Congresswoman Darlene Hooley of the 5th District, which includes parts of northern Benton County, reports that the 2008 transportation and urban development bill includes $80 million for expanding light rail in the metro area and only $500,000 to improve a freeway interchange in Wilsonville. You have to wonder how much this order of spending priority will help improve transportation now and in the coming years.

Light rail is the darling of urban planners. But it is extremely expensive to install, and when it's finished, it can't be moved no matter what changes in the way cities develop.

Hooley says the money in the transportation bill will help pay for a connection from one shopping center in Clackamas County to another, for about 7 miles, and extend a line in downtown Portland. Among the claimed benefits is that this will ease congestion on I-205.

That's a doubtful claim. Light-rail trains would have to run just about continuously, instead of at the usual intervals, to come even close to taking a fraction of the traffic off that congested freeway. And if one of those shopping centers ever closes, as some malls may do in the distant future, the rail line will go nowhere.

Light rail makes us think of the good old days when you could take the "El" to the lake, say, or ride the streetcar downtown. But that was in the 1940s and '50s. The vast mass of commuters and other travelers today have different needs, and if transit is the solution, they can be met more efficiently by expanding the bus service.

Buses have the advantage that if traffic patterns shift, they can be rerouted at short notice, without the long planning and construction period of light rail, and without spending mountains of the public's cash. And they don't necessarily have to run on fossil fuels either. Buses can be powered with electricity from overhead lines. That complicates establishing or changing routes, but not as much as laying tracks and building stations for light rail.

With the help of Congress, the metro area has been on the light-rail kick for 30 years. It no longer makes sense. (hh)