Regional High Capacity Transit System Plan


Since the Regional Transportation Plan is fully underway, and grabs most of the headlines, I thought everyone should also know about what Metro is doing with regard to high capacity rail planning.

First of all, we in Portland owe much to the dedicated and visionary leaders and planners in the 1970’s and 1980’s for the incredible regional rail system that we have today. Our system benefited from the regional compact in 1990 that laid the foundation for the expansion of the light rail system from 15 miles to over 60 miles. We have made amazing progress in the last 20 years on our existing plans, as well as projects not even envisioned in that era, namely a 15-mile Commuter Rail line that’s currently under construction from Wilsonville to Beaverton as well as the Portland Streetcar system, which has brought amazing economic development along with its ridership success.

But despite our region’s success, we must not rest on our laurels, so we’re aggressively pursing new rail system planning.

Starting this summer and ramping up in the fall, Metro will be undertaking a Regional High Capacity Transit System Plan. This plan will build on the work currently underway in the RTP, and will include the prioritization of future major transit investments in the region. Metro will be evaluating ridership, costs, operations and financial feasibility of potential light rail, streetcar, commuter rail and bus rapid transit projects in the region. The work will be closely coordinated with TriMet and local jurisdictions. Metro’s efforts will dovetail with work that the City of Portland is undertaking on the development of a Streetcar system plan.

I hope that everyone who follows transportation issues closely is both thankful for how well our region has planned and implemented our rail transit system and energized about our ongoing and future efforts to add more rail capacity. It’s one of the most valuable assets our region has to maintain our economic security and quality of life for generations to come.

Past agreements have allowed us to avoid the multi-billion dollar tax increases seen in places like Denver, Salt Lake and Phoenix to rectify the unsustainable practices of sprawl and automobile monoculture. Steady, modest investments coupled with smart land use planning and good urban design help us avoid drastic actions yet we can’t let up. This next round of constructing our region’s transportation “backbone”—high capacity transit—is critical.

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70 responses to “Regional High Capacity Transit System Plan”

  1. Rex,

    I appreciate the good planning has meant that we are not paying to undo past mistakes, but I still wonder a couple of things:

    1) With the lowest gas tax on the west coast, is there not real risk that will are simply underinvesting overall to stay competitive with other regions around the world?

    2) If more radical change in transportation is required (to deal with peak oil and/or climate change), how are we going to pay for it?

  2. We need more suburb to suburb service and direct, limited stop service between residential and industrial areas.
    We need to add bus rapid transit NOW, not in another 20 years.

  3. I see that there is no shortage of rail-based mass transit planning, but once again a perfect example of mode-based planning and not needs-based planning, and another perfect example that we can find money anywhere when there’s a choo-choo train involved, but pity the poor person who has to take a bus, because Metro can’t find the money to replace worn out, old, non-air conditioned, high floor busses with new, reliable, environmentally friendly, high capacity, low floor busses that have helped the Seattle region attract and maintain growing ridership growth on its transit system.

    What is Metro’s reluctance to adding quality bus service? Is it because Metro is in bed with someone at Siemens? Or that Metro hates busses because only “undesirable” people ride the busses?

    I am sure – positive, in fact – that even if Metro comes around to studying bus service, that it will find a way to skew the results to make bus financing so undesirable that it will be quickly eliminated from further consideration; while continuing a long-standing pattern of underestimating construction costs for more expensive, dedicated right-of-way projects that Metro will magically not be held accountable for the resulting cost overruns.

    (Commuter rail was supposed to cost less than $80 million. It’s now nearly $120M, and from a source close to the project, it is continuing to run over even the revised budget.)

  4. I was talking with someone at TriMet about new buses and they said that they will receive a shipment of 40 new buses in the middle of next year.

  5. Do these politicians in Oregon ever get anything done within their budgetary guidelines?

  6. I was talking with someone at TriMet about new buses and they said that they will receive a shipment of 40 new buses in the middle of next year.

    Good.

    What about the other 150 busses that need to be replaced? And why isn’t Fred Hansen sticking to his promise of making bus replacements EACH YEAR, which puts him exactly at 150 busses behind his own self-imposed schedule (2004, 2005 and 2007)

  7. Isn’t PDOT embarking on a mode-neutral high capacity transit corridor study for the City? (the answer to that question is yes) I really hope that this Metro effort is coordinated with the City’s, otherwise it seems like a wasteful duplication of effort.

    Doug: you are right, there are way too many MAX stops downtown. Old Town/Chinatown and Skidmore Fountain are ~700 feet apart. OT/CT and Morrison/SW 3rd (the 4th stop) are only about one-half mile apart. The mall alignment will have, relatively, much fewer stops.

    Next time you go over the Steel Bridge on a MAX train, right after you hear the loud “ka-THUNK ka-THUNK” look out at the opposite set of tracks. There is a 2-3 inch gap in the tracks between the lift and fixed span. This is why the trains can only go 5 mph over the bridge.

    In the FEIS for Interstate MAX, there was a line item to fix that problem, thereby raising the speed limit over the bridge to 25mph. Obviously, that was never done, despite the project coming in $25 million under budget. At an open house for the mall project about a year ago, I asked someone from TriMet why they didn’t do that, and if they were planning on doing it this time. He said no, it was found to be technically unfeasible.

    I call hogwash. Ride Amtrak to Seattle sometime, and when you go over the Willamette and Columbia bridges, also lift spans, you will notice that you are going closer to 40mph. Look out the window at the adjacent track (it’s harder, because you are going so fast). You will see that there is no gap in the tracks; where the lift span meets the fixed span, the tracks do not form 2 blunt edges but rather 2 inverted isosceles triangles that meet to create continuous trackage. I’m not an engineer, but I see no reason why the Steel Bridge couldn’t be configured similarly, on a weekend, with minimal service interruptions.

    I hate to sound cynical because I support the expansion of the rail system, but this does seem to indicate that TriMet is content with embarrasingly slow trains coming into downtown, and unwilling to do something relatively simple to alleviate the bottleneck they are creating.

  8. Drom at Tribune article:

    Since 2002, the regional mass transit agency has seen almost all of its bus ridership increase on its frequent-service lines that run every 15 minutes.

    Despite that, TriMet cannot substantially increase bus service for at least another five years because of commitments to help fund new rail lines and increases in senior and disabled citizen services. (Bold added)
    from: localdailynews.com/news/story.php?story_id=118065302018049900

    It appears that we are now starting to follow in the footsteps of some other rail heavy regions: cutting bus service because of the very high cost of rail.

    Thanks
    JK

  9. It appears that we are now starting to follow in the footsteps of some other rail heavy regions: cutting bus service because of the very high cost of rail.

