🍴Tuesday in the City of Roses. The heat finally breaks today, high near 79 after a weekend that flirted with triple digits. Inside: Portland leans on an $85 billion merger to fix its worst train jam, a boat burns on the Willamette, and we find out where bus drivers actually pee. Drink water anyway.
🚨 THE NEWS
photo by Jerry Huddleston on Flickr
Portland Picks a Fight With Its Slowest Enemy
Anyone stuck behind a three-mile freight train on Southeast 8th, 11th, or 12th knows the drill. The wait can run hours. Federal law lets railroads block crossings more or less whenever they want. But a merger changes the math. Union Pacific wants to combine with Norfolk Southern in an $85 billion deal, the biggest in railroad history, and that needs federal approval. Portland filed notice June 12 to weigh in. Councilor Steve Novick, who pushed for it, calls the Central Eastside crossings the most annoying thing in the entire city. If the deal clears, train activity there climbs 22 percent. Willamette Week
A Pleasure Boat Became a Spectacle on the Willamette
Sunday afternoon near the Kerr Public Dock, a small pleasure boat caught fire and sank in the middle of the Willamette. Bystanders called 911 around 3 p.m. after watching people jump into the river to get away from the flames. Other boaters pulled the swimmers out and brought them to shore. Five people went to local hospitals. Their injuries were not life-threatening, and deputies say everyone is expected to recover. Portland Fire's Fireboat 21 handled the rest. A downtown boat ride on a 95-degree day, just not the kind anyone signed up for. KGW
Where Do Bus Drivers Pee? Portland Finally Asked.
It is the question you think about exactly once, while waiting at a transit center with no public restroom in sight. Willamette Week's Dr. Know got the answer. Most transit centers do have restrooms. They are just locked to keep the public from, in the columnist's words, redecorating. Operators get a five to twenty minute layover at the end of each route and a key. Routes that end in the middle of nowhere get a portable toilet, also locked. And if a driver needs relief mid-route, the term of art is a comfort break. You radio dispatch and hope for the best. Willamette Week
☢️ KELLY BUTTE CIVIL DEFENSE CENTER SPOTLIGHT
photo from Forgotten Oregon on Facebook
Tucked into a wooded butte off Powell sits Portland's strangest Cold War relic. In 1956, the city became the first in America to build an underground city hall, a $670,000 bunker meant to house 250 officials for two weeks after a nuclear strike. It even starred in a CBS doomsday film. Voters defunded civil defense in 1962, and that fall's Columbus Day Storm humbled the rest. It later served as Portland's 911 center until 1994, when the windowless, stale air made workers sick. Crews finally buried the entrance in 2006. Atlas Obscura
📚 ON THIS DAY
June 16, 1969: Governor Tom McCall signed the bill creating Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality, the agency that now tells you when wildfire smoke makes the air unsafe.
🥳 UPCOMING EVENTS
