End of Day 1 – Transit Enhancers


Finishing up the first official day for Portland Transport, I want to thank a number of folks:

  • Our wonderful contributors
  • The 400+ folks who visited today
  • The “friends and family” who helped us burn in the site over the weekend
  • The four local blogs who gave us a plug today
  • The one blog that trashed us – thanks, Jack, you validated that we’re going in the right direction

In the spirit of blogging stream-of-experience, let me share my transit experience today that highlights two ways to enhance transit that I think are much underused:

  1. Enhancer: Buses + Bikes

    My car and my 17 year old disappeared together about a year ago. Since that time my personal mobility has been largely car-free. Today I had a medical appoint out near Washington Square. I hopped on my bike in NW Portland, pedaled down to the transit mall (downhill) and put my bike on the #56. Thirty-five minutes later I got off at Washington Square and pedaled another mile to the doctor.

    Using Trimet and bikes in combination make it easy to get anywhere in our region (hill in the way? take the bus over it!). I’d like to encourage a lot more people to look at this combo. You don’t need to be a super-biker to make this work.

  2. Enhancer: Real Time Arrival Info

    I HATE waiting at bus stops. After I finished my medical appointment today, I did some errands around Washington Square and finished up on Main St. in Tigard for lunch, on the #12 line that would take me and my bike back to downtown Portland. As I sat down with my lunch I pulled out my Treo 650 and pulled up the real time arrivals to see when the next bus is coming. I was able to finish my sandwich, roll my bike across the street and place it on the bus that just pulled up. While not everyone has a web-enabled cell phone, TriMet has made this feature available by voice from any cell phone. Just call 503-238-RIDE and punch in the stop number (you’ll find it on the sign or shelter)!

    Stop waiting at bus stops!

That’s all for today, please come back tomorrow when Portland Transport will feature a discussion of Portland’s bicycle program!

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16 responses to “End of Day 1 – Transit Enhancers”

  1. Sorry, I meant to stop short of “trashing,” and I’m afraid I stepped over that line. Unlike many of the other cranks who will soon be giving you a daily hard time here, I generally like and support Portland’s transit system, even light rail.

    But we all need to acknowledge how expensive it is, and not overestimate its “accomplishments.” And the “semi-autonomous regional governing board appointed by the governor, with its own budget” thing — that’s a recipe for a serious disaster.

    Where I really get off the boat is the streetcar. Sorry, that’s just a condo developer’s toy, paid for by all of us. And the aerial tram is simply one of the dopiest things I’ve ever heard of.

  2. Thanks, Jack, I let Brian take the brunt of your onslaught :-)

    As you know, I chair the Streetcar Citizen’s Advisory Committee, and while I acknowledge that the Streetcar has been a key enabler for development, it’s also been my experience as neighborhood transportation chair in NW Portland for most of the last decade, that Streetcar is the most neighborhood-friendly mode I have seen for short trips.

    I also hope you appreciate my restraint in not including any Streetcar-centric posts in the opening festivities :-)

  3. The streetcar, and especially the tram, have engendered a bit of a backlash that isn’t helping transit generally. I was a satisfied customer with Tri-Met until those two came along. At some point you guys just got too cute.

  4. Yeah, I love Portland’s bus and light rail, and I don’t own a car, but that streetcar is just idiotic. I walked from PSU to Powell’s tech and the thing only beat me by like three blocks. Especially considering its proximity to the bus mall, I just haven’t ever understood what the damn point is. I guess lots of people are just afraid of the bus.

  5. Chris, it’s true, the streetcar is really quite slow. Can you explain how that’s going to be addressed in future streetcar projects? I can’t believe that the proposed Streetcar extension to Lake O could go that slow and have a chance of success, so I conclude it can go faster. Is that true? And is there any chance it could speed up in downtown, even a smidge?

  6. Gee Jack, I’m surprised you support the MAX boondoggle. The original intent for light rail was to reduce automobile dependency and congestion. Now that MAX has failed miserably with that errand, dumb-growth supporters now contend MAX is really a conduit for Transit Oriented Development. At $50 million per mile, MAX is one hell of a development subsidy.

  7. OK, I’ll do a thread sometime soon around issues that affect the Streetcar’s speed. I want to go into more depth than is appropriate in the comments for this thread.