    It appears that we have expanded overall ridership over a long period of time even though fares have been increased to cover fuel costs and payroll tax revenues have not kept pace with ridership growth.

    The very article you quote, outside of your added emphasis, notes that increases in senior and disabled services are also a factor.

    – Bob R.

  10. Rex, if we have such a hotshot rail system here as you say, how come you were lamenting last December in the Portland Tribune that only 10% of commuter trips in transit-rich Multnomah County were by transit?

  11. Bob R writes: “payroll tax revenues have not kept pace with ridership growth.”

    Why would you expect taxes to keep pace with ridership? Shouldn’t the fares from rides begin to cover more of the operating expenses at some point?
    MW

  12. “Why would you expect taxes to keep pace with ridership? Shouldn’t the fares from rides begin to cover more of the operating expenses at some point?”

    Yes, at some point. It depends on where you allocate the service (and as I said it appears that the cuts TriMet made, although difficult for some, were well chosen).

    But in the recent past the slow growth in payroll revenues has been a factor. This is projected to be less of a factor in the future.

    – Bob R.

  13. The importance of identifying corridors for high capacity transit is that once capital costs are covered (feds, one time local and state $) operations are much more cost effective. One MAX Train can carry as riders as four buses; one BRT vehicle as many as two, etc.
    Once Milwaukie is built, and MAX is extended to Vancouver, what is next? Barbur, Foster/ Powell,
    McLaughlin to Oregon City?

  14. One MAX Train can carry as riders as four buses; one BRT vehicle as many as two

    The operative word is “can”.

    A recent study of MAX ridership showed that during the rush hour, MAX trains were jammed inbound, but were leaving downtown practically empty (eastbound more so than westbound because of employment centers in Beaverton/Hillsboro, but still much fewer passengers).

    MAX trains are typically less patronized west of Beaverton and east of Gateway, too. But because of the inflexible design of MAX (trains have to keep moving), there is no benefit of this excess capacity – there isn’t anyone to use it.

    A bus, on the other hand, can switch routes (although in practice TriMet is not very good at doing this.) If one bus line has excess capacity, dispatch could take those excess busses and put them on other routes that are in crush mode. Or excess busses can be deployed whereever it’s needed. You can’t do that with light rail.

    Light rail has the benefit of combining more cars together to create a longer consist that only needs one operator. Unfortunately in Portland, a major design flaw limits that capacity to two car trains (platforms and downtown city blocks.) And because of congestion downtown, there is also a limit on how many trains that can operate at one time. (Busses could run on alternate streets; something that is actually now being considered after the Transit Mall is completed – leaving some bus routes on 3rd/4th Avenues and some cross-mall service.)

  15. A recent study of MAX ridership showed that during the rush hour, MAX trains were jammed inbound, but were leaving downtown practically empty (eastbound more so than westbound because of employment centers in Beaverton/Hillsboro, but still much fewer passengers).

    I’d like to see this study… got a link?

    – Bob R.

  16. The operative word is “can”.

    A recent study of MAX ridership showed that during the rush hour, MAX trains were jammed inbound, but were leaving downtown practically empty (eastbound more so than westbound because of employment centers in Beaverton/Hillsboro, but still much fewer passengers).

    And somehow this would be better with buses? The “jammed” trains would be replaced four-fold with jammed buses, but they somehow would not have to return empty from the city center like the trains? Where would they go?

    A bus, on the other hand, can switch routes (although in practice TriMet is not very good at doing this.) If one bus line has excess capacity, dispatch could take those excess busses and put them on other routes that are in crush mode. Or excess busses can be deployed whereever it’s needed. You can’t do that with light rail.

    If you’re talking about doing this on any given day, then sorry, but you can’t do that with buses either. Regardless of whether a bus line is operating with “excess capacity”, it’s would be an incredibly poor decision to remove scheduled buses for a line. How are people to rely on your service if vehicles are seemingly-arbitrarily (from the passenger’s perspective) dropped from the schedule (something about which I recall complaints on this very board…)?

    [Edit: Italics/emphasis tags corrected. – B.R.]

  17. Note on previous post: sorry, I put in the closing italics tag too soon. Note that the first non-italicized paragraph in the previous post is Erik’s.

    [Editor’s note: Tags corrected in the above post. This was not your fault – Movable Type automatically turns off formatting tags at the end of each paragraph, so you need to close them at each paragraph and open new ones with the next paragraph, etc., to highlight multiple blocks. – B.R.]

  18. Why would you expect taxes to keep pace with ridership? Shouldn’t the fares from rides begin to cover more of the operating expenses at some point?

    I am not sure why you would expect that. Don’t we want more people to use transit because it is cheaper than providing capacity for their automobile? As more people use transit you need to pay for it. So you have two choices: You can raise fares, reduce usage and pay for the resulting increased auto capacity required. Or you can increase tax revenue to pay for the increased use in transit. Its pretty clearly cheaper to pay for another seat on a bus or train than to pay for road and parking space for another automobile.

  19. Ross one of things to do would be to increase the opportunities that people have to use transit Many cities have a higher percentage of their operating budget coming from the fare box. San Diego gets about 35% of their operating budget from the fare box and I have read, but not confirmed that some of the 1200 private buses operating in New Jersey get as much as 95% or more of their operating budget from the fare box.

    Maybe what Trimet needs are some new ideas on how to run a business. For instance what is Trimet’s ratio of managent to labor. Whanna bet there top heavy?

    MW

  20. Whanna bet there top heavy?

    OOPS! I used the wrong “there” there. Shoulda been they’re.
    MW

  21. Bob – portions of the article were published IIRC in the Oregonian, or the Tribune, about two months ago.

    James – so what you’re saying is that we should overbuild an expensive light rail system that has plenty of capacity, but that the capacity by its very design can’t be targeted to where it is needed?

    Take this into consideration – a rush hour bus, say the 12-B – could run a schedule that is every 10 minutes inbound during the morning rush hour. Now for obivious reasons that same level of capacity isn’t needed in the reverse direction, so the 12B could run a 30 minute interval outbound. That means one out of every three busses actually returns back to Sherwood (or King City, or Tigard, or Barbur Blvd TC) for a repeat trip. Meanwhile, the other two busses then move to another route – say, 85S, or 54, or 8. When the busses are no longer needed on that route, they can run a regular schedule on a route.

    Of course this works only if the routes can be kept on schedule.

    MAX, on the other hand, can’t do that. The trains have to keep moving, and only along its single route. If there is a need to move people to, say, Washington Square – the solution as posed by this board is “build a MAX line to Washington Square.” OK, that’ll take 10 years and $300 million dollars. Meanwhile, there’s an immediate need for transit tomorrow, how do you solve it? Accuse people of poor planning because where they need to go isn’t served by MAX?

