Portlandthursday, august 30, 2012 • twice chosen the nation’s best nondailyTribune paper • www.portlandtribune.com • published thursday The traffic in Hollywood where Sandy Boulevard, César Chávez Boulevard, Halsey Street and Broadway and I-84 converge, is among the worst in Portland. TRIBUNE PHOTO: CHRISTOPHER ONSTOTT Inside: PDX’s 10 worst intersections n We’re stuck with Portland’s worst intersections and things aren’t likely to change very weekday morning for the past nine lanes. The far left lane is supposed to turn left months, Sara Flisram has approached onto Sandy. The middle lane allows drivers to go the intersection at Northeast Sandy Bou- straight or turn. The far right lane gives drivers Elevard and César Chávez the option of going straight or turn- Boulevard with a little bit of opti- ing right. mism and a great deal of trepida- STORY BY All of which forces drivers to take tion. PETER KORN calculated risks just when rush- “It can be a nightmare,” says Flis- hour traffic is at its worst. ram, who drives from her Monta- Flisram says her strategy is to sit villa home to Southwest Portland via Interstate in the left lane and hope everyone in the center TRAFFIC! 84. lane goes straight so she can turn and sneak back The nightmares occur, Flisram says, when a to the right lane on Sandy to enter the highway. driver comes to a complete stop in the middle of Taking the proper middle lane turn, she ac- WHERE NOT TO DRIVE Sandy Boulevard because rush hour traffic isn’t knowledges, sometimes means crawling through flowing the way he or she wants it to. The inter- section approach from César Chávez has three See TRAFFIC / Page 2 Suburban Food carts swap wheels for a roof seats may opened a sandwich shop,” says A handful of owners John Fimmano, who spent about find life better in 18 months with his wife operat- tilt power ing the cart before the business moved indoors. permanent locations Shut Up and Eat is one of a few food carts making the change to in Salem By ALEX BLUM a traditional indoor restaurant. The Tribune Food cart owners, whose mobile businesses were once seen as a Four Portland-area Business has been strong serious challenge to traditional the first two weeks at Shut Up restaurants, are realizing the posts targeted as and Eat, a new sandwich shop benefits that can come with a key to both parties on Southeast Gladstone stable location and, importantly, Street and César Chávez Bou- the ability to sell liquor. By STEVE LAW levard. Food sales sometimes can The Tribune That’s because the new shop provide a return on investment isn’t entirely new. of between 20 percent and 30 The battle for control of Before it was a restaurant, percent, but liquor sales can re- the Oregon Legislature be- Shut Up and Eat was a food cart turn up to 300 percent, says Bo gins in earnest after Labor at Southeast Division Street and Kwon, owner of the Korean BBQ- Day, and suburban Portland 50th Avenue. Loyal clientele al- meets-Mexican-food cart, Koi races will again play an over- ready knew the cart’s fare and Fusion. sized role in determining helped as the restaurant set out Kwon plans to move his opera- which party seizes power. to do business in a new venue. tion into a brick-and-mortar res- That’s especially true in the “We always had envisioned taurant in the next few weeks. TRIBUNE PHOTO: CHRISTOPHER ONSTOTT Oregon House of Representa- using the food cart as sort of a Portland has about 700 food Shut Up And Eat food cart owner John Fimmano opened a restaurant location with his wife Keleigh on tives, where Democrats and trial run to see what happened Southeast Gladstone Street, realizing the benefits that can come with a stable location and the ability to Republicans each hold 30 seats before we went ahead and See CART / Page 4 sell liquor. and were forced to share power the past two years. Party lead- ers on both “The sides say most ThisWeek Oregon of the action this fall will Online House is center on six Brewers keep their spirits up probably former Demo- crat-held Local stories that you going to seats won by read about first at attract Republicans www.portlandtribune.com in 2010. Four in midst of fluoridation debate most of the of those dis- n NEWS — Con-way site attention tricts are in Council vote looms ton, brewmaster at Northwest plan approval clears way and a lot of East Portland/ Portland’s BridgePort Brewing. for project — City hear- Clackamas, as opponents rally “A lot of them are concerned ings officer approves plan the Hillsboro and about whether fluoridation is ac- for 17-acre redevelopment resources Gresham. for