Do you think they built the MTA before they built Manhattan?

Population growth creates the tax base, density, and demand required for a successful public transportation system. Demanding that the public transport comes first is simply backwards.

They built the MTA when they still had the flexibility to do it. Portland is too developed now, too many entrenched interests, it'll never get done.

Listen, I am on the same page as you - I would love for it to happen. I would vote for it. I would pay taxes for it. But the reality is that it isn't going to happen, and if you densify the city without the transit, you will have these problems.

Maybe once we have the problems, people will accept the solution

We need to make driving suck so much that people would rather take the bus.

Or make the bus suck less. Curbed bus lanes with fat fines for violators would do more to change urban America than anything else; a de facto revival of the streetcar. Why drive through the gridlock at 7mph when the bus is going 35mph right past you?

It would certainly be cheaper than anything that is rail based.

It's not "making" driving suck, it's allowing driving to suck as a result of market forces. We could stop forcing restrictions on property owners that prevent the natural, market-driven move to mass transit as density increases.

This but unironically.

densify portland -> improve tax revenue -> improve transit. nyc certainly benefited from aristocrats and lax labor laws when building the subway, but this isnt something that is impossible for portland. trimet is already huge for a city as small as portland. improving density will only help transit services.

it doesnt have to be subways -- the willamette flood plain isnt great for subways anyway. portland should continue to build out its bus service and cycling infrastructure. portland is already pretty reasonable for living without a car, it will only improve with density.

Ah yes, stuff the area full of people so that the quality of life tanks, and then the problem can magically fix itself.

There is no "stuffing" - people move there of their own accord first. That they move there despite the inconveniences is a hint that the area is already in high demand and denying it won't make it any better. There also isn't anything magical about feedback loops.

To add to your point, even if you were willing to invest in a proper network it will take years to get going. People are set in their ways and so they won't stop driving, even the hard core supporters of the idea will drive everywhere for a while. Eventually something will cause them to try transport, but the first time they will fail to figure out how to ride and so be late to their... Eventually they will figure it out and over 10 years you can get a good ridership for the population density. Then over the next 30 years you can get density to increase to the point where there is enough population density to justify the network you needed to create to get there.