    The concept isn’t eliminating jammed trains with jammed busses, the concept is to replace vehicles that were jammed, but are no longer as the passengers got off the vehicle in downtown (or whereever else). Isn’t it better to utilize that vehicle to move people, or to send that vehicle on a revenue run without passengers?

  22. Erik “Bob – portions of the article were published IIRC in the Oregonian, or the Tribune, about two months ago.”

    Both a regular Google search and a news search don’t turn up any results for this that I can find. Given that you have also falsely reported that the federal government rejected the RTP I am disinclined to give your recollections credit. Do you have a link or not?

  23. Erik,
    Your idea to re-route buses on demand is a good one, but can’t work unless there is an excess supply of vehicles which, as you have duly noted, TriMet doesn’t have.

  24. It’s not just an issue of excess vehichles. I’m no transportation planner, but it seems logical to conclude that spikes in ridership don’t just happen at the drop of a hat. This is something that can be tracked and tested over time. Is TRIMET not doing this?

    The other issue is that it’s not just an issue of driving vehicles- no matter what kind of wheels they happen to have- to people. The bigger issue, to me, seems to be if we can start to create the kinds of communities that are clustered around transit. In the end, this seems much more efficient- and rational.

  25. Hawthorne,

    For your convenience:

    The Oregonian, January 30, 2007:

    Where are the roads? U.S. asks Metro

    SUMMARY: Transportation | Put cars at top of a 20-year plan, a federal agency tells planners The Federal Highway Administration wants to know where the transportation is in Metro’s transportation plan.Metro is trying something different with the current plan update –giving the highest priority to projects that support the region’s goals for coping with growth, whether that means more roads, more transit or more bicycle lanes.But the highway agency says…

    If you want to read the rest of the story, unfortuantely it’s on paid archives.

  26. Erik,

    Thank you for making my point. Your original statement was: “Fact: Metro’s proposed transportation plan was rejected by the federal government, because it focused too much on rail project expansion”

    Of course the federal government did not reject the RTP. They have never done this in the past and the current RTP is not at the point yet where they have that kind of say. As I stated, your facts are wrong.

  27. Erik, TriMet already does do that, take a look at something like the 94 schedule, it only goes one direction at rush hour.

    However:
    1) In the afternoon, it (or some other bus) ultimately does need to end up back in downtown to pick more people and move them out of downtown, and since more people are trying to leave downtown than enter it at 5pm, the buses, (regardless of what routes they take to do it,) are more heavily used on the outbound trip than on the inbound one. Fixed route or not, you just are never going to get full loads in both directions all the time, our city isn’t laid out that way.
    2) You’ve actually complained about them doing it. “…where I was told that a bus broke down at 9th and Burnside. WHAT? 9th and Burnside? I’m in King City!! In my business, that would be the equivalent of having a neighborhood in Hillsboro that is without power because a transformer in Oregon City exploded.” (Personally, I think that a broken down bus is a broken down bus, and it doesn’t matter where it broke down, it isn’t where I want it to be, but you seemed to get bent out of shape over it…)

  28. Many cities have a higher percentage of their operating budget coming from the fare box.

    Do they get the same ridership numbers for similar kinds of employment and residential densities?

    I am perfectly willing to believe Trimet has inefficiencies. Every large business does. But I don’t see how tax revenue has any connection to that. The result of lower taxes is less service, not greater efficiency.

    Regardless of how efficient Trimet is, adding tax revenue will likely improve service. And no matter how much tax revenue they get, they ought to be trying to spend it as efficiently as possible.

  29. Erik-
    It doesn’t work that way. Not at all. Even if you’re going to divert two out of three buses in your hypothetical scenario to another route, you still have to have another route that has the inverse directional ridership balance. That is, you’ll have to find a route that conveniently has more people going OUT of downtown.

    But even if such routes exist, what do those diverted buses do when they get to the end of the routes onto which they’ve been diverted? We’ve already established that these routes have an imbalance heading out of the city center, since that is the reason extra buses were diverted to them. Either they run light back on this route (which is what you were trying to avoid in the first place) or they get diverted to yet another route. But eventually they’ll have to make their way back to the original route to handle the evening rush.

    Of course, if these routes have such a remarkable imbalance it can mean only a few things: either METRO is hosting a delegation of 1,000 world mayors and planning professionals that happens to be going to Swan Island (or Tigard, or…), or it’s a regular occurance. If it’s a regular occurance, then the two routes should simply be combined into one semi-permanently. And if that’s the case, you’re back where you’ve started from: heavily-patronized buses that run decent load factors in both directions. So where’s the “flexibility” advantage of buses? Sounds like a route that might be good for light rail.

    Now, regarding the issue of farebox recovery as raised by Mr. Wilson, of course you can do better, but it’s not really a question of mode. Here in Stuttgart–the birthplace of the modern automobile–we have 13 light rail lines* and 53 bus lines, and the cost-recovery ratio is 91%. Some interesting facts for those of you bored at work on this Friday:
    http://www.ssb-ag.de/de/die_ssb/daten_und_fakten/kennzahlen.html

    * Eleven true light rail, 1 streetcar, 1 cog railway; figures do not include commuter/regional railway lines.

  30. Of course the federal government did not reject the RTP

    Federal Highway Adminstration is an arm of the U.S. Department of Transportation, which is an arm of the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government. How much closer to the “federal government” do you want, George Bush himself?

    Then, if I’m so wrong, then what exactly did the FHWA find objectionable enough to send the RTP back to Metro to fix? Do you mind correcting my facts, or are you just bent out on telling me I’m wrong because you would rather engage in personal attacks (prohibited on this forum, by the way) instead of engaging in actual debate and discussion of ideas?

  31. And if that’s the case, you’re back where you’ve started from: heavily-patronized buses that run decent load factors in both directions. So where’s the “flexibility” advantage of buses? Sounds like a route that might be good for light rail.

    How does that automatically justify light rail?

    Does that mean that every road that has decent “load factors” should become a freeway? Should we bring back the 1950s/60s era freeway plan to Portland, because of all of the arterials/collectors such as Powell, 122nd, 82nd, Killingsworth are busy streets?

    Of course that’s ridiculous. But we seem to think light rail is the end-all-be-all solution to all transit woes.

    Think of it this way – when MAX arrives at downtown and empties out, then what? Do you run it empty or park it? (And there’s no where to park it.)

    When a bus arrives at downtown and empties out, you can run it to a garage, park it at the layovers downtown (which temporarily do not exist), or send it on another route.

    My problem with interlining is when schedule reliability cannot be maintained, or when TriMet insists on disinvesting in bus service and running busses that should have been retired several years ago – resulting in more maintenance breakdowns. It seems that TriMet runs the bus system to the bone, but when it comes to light rail, spare no expense – where’s the checkbook?!!