ballot initiative tually a health concern.” in Northwest Portland. Most voters With all of the public health (Posted Monday, Aug. 27) that would don’t pay at- By JENNIFER ANDERSON and scientific studies being Search: Con-way. otherwise tention to leg- The Tribune tossed around by the pro- and n Mother, neighbors go to islative races anti- fluoridation campaigns (see prevent child abduction until the fall, With all the debate on fluo- opposing viewpoints, Page A 6), — Suspect caught, turned up-ticket and many ridating the city’s water, one it’s difficult for citizens to discern over to police. (Posted Sun- races.” don’t know voice hadn’t weighed in — un- the truth. day, Aug. 26) Search: Abduc- the name of til now. Edgerton says that as far as tion. — Nick Smith, their state Some of Portland’s largest the beer industry is concerned, GOP campaign lawmaker un- craft brewers say the proposed “the problem is, once it’s in the n FEATURES — 2013 group til they vote. plan to add fluoride to the Bull water, it stays in the water.” Subaru BRZ review — But with the Run water supply at a level of 0.7 The Oregon Brewers’ Guild, Back-to-basic sports car two presiden- parts per million will not affect which represents dozens of just plain fun to drive. tial candidates campaigns the brewing process or the taste brewers in Portland and across (Posted Thursday, Aug. 23) spending little time or money of their beer. the state, has not taken a formal Search: Subaru. in the state so far, the tussle for Still, they have concerns about position on the issue. Brian Bu- control of the Oregon House public perception, since craft tenschoen, the guild’s executive n SPORTS — Prep Focus: figures to get national attention brewers — as well as their loyal director, says it’s on tap for dis- Rams return 10 for run in this record-shattering year fans — pride themselves on the cussion Thursday. at fourth straight state for campaign spending. quality of ingredients and the in- volleyball title — Central TRIBUNE FILE PHOTO: SARAH TOOR A public priority House races could be Ore- Will Portland’s famous craft beer be impacted by a proposed plan to tegrity of the beer-making pro- Catholic has depth, experi- gon’s “marquee election of the flouridate the drinking water? A brewmaster at Bridgeport Brewing cess. Portland City Commissioner ence. (Posted Monday, Aug. Company says the process and taste will remain the same; public “Our customers are very con- 27) Search: Rams. See SWING / Page 5 perception is the biggest issue. cerned about it,” says Jeff Edger- See BREWERS / Page 8 A2 NEWS The Portland Tribune Thursday, August 30, 2012 Traffic:Congestion, safety often at odds ■ From page 1 a backup that can stretch two blocks or more. So usually, she gambles. Would Flisram like the inter- section changed? “Honestly, if they fix it, then you lose the option to cheat from the left and then all the lanes would probably be backed up,” she says. Ah, the great American sport of trying to beat traffic. We don’t have as much congestion as other major metropolises — the latest data has Portland down at No. 17 on a list of the worst U.S. cities for traffic. Still, we have our trouble spots. And Sara Flisram’s daily nightmare at César Chávez Boulevard and Sandy ranks as one of Port- land’s 10 worst intersections. Until now, not even the Port- land Bureau of Transportation was certain where surface street congestion was the worst. Highway commutes are easy — sensors on ramps and beneath the highways have been telling traffic engineers for years how many cars were passing and at what speed. But placing sensors under the thousands of miles of surface streets isn’t practical. INRIX of Kirkland, Wash., has solved that problem by turning our cars and trucks into two-way connections. GPS de- vices and cell phones in cars, it turns out, are capable of report- ing their precise locations, di- rection of movement and speed at all times. Half the vehicles on TRIBUNE PHOTOs: CHRIsTOPHER ONsTOTT the road in Portland are provid- Eastbound evening traffic leaving downtown on West Burnside street gets backed up from sandy Boulevard to the Burnside Bridge. ing data wherever they go. IN- RIX captures that information, processing a trillion points of data nationwide each day from But more than 80 seconds of de- moving vehicles. lay at a traffic signal, which The result, thanks to Ore- rates an intersection an F on the gon’s Department of Transpor- A through F scale, is not OK. tation, which subscribes to IN- The city has about half a doz- RIX, is that Portland transporta- en F intersections.