A Tram with a linchpin?

Webster defines a linchpin as a locking pin inserted crosswise (as through the end of an axle or shaft). The OHSU and it newspaper, characterize it as a dazzling tram that zaps doctors and patients from Pill Hill to the South Waterfront.

With the Oregonian's lastest linchpin linking, the Wino started to wonder where did all this linchpin nonsense begin?

After some digging, I found the first reference the Tram-as-linchpin in this piece by [drumroll] Randy Gragg (Sunday Oregonian, June 23, 2002):

The tram, to proponents like Williams, is the linchpin in a network of streetcar lines and light-rail lines to downtown, the central eastside and Lake Oswego. With OHSU at its center, Williams thinks, North Macadam could become an educational magnet for collaborative and branch programs from Oregon's entire university system -- "the best of the best," he says -- resulting in the major research campus the city has long lacked.

According to Kohler, Phase 2 discussions are under way for a new dental school, a new facility for OHSU and Oregon State University's joint college of pharmacy, a joint Portland State University/OHSU bioengineering building and possibly a new facility for Beaverton-based Oregon Graduate Institute.

But in a classic developers' poker gambit, OHSU and Williams' group say all bets are off without the tram and streetcar.

"This isn't brain surgery," Williams says. "We've got problems on that hill. Trams are all over the world. They're proven. It's not a toy. It's about connections and people's time.

The price tag according to Gragg: $10.2 million to $15.85 million.