  32. Think of it this way – when MAX arrives at downtown and empties out, then what? Do you run it empty or park it? (And there’s no where to park it.)

    When a bus arrives at downtown and empties out, you can run it to a garage, park it at the layovers downtown (which temporarily do not exist), or send it on another route.

    MAX has two “garages” and several layover points where there are spurs for train reversal.

    TriMet in fact does “park” and “garage” MAX trains during the mid-day, and several peak hour runs do not travel the full length of the line, instead turning back at points such as Gateway, Beaverton TC, downtown Portland, and the two maintenance yards.

    For special events, such as parades and large gatherings at the Rose Quarter, extra trains can be staged/parked at Lloyd Center, the Rose Quarter, and the downtown turning loop.

    – Bob R.

  33. Bob R: payroll tax revenues have not kept pace with ridership growth.

    Bob T: But there is NO ridership growth.
    The most recent Tri-Met audit attributes all increased revenues to payroll taxes (extortion fee), with no part being additional fares paid by additional riders. The Oregonian isn’t interested in this dry info, and won’t or know how to look for it. They simply repeat Tri-Met puff piece information and call it news.

    Bob Tiernan

  34. when it comes to light rail, spare no expense – where’s the checkbook?!!

    Another incorrect statement.

    I’ve been to many light rail planning meetings, and cost cutting is often foremost in the discussions. The system has seen compromises in many ways due to cost considerations. Here are a few:

    1. The very use of surface light rail itself, rather than a subway or elevated alignment (Vancouver BC, for example) is a cost compromise.

    2. An S-curve on surface streets into downtown from the Steel Bridge rather than a ramp was selected to save $2 or so million. This will add 30 seconds or so of delay to every rider’s trip every day over the original plan.

    3. We still use the Steel Bridge instead of a dedicated high-level river crossing, limiting schedule capability and introducing unreliability due to bridge lifts, as well as the slow travel speeds we’re all familiar with.

    4. Although dedicated ROW and some elevated sections across intersections will be included in the I-205 green line, some gated grade crossings will also be included as a cost-saving measure.

    – Bob R.

  35. But there is NO ridership growth.

    There has been major ridership growth in every recent year except FY2006, and that ridership growth has outpaced growth in payroll tax revenue.

    – Bob R.

  36. Bob R writes; “There has been major ridership growth in every recent year except FY2006, and that ridership growth has outpaced growth in payroll tax revenue.”

    And thus one could assume that if this is correct Trimet should be getting more revenue from the fare box than they seem to be. Maybe there are a number of problems with this that are not being seen.
    MW

  37. Erik, they didn’t reject the most recent RTP. It is a draft, they can’t reject it or accept it, they just comment on it. They can reject the final, but the final isn’t written yet, so they obviously didn’t reject it. They didn’t particularly care for it, you are right on that count, however even if they thought the draft was perfect, the FHWA would have “Sent it back,” with a note that said so, they won’t have accepted it anyways.

  38. Bob r. said:

    “I’ve been to many light rail planning meetings, and cost cutting is often foremost in the discussions. The system has seen compromises in many ways due to cost considerations.”

    >>>> With all of these “compromises,” we would have been better off just sticking to buses.

    Plus, subways and elevateds are not suitable for us, due to spatiality and density.

  39. Another incorrect statement.

    OK, let’s see how Light Rail got the benefit:

    1. Every car is air conditioned. Only 2 out of three busses are air conditioned. TriMet even added air conditioning on the 100 series cars; but not on the older busses.

    2. Every east side light rail station was rebuilt in the mid 1990s (to be compatible with the type II LRVs). Did TriMet go on a buying spree for bus shelters at the same time?

    3. TriMet invested heavily in Transit Tracker readerboards for MAX stations. They partially installed them – and subsequently removed them – from bus stops.

    4. TriMet continues to run two car trains on a frequent service schedule along the entire Blue Line. TriMet retired its fleet of articulated busses, and many “frequent service” routes (namely the 12, and also the 9) are not frequent service along the entire route, only the central part of it.

    5. TriMet continues to invest in service reliability measures for MAX, especially for cold weather operations. Anyone who wants to correctly guess the number of busses that were stranded at the intersection of Pacific Highway & 72nd Avenue in Tigard during the last snow storm wins a prize. Anyone who correct guesses the number of TriMet maintenance vehicles that responded to this situation wins another prize.

    6. TriMet has invested heavily in fare collection machines on the MAX line that allow passengers to use credit/debit cards in addition to coin and cash. If you ride the bus, you have fewer options. (Anyone who says it can’t be done, pick up an issue of Metro Magazine.)

    7. TriMet says they can’t afford service increases; yet is purchasing a huge fleet of type IV LRVs instead of using its existing fleet to maintain operations. TriMet is only purchasing 40 some odd busses, and will be over 100 busses behind in its fleet management program.

    8. TriMet could have reduced costs by building a single-track mainline along the western and eastern ends of the MAX system (originally a part of the line on the east end was single-track, but was later double-tracked). They double-tracked, which increased costs.

    9. During the Rose Festival Fleet arrival, TriMet paid for busses to shuttle passengers around the bridge lifts. TriMet makes no such accomodations for bus service interruptions (as I was told point blank by a TriMet “customer service representative”.)

    And 10. TriMet’s capital budget for LRT programs is two and a half times that for bus programs; yet 65% of TriMet passengers ride a bus at some point of their journey (either total or combined with MAX). Which means that only one third of TriMet’s passengers receive a capital benefit that is far greater than what TriMet invests in bus service. (Source: TriMet 2006 Annual Report as filed with the Secretary of State’s office, page 35).

    If there’s cost cutting involved with MAX, maybe those same budget writers should ride a bus sometime. I highly recommend one of the 1400 or 1600 series busses.

  40. Erik somewhat recently wrote:

    OK, let’s see how Light Rail got the benefit:

    And then proceeded to list items which (in his view) favor light rail and not buses.

    However, Erik, your original statement was:

    when it comes to light rail, spare no expense – where’s the checkbook?!!

    This statement is apparently now inoperative.

    However, when I listed some of the cost compromises face by rail projects, Nick then jumped in with:

    With all of these “compromises,” we would have been better off just sticking to buses

    This is becoming a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t conversation.

    I’m beginning to suspect that Erik and Nick don’t like light rail in Portland. Is anybody else beginning to sense that? I’m not fully sure, because I don’t think they’ve made their opinions clear. Maybe a few more posts and I’ll be able to tell.

    – Bob R.

  41. “1. Every car is air conditioned. Only 2 out of three busses are air conditioned. TriMet even added air conditioning on the 100 series cars; but not on the older busses.”

