With TriMet on the verge of opening its fifth MAX route, the $1.4 billion Orange Line between downtown Portland and Milwaukie, some might wonder if it's even worth asking whether light rail has been worth the investment.

But a new "Future of Transportation" analysis of U.S. Census data conducted by Yonah Freemark, project manager at Metropolitan Planning Council in Chicago, raises some serious questions about TriMet's decision to invest so heavily in light rail over the past three decades.

Writing for The Atlantic Cities, known for its unabashed advocacy of mass transit, Freemark says "it doesn't take much digging" to realize that light-rail systems built with billions of taxpayer dollars in Portland and four other cities since the 1980s have not lived up to their promises.

“These initial five systems in themselves neither rescued the center cities of their respective regions nor resulted in higher transit use — the dual goals of those first-generation lines,” he writes.

The transportation examination has spread like Clinton-era urban sprawl across the Internet, stirring debate among the nation’s top transportation planners and mass transit users.

According to Freemark's analysis of Census data, which was done with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, the share of regional workers choosing to ride transit to work actually declined after light-rail trains started running in the five cities.

What’s more, in Portland and three other urban areas, the center city share of the urbanized area population declined, too. San Jose was the only exception.

Among other things, the analysis found that “two of the initial light rail metros, Buffalo and Portland, had significantly higher transit mode shares in 1980 (7.9 and 9.7 percent, respectively) than they did in 2012.”

A graphic accompanying Freemark’s findings shows Buffalo's share of transit commuters fell at a rate very similar to the median of 15 non-rail cities with transit mode shares of above 7 percent in 1980.

“Though Portland did better, its ultimate transit mode share in 2012 was lower than that of Atlantic City, Boulder, Honolulu, and Iowa City — none of which built light rail during this period,” Freemark wrote.

For its part, TriMet expressed some serious disagreements with Freemark's findings, saying they are limited in how they measure success.

Alan Lehto, TriMet’s director of planning and policy, said light rail’s success in helping a “complete transit system” since the opening of the Blue Line in 1986 can be measured on several different fronts: improved total transit service, connections to a grid system of bus lines, and a land-use revival around stations.

“The report is looking at central cities, as we have a regional (light-rail) system that will soon be expanding to 60 miles,” Lehto said in an email. “It misses many of the successes of the light rail, both in ridership and development.”

More than $11.5 billion in development has occurred around Portland area stations since the first MAX line was built, Lehto said. “This means thousands of people and jobs in those station areas that weren’t there before,” he said.

He also noted that the report published by The Atlantic Cities compares 1980 to 2012, six years before the first line opened. “So, if you compare our 1986 opening to 2012, our numbers look better,” Lehto said.

Still, Lehto stepped back to 1980 to talk about how much transit ridership has increased in the Portland area.

<a href="http://polldaddy.com/poll/8025599/">Are you more likely to ride TriMet if it has more MAX light-rail service?</a>

Since 1980, Portland’s population has grown, as well as the size of the city, with significant annexations east of Interstate 205. In 1980, TriMet ridership was 50.6 million boardings; it’s now about 99 million, with nearly 40 percent of riders using light rail.

“Our ridership has kept ahead of the population growth of the region,” Lehto said. “This region is also unique, with most of our riders, 78 percent, (being) ‘choice’ riders, choosing transit rather than driving. That speaks to the value of transit and opting not to drive.”

Lehto also poked Freemark’s findings for its mention of “billions” being invested in U.S. light rail systems over the past 30 years. For context, he pointed out that the Federal Highway Administration’s budget for just last year was about $43 billion.

Of course, as the latest Census data show, telecommuting may be light rail's biggest competitor.

Metro's own $1 million study of Portland area commuting patterns in 2012 showed that, despite significant investments in transit and bike systems, the overall number of trips taken in automobiles in the Portland metro area has barely decreased in the past two decades.



Still, nearly 45 percent of all commuter trips into Portland's "central business district" – encompassing the area within downtown's interstate loop – are on public transit, the data showed

-- Joseph Rose