Seattle-Portland Rivalry Escalates Over Transit

Seattle will soon boast the world's first floating light rail bridge and a stop dedicated to the University of Washington's football stadium. Otherwise, its neighbor to the South, Portland, has generally gotten all of the attention for its extensive light rail system. That's why Eric Sigliano was surprised to see the travel writer from Portland's newspaper, the Oregonian, heap praise on Seattle's transit system -- especially when the system is far from perfect. 

While acknowledging the many cultural contrasts between the cities—creativity vs. tech, slackerdom vs. wealth, Portlandia vs. ...not much, Sigliano sets the record straight on a few of Seattle's transit shortcomings:

"Seattle has vituperative bicycle politics. Portland has cyclists and bike trails. Portland builds relatively cheap light rail and streetcar systems that go everywhere. Seattle builds pricey light rail and streetcar lines that take longer to go a few places than the buses that formerly served them, then insists it needs to build whole systems to justify those initial lines."