    TriMet intends to run the 100 series cars for a lot longer, where as the older buses are going to be replaced sooner rather than later. And it is easier to retrofit the 100 series cars to have AC, (put AC units on top of the cars, and hook them into the already massive electrical system that those things have,) than to retrofit the buses, (which pretty much involves replacing the engine so that you have a place to put a compressor in… It is almost cheaper to buy a new bus.)

    If TriMet had actually retrofitted the buses to have AC, would you complain that they should have bought new ones instead?

    “2. Every east side light rail station was rebuilt in the mid 1990s (to be compatible with the type II LRVs). Did TriMet go on a buying spree for bus shelters at the same time?”

    If they hadn’t rebuilt those stations to be compatible, then they wouldn’t have been able to use the type II LRVs. (Siemens doesn’t make the type I anymore, so they didn’t really have a choice.) But in any case, last time I checked, they didn’t need to replace the bus shelters to be compatible with type II LRVs, since bus shelters serve buses, not LRV’s.

    “3. TriMet invested heavily in Transit Tracker readerboards for MAX stations. They partially installed them – and subsequently removed them – from bus stops.”

    And you said the person that installed them at the bus stops in the first place should be fired. Maybe they did, and nobody else in TriMet wants to install them at bus stops, because they know that they will get fired if they mess up? Have you ever considered the fact that people like you are the reason that people in government aren’t willing to take risks? It is true, when making a mistake costs you your job, you tend to try to only do very low risk things…

    “4. TriMet continues to run two car trains on a frequent service schedule along the entire Blue Line. TriMet retired its fleet of articulated busses, and many “frequent service” routes (namely the 12, and also the 9) are not frequent service along the entire route, only the central part of it.”

    Why don’t you suggest to TriMet that they rename the parts of the 9 and 12 that aren’t frequent service to have different numbers? Maybe that would make it less confusing to you. And what would you suggest they do with the articulated buses at the ends of the route where the ridership is less? Drop the back half? Too bad that is where the motor is.

    “5. TriMet continues to invest in service reliability measures for MAX, especially for cold weather operations. Anyone who wants to correctly guess the number of busses that were stranded at the intersection of Pacific Highway & 72nd Avenue in Tigard during the last snow storm wins a prize. Anyone who correct guesses the number of TriMet maintenance vehicles that responded to this situation wins another prize.”

    The county or the city is responsible for that road, and I doubt that they would have approved of TriMet driving a sanding truck out there so that the buses could run on it. The city and county don’t touch the MAX overhead wires, so of course TriMet has to invest money in that, they aren’t going to de-ice themselves. Speaking of articulated buses though, have you ever seen an articulated bus in the snow? (And the only prize I’m interested in is the one where you complain less.)

    Okay, I’m getting bored with this, and you are just going to bring these up again next week regardless, so I don’t know why I’m bothering to argue with you.

    And FYI: The plural of bus is buses. A fleet of these would be a “Busses.” As you say “Learn to spell.”

  42. “But in any case, last time I checked, they didn’t need to replace the bus shelters to be compatible with type II LRVs, since bus shelters serve buses, not LRV’s.”

    EXACTLY. This just shows the disinvestment by Trimet, George Bush, and North Korea in Portland’s bus system.

  43. Every east side light rail station was rebuilt in the mid 1990s (to be compatible with the type II LRVs). Did TriMet go on a buying spree for bus shelters at the same time?”

    No, every “station” wasn’t “rebuilt”. Nice word play.

    The platform edges were ground and regraded, often in one or two days by a single contractor. ADA tiles were also added.

    The shelters, trees, lighting, stairs, elevators, paint, ticket machines, security cameras, vehicle pullouts, fences, garbage cans, tracks, validators, gates, schedule kiosks, curbs, soundwalls, barriers, mirrors, substations, outbuildings, signal systems, and stop bars were NOT rebuilt when the Type II cars came online.

    – Bob R.

  44. PS… Nick: Back on May 27th you complained that the Yellow Line article I posted was invalid because it used a Line 5 schedule from when MAX was under construction.

    Well, I’ve rewritten the entire article for you (and others) and have recalculated all the numbers based on a pre-construction schedule during the Line 5’s highest ridership period. The overall conclusions remain unchanged.

  45. 4. TriMet continues to run two car trains on a frequent service schedule along the entire Blue Line. TriMet retired its fleet of articulated busses, and many “frequent service” routes (namely the 12, and also the 9) are not frequent service along the entire route, only the central part of it.

    Aren’t you the guy who was, just a few posts earlier, praising the fantastic advantage of buses (over LRT) to not be forced to run an entire route? And yet you now want them to run their whole route?

  46. I’m wondering if it’s realistic to expect an east-west subway to be built through downtown in the next 15-20 years.

    I wonder whether it will ever be realistic to put light rail into a subway through downtown. I think the question of how that might be done ought to be explored when looking at high capacity alternatives.

    If there is no realistic subway option, then the study should look at other alternatives for dealing with the downtown Portland bottleneck.

    High capacity transit is supposed to serve the region and that means providing reasonably speedy transit service between the east side and Washington County. You can’t do that with trains that stop every other block to serve downtown business locations. That is what streetcars are for.

    I also think there ought to be an evaluation of whether BRT will ever be the best alternative for high capacity transit given the region’s investment in light rail. There is a real need to invest in better bus service in the corridors that are not going to be served by rail. That means signal preemption, bypass lanes and other improvements that let the existing buses be faster and more efficient.

    Better bus service also means lengthening the distance between bus stops to three blocks in most locations instead of two. The extra speed gained for passengers on the bus is more important than the extra block a few people will have to walk. Most people don’t live on a bus route. They walk to it down a side street and they will still only have to walk, at most, one block to the closest stop, they just won’t have two to choose from.

  47. Someone at TriMet told me that the articulated buses that they bought had a lot of problems and because of that couldn’t be used very much. However, they’re going to keep purchasing more 40′ buses.

  48. All,

    Thanks for all the comments altho there are many which are not pertinent to the original post. Chris asked two very good questions:

    1) With the lowest gas tax on the west coast, is there not real risk that we are simply underinvesting overall to stay competitive with other regions around the world?

    Yes, there is real risk that underinvesting in transportation will affect our economy. But, the reality is that the voters of Oregon rejected road funding very definitively 10 years ago, by a margin of 88-12. There is more to the story of course: bitter, divisive struggles between the trucker lobby and AAA, but the result was the same: no new state road funding since 1993 (except for the “mortgage the future” approach of OTIA which went mostly to maintenance), and a political class scared to death of appearing “pro-tax.” Just check out the news stories coming out of this year’s Legislature. Despite the strong business support for a significant increase, the Republicans refused to support any new funding for fear of being labeled “pro-tax.”

