andrew Theen/Staff

But as we grapple with potentially adding up to 500,000 residents by 2035, another transit option is always welcome, and the rivers are sitting right there.

In the mid-1800s, Portland had a fleet of ferries connecting the east and west sides. Those went by the wayside when bridges were built spanning the Willamette.

Would people welcome ferries or water taxis from Vancouver’s shimmering new waterfront to downtown Portland? Perhaps. It’s worth discussing. But it’s not being discussed publicly.

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Seattle's downtown transit tunnel carries buses and the city's light rail line. Pictured in August 2018. (Andrew Theen/Staff)

TUNNELS

In recent years, Seattle transportation engineers have spent more time underground than a Mariners fan in October. Miles of new tunnels carrying transit or cars are under construction in the Puget Sound region.

In the early 2000s, Seattle retooled its signature downtown transit tunnel to accommodate buses and light-rail trains. In 2012, the region opened a 3-mile tunnel carrying light rail to the University of Washington.

Later this year, the long-awaited tunnel along the Elliot Bay waterfront is expected to open, and with it the newly tolled State Route 99. The Alaskan Way Viaduct, an elevated highway downtown that currently carries SR 99, will be demolished.

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Seattle's light rail expansion has ramped up in recent years. Sound Transit is planning expansions to West Seattle, Everett, Redmond, Ballard and Tacoma. (Andrew Theen/Staff)

Seattle’s experience offers cautionary tales, too.

The projects have made national headlines for various reasons, like when its 57-foot-diameter Bertha boring machine ran into issues and was shut down for nearly two years. Cost overruns have plagued that project and others, but the Alaskan Way viaduct removal opens dramatic opportunities for the city along its waterfront.

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The Alaskan Way Viaduct in downtown Seattle will be going away later in 2018 after the new tunnel carrying SR-99 opens. The viaduct drilling project took years but is one example of the region's ability to try big-scale projects. (Andrew Theen/Staff)

More tunnels are coming, too, including the $2.1 billion project to expand light rail to Northgate by 2021 and the tunnel bringing light rail to Bellevue by 2023.

In Portland, we built the transit tunnel through the West Hills in 1998, but the topic hasn't come up much publicly since. Now, TriMet officials are starting to openly discuss putting MAX trains underground, what would likely be a more than $1 billion project. The agency leases space on the Steel Bridge in downtown Portland, a key logjam on an aging structure that is often interrupted by crashes and could spell doom if no alternative is in place in the event of an earthquake or bridge failure.

But as of now, that’s our only tunnel talk.

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A Lime e-bike in Seattle, one of some 2,000 scattered citywide (Andrew Theen/Staff)

ELECTRIC-ASSIST BIKE SHARE

LimeBike, the Silicon Valley startup running hundreds of electric-assist scooters in many big cities, has a different menu of options in Seattle. Instead of scooters, Lime has nearly 2,000 electric-assist bikes scattered around our hilly neighbor to the north. The bikes are not uniformly awesome (and according to Seattle Times reporters, they are often vandalized or damaged), but they are a novel addition to the on-demand bike rental market.

I rode them all over Seattle this month and wrote a review about my experience.

Portland may have e-bikes sooner than we thought. A three-year contract with Motivate, the operator of Portland’s Biketown system, expires in a year. The city is free to seek other companies or ask for new perks in the next Biketown contract.

Transportation officials say electric-bikes are going to be an important part of any new agreement and will be included in the request for proposals.

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Seattle is one of the only cities in the U.S. where transit ridership is increasing. (Andrew Theen/Staff)

RAPID BUS SERVICE

Last week, the Portland City Council vowed to spend $17.7 million on TriMet's proposed high-capacity bus service along Division Street between downtown and Gresham. We're likely still at least four years away from actual bus service on the route.

Meanwhile, Seattle has six rapid bus routes serving a number of different neighborhoods, with a seventh expected to operate by 2020.

Seattle’s routes aren’t exactly Bus Rapid Transit – where buses are physically separated from the rest of traffic -- but the vehicles are larger, have fewer stops and arrive more frequently than standard lines.

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Seattle has a half dozen express buses and plans to open a seventh bus on its RapidRide line in 2020. (Andrew Theen/Staff)

By the time Portland hopes to open its lone high-capacity bus line, King County Metro expects to have another 13 express lines in service. King County said its new bus lines draw 67,000 daily boardings.

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A toll bridge on SR-520 in the Seattle metro area (Andrew Theen/Staff)

TOLLS

Washington may be shooing Oregon away from the idea of tolling a new Interstate Bridge at the states' border, but the Seattle region is off and running with a growing toll system.

Drivers must pay to use the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, certain lanes on the Interstate 405 express between Bellevue and Lynnwood, lanes on State Route 167 between Auburn and Renton and on State Route 520 between Seattle and Bellevue.

The SR 99 tunnel is expected to open this year, and drivers will be charged to drive through it.

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The Interstate Bridge (Jamie Hale/Staff)

Tolls are designed to raise revenue, manage congestion and encourage drivers to find a way to get around other than driving alone.

In 2017, the state brought in $192 million in tolling revenue on those freeways and highways, and it estimated drivers are saving about 12 minutes of travel time on the I-405 lane alone. Other projects haven’t yielded broad controversy, and the toll revenue is funneled back into repaying debt on the road projects.

Seattle's Mayor, Jenny Durkan, also floated the idea of charging users to drive on surface streets in the city.

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The South Lake Union neighborhood in Seattle (Andrew Theen/Staff).

Washington has thus far kept its tolls low, but the state has a looming debt issue because of a slew of construction projects. Toll users may be asked to make up the difference.

Oregon is expected to ask for federal permission by the end of 2018 to study tolling on sections of Interstates 5 and 205, with eventual plans to study wider tolling.

