Here’s the first two parts of our latest interview with Neil McFarlane, based on questions submitted by the readers of Portland Transport. Parts 1 and 2 cover the broad topic areas of TriMet’s financing and service levels, the economy, project funding, and labor contracts.
Parts 1 and 2 |
Part 3 | Part 4
Special thanks to multiple volunteers who have compiled transcripts of these videos. There is also an embedded closed-captioning track on the YouTube videos (Click the “CC” button on the video player to view).
9 responses to “Your Questions for Neil – “Round 2” – The Videos – Parts 1 and 2”
Thanks for doing this service to the transportation community? Would it be possible to post the questions in each video while the videos are transcribed?
It’s not perfect but the beta speech recognition transcription through YouTube works somewhat OK with few enough errors it can be followed, at least for a few minutes on Part 1 that I checked.
Thanks for doing these! How many parts are there?
Sorry for the error… my first question mark should be an exclamation point! !!!!
How many parts are there?
It’s shaping up to be 4 parts.
Some of his stuff his reasonable, some of it bunk, like his blaming the union for the labor strife.
Sorry for typo’s.
Somebody please find out the basis for this claim on 14,000 jobs!
They always hire Stacy and Witbek, an international company with their own staff.
14,000 “new” jobs seems like an absurd number.
Having the Max drive by during the interview is an obvious subliminal message, typical of the Ministry of Propaganda.
Having the Max drive by during the interview is an obvious subliminal message, typical of the Ministry of Propaganda.
I’m sure you’re just being sarcastic, but…
The location was selected (same location as last time) because it was indoors but afforded a view of transit, which is germane to the topic.
The actual block (between Everett and Davis on 5th) is a bus stop block. I think if you do an actual count of things going by, you’ll see more buses than trains, and more cars than buses, and possibly a few more pedestrians than any other single thing.
I think if you do an actual count of things going by, you’ll see more buses than trains, and more cars than buses, and possibly a few more pedestrians than any other single thing.
The flashes of headlights from pedestrian vehicles was the most distracting part of facing toward the traffic from filming this. At least the pedestrians weren’t that distracting. It would have been nice to have a green screen in front of stock footage, but unfortunately that’s very expensive for a non-profit project. It’s a lot less distracting than uncontrolled movement (aka repeated headlights) in my peripheral vision.
If I remember right, the original idea for the first video was to film at the bus yard in SE. That would have had no trains in the background, but just didn’t work out. The original interview was filmed in the same room at the same table (with different mugs for water), so it made sense to use that same space for the follow up.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I was just there for both, and I don’t think there was any sinister manipulation of the content by trying to have TriMet’s products in the background. We were offered a space that would allow for a controlled climate, space to plug in power (a lot of lights were getting used), and limited background noise with no interruptions. That’s an easy place to film, which is all I felt Bob was trying to find and TriMet did a nice job delivering on.