    Whether we like it or not, this is reality. Question is, what do we do with it. Promising more roads without being able to deliver is just dishonest. ODOT has $17M a year for all of Region 1 modernization–that’s about 1/2 of a modest interchange per year.

    2) If more radical change in transportation is required (to deal with peak oil and/or climate change), how are we going to pay for it?

    This is what makes my job so interesting. The answer, of course, is to imitate the cities that use half the energy and emit half the greenhouse gases that we do. This is most of Asia and Europe. How are they different? Well, for one, their cities are much more dense than ours and have much more mixed use zoning. Walking and cycling are real options used by large percentages of the population. Car efficiency is also much higher, so the driving they do do is less energy and GHG intensive. And they have invested hugely in mass transit.

    The first two strategies don’t require massive public investment, rather a re-direction of how private capital is spent. We will still build houses and businesses, we will just arrange them differently in space. We will still buy cars, they’ll just burn less fuel, and we won’t need to use them as much.

    The third strategy, increasing mass transit, should be seen as a less desirable one, as it, like road building, is expensive, difficult to implement and resource intensive. That said, longer distance trips will continue to be necessary and an alternative to the automobile will be required for those priced out of autos or who want to reduce their contribution to global warming.

    Finally, the way we answer these challenges is through collaborative visioning and decision-making, what we call planning. This is not “Metro’s” problem, but our problem. Metro provides the table and the ability to model options, but the choices will be made by your elected representatives, ie, your Mayor, your Metro Councilor, your County Commissioner and ultimately, you, the voter.

  49. “I’m beginning to suspect that Erik and Nick don’t like light rail in Portland. Is anybody else beginning to sense that? I’m not fully sure, because I don’t think they’ve made their opinions clear. Maybe a few more posts and I’ll be able to tell.” – Bob R.

    LMAO…. Is the Pope catholic? Yeah, no matter the facts, light rail is always bad. Bad, bad, bad.

  50. Keep the vision of 2040! Most of us still believe it is the best way to met the challenges of Peak Oil; Global Warming; limited space; and keeping our Oregon Values.

    Focus on transportation to and from jobs and reducing our Carbon footprints (tax credits for things like bio-diesel, mixed use buildings, wind power, solar power, bike infrastructure, etc.).

    Make Metro the Model for the USA. Never rest on the Past.

  51. That’s right, Aaron: and the facts say that light rail has been a big waste of money and lost potential for Portland.

    And this statement comes from one who took a subway to work, and most other places, for over 35 years. I think I know quite a bit about rail operations, both as a fan and end user.

    Instead of advocating for silly oversized trolley lines, why don’t you do something truly useful and advocate for investments in our freight railroads, which I understand are choking on traffic.

  52. And this statement comes from one who took a subway to work, and most other places, for over 35 years.

    You think that makes you an expert on light rail in Portland? It sounds like you are trying to transplant your experience living somewhere else to Portland. As someone who has lived in a number of different places, let me suggest you pay attention to what does work in Portland instead of being frustrated because it isn’t like wherever you came from.

  53. If TriMet had actually retrofitted the buses to have AC, would you complain that they should have bought new ones instead?

    Matthew that’s a personal attack and you know it. The issue is, and you know it, that TriMet spent money to install A/C on 100% of the MAX fleet and that TriMet purposely did not make its bus fleet 100% A/C equipped so there is a disparity.

    Why????? Or are you going to somehow tell me that I’m wrong about this too? (Because you’ve likely never ridden a 1400, 1600, 1700, 1800 or 1900 series bus on a 80+ degree day, my guess is that it doesn’t matter, that only poor white trash/Hispanics ride those busses, and God forbid anyone who lives in SoWa/Pearl ever have to even see one of those busses, much less ride in one.)

    And you said the person that installed them at the bus stops in the first place should be fired.

    You’re right, I said that because the Transit Tracker boards used at the bus stops – and the reason they were removed – is because of their operating expense.

    Obiviously the boards on the MAX line use the MAX communications system; and every Transit Center has a phone line (that would have been cheaper to use). Instead, a system was used that had dramatically higher operating costs (which was obivious from day one), and thus had to be removed to save money.

    Any eight year old kid can tell you a cell phone costs more than a landline phone.

    And what would you suggest they do with the articulated buses at the ends of the route where the ridership is less? Drop the back half? Too bad that is where the motor is.

    This is a perfect example of the disparity between MAX and bus service.

    TriMet needs to either operate for convenience or for cost-effectiveness and whether the vehicle is a bus or a train shouldn’t make a difference.

    Either operate the whole line as frequent service from endpoint to endpoint, or designate a portion as frequent service and less frequent service on the outer ends. Why does MAX get special treatment when ridership clearly does not support the need for frequent service west of Beaverton/east of Gateway?

    The county or the city is responsible for that road, and I doubt that they would have approved of TriMet driving a sanding truck out there so that the buses could run on it.

    Really?

    Actually TriMet owns snow plows; in fact when I lived in Beaverton on SW 158th Avenue, my street was plowed by a TriMet plow. (That’s right, it was white, and had TriMet’s logo on it, with the red, brown and orange stripes, a dump truck body and a snow plow on front of it.) And it drove on S.W. 158th Avenue, in plow mode. TriMet doesn’t own/operate/maintain 158th Avenue, so are you going to run out and call the City of Beaverton’s legal department so they can press charges against TriMet for illegal street maintenance?

    TriMet also owns garbage trucks, too, so you better call Metro and charge TriMet with acting as an illegal garbage hauler, too. And do TriMet’s tow trucks carry City of Portland Tow Vehicle registrations? Uh oh. Or MAX trains carry Port of Portland stickers for airport transports? Man, we might as well throw TriMet in jail for doing these jobs of other government agencies, or doing them without explicit permission of the other agency!!

    Besides, did TriMet properly equip the busses with snow chains? Nope. In fact when the chain truck finally showed up, it actually didn’t even stop for us. (That caused a near riot.) But if a MAX train breaks, the busses come to the rescue. This, despite being told by TriMet’s Customer Service that TriMet does not make emergency accomodations for transportation.

  54. And FYI: The plural of bus is buses. A fleet of these would be a “Busses.” As you say “Learn to spell.”

    Nice personal attack again. According to both the American Heritage Dictionary AND the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, either “buses” or “busses” is an acceptable plural form of bus.

  55. Erik,
    Just because people (a lot of people) dispute your “facts”, doesn’t mean everything is a personal attack. If you’re going to be pushing your opinions (and believe me, you’re really pushing hard), you’re gonna have to expect people to push back. Quit crying “foul” everytime someone disagrees with you.

  56. Ross:

    I moved to Portland exactly because it was NOT like the place I came from (New York). Hell, Portland is not like San Francisco either.

    So, Portland does not have the spatial characteristics and density suitable for rail operation, like some other citiies do. So why do all these railfans and urban planners look to emulate SF when Portland is better suited for buses?

    And if light rail works so well in Portland, how come Mr. Cragg, in his farewell piece in the O a few weeks ago, was stating that the WHOLE MAX system is too slow?

  57. ortland does not have the spatial characteristics and density suitable for rail operation

    Yes, it does as the success of MAX has shown. All you have to do is look at its ridership numbers.

    So why do all these railfans and urban planners look to emulate SF

    Lets see.

    San Francisco has BART, trolleys, streetcar and ferries. But, as far as I know, it has no light rail.

    Of those, Portland has street cars. How exactly is it emulating San Franciso?

    when Portland is better suited for buses?

    Actually Portland is not better suited for buses. There are a variety of physical constraints (hills and rivers) that limit ROW and make it advantageous to use higher capacity rail vehicles.

    In addition, Portland has a land use strategy of encouraging compact development. Unlike buses, the permanent investment in rail encourages private development adjacent to stations.

    Portland is trying to encourage use of transit, encourage private development where transit is accessible and limit the spread of development into the urban fringe. Rail does all of those better than buses.

  58. San Francisco has BART, trolleys, streetcar and ferries. But, as far as I know, it has no light rail.

    Ross, before everyone jumps on you, let me suggest you should check out San Francisco a bit more closely. They do indeed have several light rail lines, which fall into a blend of roles.

    San Francisco MUNI light rail lines run along original streetcar routes and newer routes (3rd street light rail, for example), using rolling stock which is larger than Portland’s streetcar but smaller than MAX. In the downtown core, multiple light rail lines share one subway under Market St., one level vertically above BART.

    The older routes could be characterized as streetcar service today, especially when only a single car is running (Muni uses 2-car trains much of the day), but the newer extensions are very similar in scope and operations to Portland’s MAX, except that they use high-platform boarding.

    See:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muni_Metro
    and
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_Third_Street

    – Bob R.

  59. Bob –

    I stand corrected. You description doesn’t really challenge the point I was really trying to make. There is very little about Portland’s transportation system that looks like anyone is emulating San Francisco.

  60. Ross –

    You are correct… it is my understanding that the SF Bay area invests far more in various modes of transportation (including auto, rail, bus, ferry, etc.) than the Portland Metro Area, adjusting for population, etc.

    It may shock and astonish some, but I also believe that San Francisco MUNI needs to invest more in its own bus system… from when I’ve ridden I’ve found that it does not seem to be as frequent or as reliable (except on “frequent service” type routes) as Portland’s, although the trolleybuses in hilly neighborhoods are an improvement over what we offer here in similar areas.

    Given the resources that it has, TriMet seems to do a better job on the bus service front. (Just from my own anecdotal experiences.)

    – Bob R.

  61. TriMet seems to do a better job on the bus service front.

    For all the complaints here about light rail, streetcar and (soon) commuter rail, I think Trimet is still fundamentally a bus company and they do a good job of it.

  62. And at the risk of being labelled as a “railfan” and therefore somehow untrustworthy (again), I want to relay an interesting conversation I had on Friday night.

    I went to an informal “reunion” dinner with some friends from high school. One of the people there has been a TriMet operator for a number of years, mainly bus but a good deal of time as a MAX operator before switching back to bus. (This person stated they preferred bus driving because there was more social interaction with the passengers.)

    We got into a discussion about rail, bus, future plans, etc., and I mentioned my advocacy for a Hawthorne Streetcar route. The operator stated that they had in fact suggested internally that TriMet convert crowded, close-in routes with narrow lanes (such as Hawthorne) to streetcar operations, and leave buses for more suburban, wide arterial, and lower-capacity routes.

    Apparently operators encounter a great deal of stress maneuvering buses around streets like Hawthorne, and they’re not keen on running articulated buses in such an environment either.

    – Bob R.

  63. Apparently operators encounter a great deal of stress maneuvering buses around streets like Hawthorne, and they’re not keen on running articulated buses in such an environment either.

    I have been told a lot of drivers consider the 15 high stress because of navigating NW 23rd.

    That said, I am not convinced that Hawthorne is a high priority, or even a good candidate, for streetcar if it is going to replace current bus service. The 14 goes beyond Hawthorne so you would need to figure out how you were going to serve those other parts of the route.

    And at the risk of being labelled as a “railfan”

    It looks like you have a lot of company. As the ridership of MAX and streetcar show, there are a lot of “rail fans” in Portland.

  64. The 14 goes beyond Hawthorne so you would need to figure out how you were going to serve those other parts of the route.

    Proposals for Hawthorne as well as other corridors should be evaluated this summer as part of the city’s planning process. From what I understand of the process, committees for each corridor proposal will be formed, and then a separate evaluation committee will review each of those proposals based on common criteria.

    My own personal preference is that a Hawthorne Streetcar route would basically duplicate the entire #14 route. This would provide for a combination of high traffic, high ridership west of 50th, plus significant potential for redevelopment further east, especially along foster, and finally a good connection to I-205 and the Green Line.

    The combination of initial high ridership and future development could be what makes the line pencil out… take away either half and it may not work, but there should be better data upon which to make that judgement soon.

    – Bob R.

  65. “It looks like you have a lot of company. As the ridership of MAX and streetcar show, there are a lot of “rail fans” in Portland.”

    >>>> That’s the problem, it seems that there are too many of them partaking in the process, and the whole transit system is going to hell because of it.

    “For all the complaints here about light rail, streetcar and (soon) commuter rail, I think Trimet is still fundamentally a bus company and they do a good job of it.”

    >>>> The hell they do a good job with the buses.
    I ride 4 to 5 days a week all over the place, and their punctuality record is atrocious. And I’m not talking about rush hours either–buses are late EVEN ON SUNDAYS with light traffic! To me, it’s just Trimet’s culture; they just don’t give a damn, despite Mr. Hansen’s pontifications about improving reliability.

    I just wonder how much you guys really use the transit system here, instead of using your cars. It’s non-drivers like me who have to bear the brunt of this nonsense.

    Sorry to be so blunt, but that’s the way I see things.

  66. Actually Portland is not better suited for buses. There are a variety of physical constraints (hills and rivers) that limit ROW and make it advantageous to use higher capacity rail vehicles.

