Detailed History comparing Portland Maine to Portland Oregon through Transit Policies.

1. Portland, Oregon., Union Station.
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
Examining Transportation History in
Portland Maine and Portland Oregon

2. Population Timeline
Portland ME Portland OR
600,000
525,000
450,000
375,000
Population
300,000
225,000
150,000
75,000
0
1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000

5. BOOM YEARS 1900-1945
Fueled in part by the “lewis and Growth in Portland, Maine was more modest than that of
its west coast sibling but was no less impressive for a new
clark exposition” in 1905, england city of that era. known as “canada’s winter port”
Portland Oregon tripled its portland bustled with Irish, italian, afro-american and
jewish dialects as laborers loaded timber, grain and
population from 90,000 people in textiles off of the grand trunk railroad from canada onto
cargo ships.
1900 to 300,000 in 1930!

6. Passenger Stations
Union Station Portland Maine- Opened 1888
Union Station Portland Oregon- Opened 1896
Grand Trunk Station Portland Maine- Opened 1905

7. Northern Pacific, Union Pacific, Great Northern
and Southern Pacific all served Portland,
Oregon with passenger and freight service.In its
heyday, a total of 92 trains called on Portland
daily. There were fifty-two steam trains and
thirty-eight electric trains coming or going
every 11 minutes from 6:30 am to 11:30 pm.
Service has dwindled to a handful of trains.

8. Railroads around Union Station

9. Passenger Service in Portland Maine
From Wikipedia-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_history_of_Portland,_Maine
During the heyday of passenger rail in the 1920s, a variety of companies provided
passenger rail services to Portland.
■ Portland had two terminals: Union Station and the Grand Trunk’s India Street
Terminal. All passenger trains, except the two daily Grand Trunk trains to
Montreal, operated in and out of Union Station, where switching services were
provided by Portland Terminal Company.
■ In the westbound direction, Portland had four “banks” of transfers: one in the
early morning, one centered around noon, one at 5 pm, and one late at night.
Union Station was relatively quiet in between those times.
■ Schedules were generally designed to have trains leave Portland in the morning
and arrive in the evening. The only notable exceptions were overnight services
(MEC #8), the B&M evening connecting services to Boston (B&M #176, 250), and
one single commuter-like train in the westbound direction (MEC #138/#44).
■ In some cases, traveling to Lewiston required a change of train at Brunswick.
■ The afternoon commuter-like trains in the eastbound direction resulted from
heavy eastbound connecting traffic from the Boston & Maine. The fact that
these trains fell within the commuter timeslot appears accidental.
■ There is evidence in the schedule that the Grand Trunk deliberately
discouraged commuter travel. GT #83 does not allow terminations in Lewiston,
even though it is likely that the equipment moving from Lewiston to Lewiston
Junction to meet #83 would have needed to run back empty to Lewiston after
its tour of duty.

10. Passenger Service in
Portland Maine
From Wikipedia-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_history_of_Portland,_Maine
During the heyday of passenger rail in the 1920s, a variety of companies provided
passenger rail services to Portland.
■ Portland had two terminals: Union Station and the Grand Trunk’s India Street
Terminal. All passenger trains, except the two daily Grand Trunk trains to
Montreal, operated in and out of Union Station, where switching services
were provided by Portland Terminal Company.
■ In the westbound direction, Portland had four “banks” of transfers: one in the
early morning, one centered around noon, one at 5 pm, and one late at night.
Union Station was relatively quiet in between those times.
■ Schedules were generally designed to have trains leave Portland in the
morning and arrive in the evening. The only notable exceptions were
overnight services (MEC #8), the B&M evening connecting services to Boston
(B&M #176, 250), and one single commuter-like train in the westbound
direction (MEC #138/#44).
■ In some cases, traveling to Lewiston required a change of train at Brunswick.
■ The afternoon commuter-like trains in the eastbound direction resulted from
heavy eastbound connecting traffic from the Boston & Maine. The fact that
these trains fell within the commuter timeslot appears accidental.
■ There is evidence in the schedule that the Grand Trunk deliberately
discouraged commuter travel. GT #83 does not allow terminations in
Lewiston, even though it is likely that the equipment moving from Lewiston
to Lewiston Junction to meet #83 would have needed to run back empty to
Lewiston after its tour of duty.

11. Images of
Union Station,
Portland Maine

12. In 1935 the Boston and Maine railroad’s Flying Yankee made
the run between Portland and Boston in 51 minutes!
Driving the same distance by highway today still takes
roughly two hours without traffic.

13. Union Station Location:
Maine Central RR
Boston and Maine RR
Grand Trunk Terminal, Yard and Docks

14. Railroad Map of the
East End. Grand
Trunk Railroad is
shown in Yellow

15. Grand Trunk Depot

16. Images of the former
Grand Trunk Depot

17. The Grand Trunk
Railway Connected
Montreal to Portland.
Portland was the
closest ice-free port
when the St.Lawrence
river froze in the winter.
The Grand Trunk
waterfront included
grain elevators, multiple
piers and a beautiful
“Richardson
Romanesque” depot
built in 1905.

18. Grand
Trunk
Schedule
Sleeper Service
between Montreal
and Portland ME

19. PORTLAND OREGON PORTLAND MAINE
Transit Timeline Transit Timeline
Text

20. Portland Oregon Timeline Portland Maine TImeline

21. The Interurban
Era
From Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interurban
Interurbans were often extensions of existing streetcar lines
running between urban areas or from urban to rural areas. The
lines were mainly electrified in an era when steam railroads had
not yet adopted electricity to any large degree. By 1910, there was
a very large network of small interurban lines in the U.S.,
particularly in Indiana and Ohio. Many were financially weak from
the beginning. An electric interurban railroad was expensive to
build, and there were always construction surprises, such as an
unplanned bridge, or a town that demanded streets for the
interurban to construct, and franchise fees. In operation,
interurbans were labor-intensive and physical plant expensive,
and frequently passenger revenues were not as originally
projected. Many did not survive the 1920s, following the country's
growing adoption of the automobile and the onset of the Great
Depression in 1930.
Interurbans such as the Oregon Electric Railway and the Portland-Lewiston
Interurban connected places as far as Eugene Oregon or Bath Maine with
city centers like Pioneer Plaza or Monument Square. Map of Interurbans in Southern Maine

22. Images of the Oregon Electric Railway

23. TROLLEYS and
INTERURBANS
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT- Pond Cove Line
(ME) Interurbans and Locals on Congress
St., oregon electric train, Independence
oregon electric station

24. Streetcar Lines in Oregon (Left) and
Maine (Right)

25. Portland Maine Area Streetcar and Interurban
Lines in 1916

27. The Portland-Lewiston
Interurban ran every hour
24 hours a day, 7 days a
week with every other
hour an express.

28. Clockwise from Left, Oregon Advertisement, Congress
St.(ME), Portland Lewiston Interurban, Monument
Square (ME)

29. PHOTOs Top to Bottom- 1.
Portland-Lewiston Interurban on
Temple St,
2. Congress St 1920s, 3. Streetcar
Turning onto Preble St from
Monument Square

30. 1945-1990
URBAN RENEWAL,
SUBURBANIZATION,
AND THE RISE OF THE
AUTOMOBILE

31. The World
of
Tomorrow
The Post-War Period
witessed a massive PR
campaign to present the
automobile as the key to
a better future. Rail
transit and inner cities
were compared to
disease, while
automobiles promised
access to “light, air and
open spaces”.

32. General Motors’
“Futurama”
exhibit at 1939
World’s Fair

34. The Great American Streetcar Scandal
In the 1920s automaker General Motors (GM) began a covert campaign to
undermine the popular rail-based public transit systems that were ubiquitous in
and around the country’s bustling urban areas. At the time, only one in 10
Americans owned cars and most people traveled by trolley and streetcar.
Within three decades, GM, with help from Standard Oil, Firestone Tire, Mack Truck and
Phillips Petroleum, succeeded in decimating the nation’s trolley systems, while seeing
to the creation of the federal highway system and the ensuing dominance of the
automobile as America’s preferred mode of transport.GM began by funding a company
called National City Lines (NCL), which by 1946 controlled streetcar operations in 80
American cities.“Despite public opinion polls that showed 88 percent of the public
favoring expansion of the rail lines after World War II, NCL systematically closed its
streetcars down until, by 1955, only a few remained,” writes author Jim Motavalli in his
2001 book, Forward Drive.
GM first replaced trolleys with free-roaming buses, eliminating the need for tracks
embedded in the street and clearing the way for cars. As dramatized in a 1996 PBS
docudrama, Taken for a Ride, Alfred P. Sloan, GM’s president at the time, said, “We’ve
got 90 percent of the market out there that we can…turn into automobile users. If we
can eliminate the rail alternatives, we will create a new market for our cars.” And they
did just that, with the help of GM subsidiaries Yellow Coach and Greyhound Bus. Sloan
predicted that the jolting rides of buses would soon lead people to not want them and
to buy GM’s cars instead.
GM was later instrumental in the creation of the National Highway Users Conference,
which became the most powerful lobby in Washington. Highway lobbyists worked
directly with lawmakers to craft highway-friendly legislation, and GM’s promotional
films were showcasing America’s burgeoning interstate highway system as the
realization of the so-called “American dream of freedom on wheels.”
When GM President Charles Wilson became Secretary of Defense in 1953, he worked
with Congress to craft the $25 billion Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. Referred to at
the time as the “greatest public works project in the history of the world,” the federally
funded race to build roads from coast-to-coast was on. http://environment.about.com/
od/fossilfuels/a/streetcars.htm