But that plan is also being challenged by two Republican state lawmakers, who seek to derail the idea and send a different plan to voters.

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A bus island in the South Lake Union neighborhood (Andrew Theen/Staff)

BUS ISLANDS

Buses and bicyclists mix about as well as Supersonics fans and Oklahoma City. Or Jeff Bezos and Seattle socialist city councilor Kshama Sawant.

The bus-and-bike dance gets more dangerous on busy streets where buses must frequently stop to pick up passengers, creating conflicts with cyclists in bike lanes adjacent to bus stops, cars and the curb.

Seattle is one city that’s aggressively tried to change that dynamic by creating bus islands, where bike traffic is routed around the right side of the platform. That reduces the potential for direct issues between buses and cyclists.

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Andrew Theen/Staff

According to Seattle transportation officials, the city has 22 bus islands. Most of those stops are on Dexter Ave North, Roosevelt Way NE and Greenwood Avenue N.

Elsewhere in the city, I found bike lanes that went around streetcar stops, such as on Broadway in the Capitol Hill neighborhood.

As a cyclist, the medians provided a lot more certainty about what the bus will do and whether you need to crane your neck to watch for oncoming traffic.

Cyclists must yield to pedestrians crossing the island to get to the sidewalk, but it’s a safer alternative than the status quo.

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In 2016, the Better Block PDX community group tested bus islands during a trial project on Northeast Broadway.

But Portland has one such streetcar/bus island -- in the South Waterfront neighborhood. TriMet said it was not aware of or planning any such stops, though the Division Street high-capacity bus line will include newly configured stops.

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The WES has had ridership issues for its entire history (Andrew Theen/Staff)

HEAVY RAIL

Seattle has two commuter rail lines and a planned 7-mile expansion underway.

The Sounder commuter rail runs north from downtown to Everett and south to Lakewood. The system covers more than 80 miles along heavily traveled commuter routes.

The trains run on BNSF tracks and are operated by Sound Transit, the regional rail service.

In Portland, we have the Westside Express Service, which runs from Beaverton Transit Center to Wilsonville – not exactly the most traveled corridor in the metro area. That orphan commuter line has been plagued by ridership issues since it began in 2009, and ridership dropped 13 percent this year over 2017 totals. TriMet has no plans for additional commuter rail service.

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Andrew Theen/Staff

ELECTRIC BUSES

Seattle has the second-largest electric trolley-bus system in the country, trailing only San Francisco. The network of overhead power lines crisscrosses 68 miles of the city.

The quirky lines, though expensive to operate, reduce the amount of diesel emitted into the atmosphere.

While that system is a rarity nationwide, Seattle has also gone full-bore into the oncoming battery-powered bus revolution.

King County Metro Transit plans to transition to an entirely zero-emission bus fleet “no later than 2034,” the agency’s leader said in a 2017 op-ed in the Seattle Times.

Metro has two battery-powered buses on the road carrying passengers in Seattle. The agency in 2017 ordered 120 all-electric buses.

In Portland, we have one pilot bus undergoing field tests. TriMet has no timetable to bring electric buses into service but plans to order four more buses after the pilot.

This month, U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley said he secured $2.3 million in grant funding for TriMet to order another five electric buses. It’s unclear when those vehicles would be delivered, but it’s unlikely to happen for years.

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AMBITION

The above list of projects is somewhat staggering in scope, from a Portlander’s perspective.

This is all without mentioning Seattle’s ongoing streetcar expansion projects or the light rail lines expected to reach Federal Way, Ballard, Redmond and elsewhere in coming years.

Voter-approved transportation bonds and levies backed by sales taxes, property taxes and other measures are driving Seattle’s transformative projects.

But a lot of that comes down to one word: ambition. In 2016, voters approved the Sound Transit 3 ballot measure. The $54 billion measure funds 62 miles of light-rail construction and other big-ticket items over 25 years. That measure came on the heels of the $930 million Levy to Move Seattle passed in 2015.

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Andrew Theen/Staff

Voters also approved a $17.8 billion project list called Sound Transit 2 in 2008 paying for significant public transit projects.

All that growth and rapid expansion by Amazon and the tech industry have led to record public transit ridership gains. Ridership is up 17 percent systemwide, state transportation leaders said last week at a summit with Oregon and California transportation leaders, bucking nationwide trends of declining public transit ridership that have plagued TriMet and virtually all other transit agencies.

Because of that, the American Public Transportation Association named King County Metro the nation’s top large transit agency this month.

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Amazon's footprint in Seattle's South Lake Union neighborhood is massive (Andrew Theen/Staff)

These project lists have not been without controversy or cost overruns or delays, which the Seattle Times has documented in in recent months. Increasing land values are pushing some project costs up, like a light rail expansion to Federal Way.

But the scope is undeniable, as Seattle races to reinvent itself as it becomes an ever larger and more influential city in the national landscape.

The Portland region is poised to take on a major transportation package of its own in 2020, led by the Metro regional government and incoming Council President Lynn Peterson. Peterson led Washington’s transportation department for three years.

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Protected bikeways in downtown Seattle near the Pike Place Public Market in August 2018 (Andrew Theen/Staff).

The project list is still being formulated, but it’s expected to number in the billions, but likely falling somewhere between Sound Transit 2 and 3 in its total price tag.

Portland’s only light-rail line currently on the table is a 12-mile extension to the Bridgeport Village shopping area in Tigard/Tualatin. Portland Streetcar is also eyeing a potential extension into Northwest Portland’s industrial area and Montgomery Park, but those plans are just being studied at the moment.

Perhaps the transportation package will also go to voters with an unwritten and hard to quantify project ingredient: ambition.

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-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen