Hasta la Vista, baby!

Would a light rail line on Main Street cause businesses to flee downtown Milwaukie?

By Patrick Sherman

The Clackamas Review, Aug 8, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (14 Reader comments)

patrick sherman / clackamas review

The monstrous Predator and his many friends at Dark Horse Comics could join other companies in leaving downtown Milwaukie if light rail is routed along city streets, according to local business leaders.

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According to Neil Hankerson, executive vice president at Dark Horse Comics, the answer is an emphatic “Yes!”

“My own view is that with the Main Street-21st Street couplet, Dark Horse will cease to exist in this location,” he told the city council in a letter. “I also worry about the Main Street-only option.”

He is not alone in his opposition to the new plan, first proposed by parents and staff at the Portland Waldorf School during a May 15 protest in front of city hall.

“I think the idea of running light rail through the ‘heart’ of downtown Milwaukie, along Main Street and 21st Street, or just on Main Street, is ludicrous,” wrote Lee Holzman of Reliable Credit Association, Inc.

Hankerson, Holzman and other downtown business leaders would prefer that a planned MAX line serving the city run along the existing Union Pacific right-of-way, behind the Waldorf School.

“That’s been the locally preferred alternative since 2001,” Hankerson said. “As near as I can tell, folks turned a petition with 25 names on it, and now they want to spend an extra $300,000 to study this option. It just doesn’t make sense to me.”

The Metro regional government is about to embark upon a detailed year-long analysis of the project, referred to as the Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Study. It will cost $4 million to complete and is the final step before actual engineering for the new light rail line gets underway.

At the request of Milwaukie Mayor Jim Bernard, the South Corridor Phase II Steering Committee has held off starting work on the SDEIS to explore whether or not it would be feasible to run light rail tracks on downtown streets. In Hankerson’s estimation, it is not.

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