35. Suburbanization and Urban Renewal
A combination of federal policies and private investment spawns a massive restructuring
of American society. Traditional towns and cities are reoriented towards the automobile as
the upper and middle classes flee to the suburbs. While new expressways are routed
through low-income neighborhoods displacing working poor and minorities into massive
public housing blocks
Federal Transportation Policy Federal Housing Policy
• THE FEDERAL AID HIGHWAY ACT OF 1956 • Federal housing policy beginning in era of new deal, help
authorizes $25 Billion for the construction of subsidize suburban living. Federal Housing Administration – new
deal agency, meant to address millions of Americans losing
41,000 miles of the Federal Interstate Highway
homes to foreclosure. Stimulate construction of new housing
System while Federal Govt handles 90% of units, while stabilizing mortgage industry.
construction costs • The AMERICAN HOUSING ACT OF 1949 contributes greatly to
suburbanization and the flight of the white middle and upper
• Municipal Bonds are used to fund massive classes out of the city through two concurrent programs
expressways such as the Cross-Bronx Expressway • TITLE 1 of the Housing Act provided Federal financing for
in NYC. Built by Robert Moses the Expressway “slum clearance” and “urban renewal” programs which resulted
in the destruction of millions of houses, historic landmarks and
displaces thousands of low-middle income neighborhood relationships in favor of massive, crime-ridden
residents housing projects.
• Enables upper and middle-class to commute • TITLE 2 of the Housing Act dramatically expanded the ability
of the Federal Housing Administration to provide low-interest
from suburbs to inner city financing to middle-class suburban homeowners
• Regional shopping centers and strip malls are • Minorities seldom qualify for homeownership loans leading to
built to service the suburban market increased racial segregation in the North
• By 1970 more Americans are living in the suburbs
than the city

36. Grand Trunk Terminal Demolished 1966
Neither Portland is spared from the
ensuing destruction as city planners
reconfigure the old streetcar
neighborhoods to the age of the
automobile.
Urban Renewal
and the “two
Portlands”
"When the ball hit the tower and it came down with the rest of the roof on the station itself, I remember
the big black cloud of dust and things that swept over the street," he says. "And all of us, we all wound
up with dirty faces that we didn't know we had." Train Riders Northeast Founder- Wayne Davis
http://www.mpbn.net/Home/tabid/36/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3478/ItemId/17804/Default.aspx Portland Maine Union Station
Demolished 1961

37. The Master Plans
Both cities commissioned
comprehensive “master plans”
that reconfigured the urban
Victor Gruen with a prototype shopping
center in order to better enable
mall automotive travel from the
suburbs.
,. . SOUTH-AND
MUNJOY YOU
To ReMden~ Properly Owners Munjoy
and in South:
Portland, Oregon began as early as
Your neighborhood contains many soundhomes. The
excellent condition of many yards and gardens 1943 when they hired the legendary
showspride and responsibility-- necessaryelements
in on urban renewalprogram. “Master Builder” of NYC, Robert Moses,
Mtmjoy Southhas beenchosenas the third area in
the city to be improved the combined
by efforts of to develop a transportation plan like his
you, your neighbors, and the Portland RmewolAU-
thar.y. ’ legendary public works projects in New Robert Moses with a model
of the failed Brooklyn-
Some your homes
of ore showing signs of aging andneg-
lecL Therehi,in effect, o combination many of elements
York. Battery Bridge
thc~ Indicate that unless some solution Is presented,
your neighborhood .will .’* ontlnue:~:.
value of your " " ’ to decrease
downhill causing the Portland, Maine followed suit much
properties
later when they hired architect, Victor
Gruen to publish a master plan called
“Patterns of Progress” in 1968. Victor
Gruen is known as the inventor of the
modern shopping mall.

38. ROBERT MOSES’ 1943 PLAN FOR PORTLAND OREGON (LEFT) AND VICTOR GRUEN’S 1967
PLAN FOR PORTLAND MAINE (RIGHT). BOTH PLANS WERE ONLY PARTIALLY COMPLETED,
BUT NONETHELESS RESULTED IN THE RAZING OF HUNDREDS OF HISTORIC LANDMARKS
AND THE DISPLACEMENT OF THOUSANDS OF INNER-CITY RESIDENTS.