    First of all, there is no LRT/Streetcar line that works better on a hill than a bus; in fact LRT/Streetcar actually is restricted on certain grades where busses frequently operate. Secondly, just what benefit does LRT/Streetcar have in crossing a river? 22 bus lines cross the Willamette River downtown; four more bus lines over the Ross Island Bridge, two over the St. Johns Bridge, one TriMet and numerous C-Tran busses over the Interstate Bridge, four busses over the Clackamas River bridge between Oregon City and Gladstone, two busses over the Oregon City Bridge (between Oregon City and West Linn), and four busses travel over the Tualatin River (two on 99W and two on Boones Ferry Road). Certainly those large bridges pose no obstacle to the hundreds of busses that travel over them daily. Never mind that of the one LRT crossing over the Willamette River, that LRT trains are restricted to 5 MPH. Busses, when not forced to drive behind a train, can travel at 25 MPH; travel 40 across the Ross Island Bridge, 50 over the Interstate Bridge and 55 over the Glenn Jackson Bridge.

    Nor does it seem to impact lines 15/77 that have a significant hill near Montgomery Park, 18-Hillside (that should be obivious), 20-Burnside/Stark, 63-Washington Park, 73-Washington Park Shuttle, 51-Vista, 58-Canyon Road, the various busses that go through Hillsdale (44, 45, 54, 55, 56, 61, 64), every bus that travels to OHSU (6, 61, 64, 65, 66, 68), 43-Taylors Ferry, 38-Boones Ferry, or 78-Beaverton/Lake Oswego.

    Yes, snow is a problem for these routes, however with proper planning busses can operate just fine in the snow. Only in Portland does it snow every year, and every year we can count on every TV station having live crews at Sylvan, roads left unplowed, hundreds of wrecks, at least a half dozen busses in ditches, MAX shut down due to some reason, and the city shut down. Despite being told the night before that “we’re all prepared for the worst”.

    In addition, Portland has a land use strategy of encouraging compact development. Unlike buses, the permanent investment in rail encourages private development adjacent to stations.
    Portland is trying to encourage use of transit, encourage private development where transit is accessible and limit the spread of development into the urban fringe. Rail does all of those better than buses.

    Should we simply ignore bus service, and continue to disinvest in busses until TriMet decides to change its name to MAX? The fact is that people want to move throughout the region, that people live throughout the region, and TriMet has chosen to accept the region as part of its service area (in part just to collect taxes). That means TriMet has a responsibility to serve all citizens within its service district, regardless of whether they live in SoWa or in Forest Grove.

    Is our plan simply to state that “If you live in Forest Grove, Cornelius, Sherwood, Tualatin, West Linn, Lake Oswego, Oregon City, Damascus, Happy Valley, or Troutdale – you are not worthy of any transit unless you agree to a MAX line, or will drive to a MAX park-and-ride lot?” Isn’t the goal here to increase ridership by improving service, or forget riders – we only want to increase development?

    Bus service that is invested in, is accomodating and is welcoming does encourage ridership. Just look at Seattle – they have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in lowly bus service, and they have increased ridership by 4.3%; whereas TriMet’s bus ridership dropped despite having every major factor in TriMet’s factor (fuel prices, congestion).

    In fact, just last month King County Metro announced this service upgrade:

    http://www.metrokc.gov/exec/news/2007/0516bus.aspx

    In other words, King County has a plan that, if TriMet had done the same, would have almost completely rejuvenated TriMet’s entire 660 vehicle fleet with new, environmentally friendly, high capacity vehicles.

    You don’t hear King County stating that they are only going to improve bus service between downtown and the U-District – the entire Puget Sound region and the five transit agencies that serve it are growing service everywhere. They have also launched commuter rail, intercity bus, and have begun several LRT routes as well. It seems as though Portland would rather eliminate bus service altogether, because it’s a distraction towards providing MAX/Streetcar service.

    If the goal is to only provide transit service to the “dense” neighborhoods, then I find it incumbent upon the “dense neighborhood” supporters to demand that TriMet immediately reduce its service boundary to only those areas that are desireable, and to cease operations outside those areas (along with, ceasing all property and payroll tax collections as well). TriMet, if you are mistaken, is short for Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon. It is not “Portland Transit”, nor is it “Transit District for the area between Milwaukie, Hawthorne, Lloyd District, Pearl District, Downtown and SoWa”. I’m sorry that you seem to want to not provide me with transit (or substandard transit at best), but if you want my tax dollars for your pet choo-choo train, you better send me something better than a 17 year old bus.

  67. It may shock and astonish some, but I also believe that San Francisco MUNI needs to invest more in its own bus system… from when I’ve ridden I’ve found that it does not seem to be as frequent or as reliable (except on “frequent service” type routes) as Portland’s, although the trolleybuses in hilly neighborhoods are an improvement over what we offer here in similar areas.

    I went to SF Muni’s website, and found a lot of interesting data.

    Source: http://www.sfmta.com/cms/uploadedfiles/dpt/FactSheet2006Mar.pdf

    According to Muni’s Fact Sheet, single-occupant vehicle use increased 2%, while transit use decreased 2.4%. However bicycle use did increase 1.1% and working-from-home increased 0.8% during the same period.

    Also according to http://www.sfmta.com/cms/rstd/documents/Q3FY07MTASERVICESTANDARDS2_v5.pdf , trolley busses have the highest on-time service ranking and cable cars come in last (LRT and diesel bus are in the middle); LRV service had the worst performance in “scheduled hours of service and equipment achieved”, only one LRT line was operating over capacity and the next highest was only 82.6% of load factor (numerous bus lines had higher load factors), motor coaches had the highest percentage of busses operating at the scheduled headways (66% of busses) (trolley coaches were worst, at 49.9%, and LRV at 59.5%).

    About the only benefit LRV had in San Francisco was MTBF, which was in many cases twice that of busses (4,304 miles compared to between 969 and 3,028 miles for a bus; also 6,225 miles for a cable car).

    Wouldn’t it be nice if TriMet was as open and honest and produced this much public information?

  68. “….but if you want my tax dollars for your pet choo-choo train….” -Erik

    *sigh*

    That’s exactly right, Erik. We just want to waste your tax money on “toy trains”. It’s just a big conspiracy to make your life miserable because we have nothing better to do, but you figured it out. Our bad.

  69. “That’s exactly right, Erik. We just want to waste your tax money on “toy trains”. It’s just a big conspiracy to make your life miserable because we have nothing better to do, but you figured it out.”

    >>>> Yeah, Aaron, you’re wasting my tax dollars too on oversized trolley cars, and making my life miserable, too, as a Tri-Met rider, by degrading my service.

  70. Wow. I suggest that some of these people who hate Tri-Met move to, say, Albuquerque – and try and get around there without a car.

    Geeze people. Help fix the problems, instead of just bitching bitching bitching.

    If you spent half as much time going to public input meetings, TPAC / JPACT meetings, city and Metro meetings, and working with the state government – as you do bitching on PT – you might actually get somewhere. (pun intended)

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