    Chris

  8. Max is great because it actually performs the service of getting many riders to their destinations during peak commuting times faster than they could get there in a car or on a bus.

  9. **Max is great because it actually performs the service of getting many riders to their destinations during peak commuting times faster than they could get there in a car or on a bus.**

    Yeah, but at what cost? Many bus lines were eliminated after MAX was built, forcing bus riders to use light rail (studies show most MAX riders are car-less folk and ex bus-riders). There’s been a scant increase of car commuters opting for MAX.

    Moreover, there’s been no new freeways constructed in Portland for what, 40 years?

    An express bus lane along 84 and 26 would have been a hell of a lot cheaper to build and wouldn’t tie-up downtown street traffic like MAX does.

    Also, many surface-street arterials do not have timed traffic lights that would facilitate traffic flow, forcing drivers onto the freeway.

    It’s almost if something was forcing commuters to take MAX… nah, there’s no nefarious social engineering plan is there? Is there?

  10. **Max is great because it actually performs the service of getting many riders to their destinations during peak commuting times faster than they could get there in a car or on a bus.**

    Yeah, but at what cost? Many bus lines were eliminated after MAX was built, forcing bus riders to use light rail (studies show most MAX riders are car-less folk and ex bus-riders). There’s been a scant increase of car commuters opting for MAX.

    Moreover, there’s been no new freeways constructed in Portland for what, 40 years?

    An express bus lane along 84 and 26 would have been a hell of a lot cheaper to build and wouldn’t tie-up downtown street traffic like MAX does.

    Also, many surface-street arterials do not have timed traffic lights that would facilitate traffic flow, forcing drivers onto the freeway.

    It’s almost if something was forcing commuters to take MAX… nah, there’s no nefarious social engineering plan is there? Is there?

  11. Chris, I think there’s absolutely a policy choice (call it social engineering if you want, that’s up to you) going on here. For the next commuter in a corridor, do we want him or her in a single passenger vehicle, or to have a choice of alternative means? I’m absolutely in favor of creating choices, particularly those that have lower environmental impacts.

    We have several transportation systems in our region: auto, rail, bus, bike, pedestrian. Only the auto system offers complete coverage of the region. It seems entirely reasonable to me to preferentially invest in the other systems until their coverage of the region approaches the same level of completeness.

  12. Thanks for the tip on the “Real Time Arrivals.” The only thing worse than waiting for a bus is waiting more than 15 minutes for a “Frequent Service” route.

  13. **For the next commuter in a corridor, do we want him or her in a single passenger vehicle, or to have a choice of alternative means?**

    I’m all for choice if the means of transport deliver a positive return on investment. At $50 to $100 million a mile, MAX is far from achieving that. And now the Wahoos in Seattle are claiming the planned monorail project will cost $1 billion a mile??

    Spending that much money on a system that moves less than 1% of commuters, is not expandable and does not transport commerce or emergency vehicles is an insane waste of tax dollars.

  14. I too love the real time transit countdown using my cell phone to time the next arrival of a bus. However, I’ve never seen the stop number on the bus sign. Perhaps TriMet will post them all eventually. In the meantime, you can still find the arrival time and the stop number you need by going through the prompts at 503.238-RIDE. Or the direct line to arrivals, when you know the stop number, is 503.231.3199. Now I’ve made waiting for the bus a game.

  15. 1. Bus and Bikes
    I have discovered the benefit of combining modes but there needs to be more tools out there that help people to do this. I would like to see a map that shows me where bike routes and bus lines intersect and where there are bike lockers along the routes. I don’t know how many times I have traveled along streets not meant for bikes trying to find a bus stop in areas of town I am not so familiar with. Or how about trying to find a place to lock up your bike when the rack is full and its the last bus for the day. A few more tools would hlep make the bus-bike option and easier choice for travel.
    2.I hate waiting for buses too. But the real time arrival readers are a source of frustration to me along my bus route since all it tells me how far from on-time the bus is, 10 minutes seems like an eternity as you watch the reader board knowing that you are going to miss your connection and you don’t have the option of chosing another bus route.

  16. Shelley, I couldn’t agree more about the need for inter-modal tools. Part of the motivation for setting up this blog was to encourage cross-polination between folks working on different modes.

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