39. The Franklin Arterial Before and After

40. The Portland Street Grid Before the Franklin Arterial

42. Images from a leaflet
distributed to residents of the
Munjoy South Neighborhood in
Portland Maine about their
impending removal

43. Portland ME 1950 Portland ME- Present
We are convinced that the real shopping center will be the most profitable
type of chain store location yet developed, for the simple reason that it will
include features to induce people to drive considerable distances to enjoy
its advantages.- Victor Gruen 1948
Union Station Before and After

44. Even the people that were standing there
with tears coming down their cheeks, some
of the elderly people that were standing
next to me, didn’t really think the demolition
was going to happen. I think that most of
the city hoped that at the last moment a
great white night of sorts would ride in and
have some sort of grand plan to save the
station. Train Riders Northeast Founder- Wayne Davis All Aboard for
Union Station PP103
"It happened so quickly,[...]Passenger service
ended in 1960, and before you knew it, Maine
Central Railroad was selling off all its
properties, and there was nothing to stop
them. It made people realize that major
components of the city's history could be
destroyed with the flick of a finger and they
needed to take steps to protect it."http://
www.pressherald.com/news/the-ugly-birth-of-preservation_2011-08-31.html

45. PORTLAND
IMPROVEMENT
Images from Robert Moses’ plan
for Portland Oregon

48. Moses” rendition of Harbor
Drive was typical of his
“parkway” concept, which
envisioned a “park for cars”.
Harbor Drive was eventually
completed in 1950

49. Different Tracks,
Different Outcomes
1972-Present

50. The Tide Turns in
Oregon
The Mt. Hood Freeway arose out of
Robert Moses’ 1943 plan. It would
have run from Downtown Portland
to the suburbs and required the
razing of more than 1700 individual
households. The neighborhood
citizens revolted and in 1975 the
project was cancelled. Funds for
the freeway were then reallocated
towards the creation of one of the
first modern light-rail systems in
the country.
Rendering of the failed Mt. Hood Freeway

51. In addition to the dramatic
showdown over the Mt. Hood
Freeway Portland, Oregon’s 1972
Master Plan signaled a reversal of
the auto-centric conventions of the
era. The plan included the creation
of some of what became the most
popular gathering places in modern
portland and contributed to the Harbor Drive circa 1955
subsequent “Portland
Renaissance” of the 1990s when
the population of highly-educated
young people surged.
Included in the 1972 plan was a
proposal to remove Robert Moses’
harbor Drive and replace it with a
pedestrian park.
Harbor Drive present

52. 1952 1970
Sequence of Aerial Photographs shows 2010
the evolution of highway construction
in Portland Oregon. The Robert Moses
plan was in its early phases in the
above image from 1952, by 1970 the
highways were at their peak. The
image at right from 2010 shows a
revitalized waterfront where the Harbor
Expressway has been turned into a
park.

53. Portland, Maine experienced a brief
resurgence in the 1980s as the city’s “Old
Port” neighborhood transformed from a
warehouse district into a retail destination, Portland ME Portland OR
thanks in part to the Victor Gruen master plan.
The resurgence was short lived however and
600,000
the population remains lower today than that
of its peak in 1950. 525,000
450,000
375,000
Population
Portland Oregon’s population surged by the early
1990s with the completion the MAX light rail lines
300,000
and the addition of Portland Streetcar . High-tech
companies such as Intel, Lattice Semiconductor 225,000
and Tektronix form the nucleus of a tech industry
cluster that would become known as the “Silicon 150,000
Forest”. Tech industry locates around “Transit-
Oriented Developments” dotting the rail-lines 75,000
from downtown out to suburbs like Beaverton
and Hillsboro. 0
1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000
While the population of Portland Maine has gone
from 65,000 people in 1970 to 64,000 people in
2010, the population of Portland Oregon has
grown by nearly 40% ( 1980 366,383- 2009
566,141) since 1980.

54. MAX LIGHT RAIL WES COMMUTER RAIL
PORTLAND STREETCAR VINTAGE TROLLEY

55. Back to the Future
The current rail transit system in Portland Oregon has nearly reached its
maximum extent in the pre-auto era.
In addition to the original MAX Light Rail lines, the Portland rail system now includes an overwhelmingly
successful modern streetcar system and a suburban regional rail line. Intercity and long distance
service is served by Amtrak Cascades and Empire Builder trains

56. PORTLAND STREETCAR
Density of Development
Starting in 2001 Portland Streetcar was the first new modern streetcar system built in the U.S
in over 40 years. As opposed to the MAX Light Rail System, which is designed for a commuter
schedule, Portland Streetcar was built explicitly for purposes of promoting density of
development. The graph above shows how successful the plan was.

57. The Pearl
The Pearl District
District 2010
1970 Streetcar Line
The Pearl District 1990 The Pearl District 2010

58. Intercity Rail
Services in
Portland Oregon