TriMet TV?


Apparently TriMet is going to start video podcasting.

I’ll wait and see a few episodes before passing judgement :-)


31 responses to “TriMet TV?”

  1. I recently spent a weekend exploring Los Angeles via bus/rail and was pleasantly surprised by the TVs which they had installed in the new Orange rapid bus line. I am not a regular TV watcher, but I actually found the programming informative and suprisingly unconventional I can’t remember the content anymore, but I remember a tone of independence and relevance. At first glance I thought this was what TriMet TV would be. I don’t think we need TV on the buses or on the MAX, but if it increased ridership and civic involvement (through meaningful programming) I can’t say I’d be opposed.

  2. What a dumb idea! They can’t even get a leaky cable put in the tunnel so as to enable cell phone service and yet they talk about putting TV on the MAX? Crazy!

  3. Greg, once again you speak of some “they” that does not exist. Please identify one public statement from any TriMet official stating that televisions or monitors are going to be installed on MAX cars.

    – Bob R.

  4. TRIMETBUSDRIVER TV!

    Why not? It’s getting easier to podcast every day. Sanyo now has a line of “Xacti” cameras that record in H.264 format, which is native to iPods and now YouTube, and come with decent (but a bit clunky) free editing software for PC, and most Macs have video editing software included from the factory.

    Go for it!

    – Bob R.

  5. I want to know how much money TriMet is putting towards more of this “fluff”.

    I don’t want to see more TriMet proproganda about how nice transit is. I want my damn bus to show up on time, and get me home on time. I want a bus shelter that will keep me (and everyone else waiting for the same bus) out of the rain this fall and winter. I want a bus that is air conditioned when it’s 90 degrees outside in July and August. I want an articulated bus so that when a lot of people want to ride the bus, that the bus doesn’t have to pass up willing passengers and that more people have a seat.

    Exactly how is another public relations spin going to improve the transit system in Portland? It isn’t. Putting a happy face on something doesn’t make it warm and fuzzy. But it’s money spent that could be used to improve transit.

  6. LOL!!LOL!!

    yea your right Eric,TRIMET has always had a great propaganda machine;

    but don’t worry, I know it looks like a joke right now, but:

    TRIMETBUSDRIVERSTV will show the other side of the story!

  7. “They can’t even get a leaky cable put in the tunnel so as to enable cell phone service…”

    No, they shouldn’t do that. That tunnel is the world’s best way to get off the phone with people. I can be doing anything almost anything, and after a while of talking to someone, I just tell them that, “I’m going into the tunnel,” and then we say goodbye and hang up. And if they fixed that, I’d have to come up with a new way to get off the phone with boring people…

  8. Erik –

    I agree that TriMet podcasts are “fluff” at this stage, but I doubt that the staff time allocated to make them would buy you even one bus, much less a full-time driver.

    It really doesn’t take much more effort to put a podcast these days than it does to put together a newsletter.

    If you should discover that more than $500-$1000 per month in staff hours are being spent on this, then I will gripe about it as much as you.

    – Bob R.

  9. ED:

    HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT?

    (i guess you recognize the intersection…duh)

    That was actually a play on the ‘smith system’ that they keep drilling into our heads…

  10. Well, since Greg brought it up, although by mistake, TV’s on trains has been done. They have TVs on the MARTA trains in Atlanta, and it’s actually pretty nice. There is no sound over the PA, you can listen to the TV broadcasts by tuning in to a radio channel. They show community news, promote shopping and tourism and provide other transit related information.

  11. I’d be happy if TV’s on a train played a non-stop loop of “The Lawnmower Man”, but that’s just me…

    I have a sneaking suspicion that the recent intern hires at trimet and these video podcasts aren’t entirely unrelated.

  12. TV’s on the trains would just be a magnet for vandalism – just like all the art they wasted money on all up and down the MAX line. Its bad enough they waste money on transit then adding this fluff is just absurd. I wrote to Tri-Met 2 years ago about the lack of cell phone service in the tunnel and they said they were working on it. 2 years later, no cell service! Washington D.C. and NYC have cell coverage in most, if not all, of their underground subways, Tri-Met should be able to get a contractor to put a leaky R.F. cable in for a few thousand $$.

  13. “I wrote to Tri-Met 2 years ago about the lack of cell phone service in the tunnel and they said they were working on it. 2 years later, no cell service! Washington D.C. and NYC have cell coverage in most, if not all, of their underground subways, Tri-Met should be able to get a contractor to put a leaky R.F. cable in for a few thousand $$.”

    It is in the million dollars range, a couple thousand wouldn’t even pay for the cable itself. And why is this TriMet’s problem anyways? The cell phone companies should build their own networks, not get the transit company to build them for them.

    “Its bad enough they waste money on transit then adding this fluff is just absurd.”

    Uhmmm, do you actually read what you write? I know that you can’t be consistent from hour to hour, but both of these quotes came from the same post…

  14. Washington D.C. and NYC have cell coverage in most, if not all, of their underground subways, Tri-Met should be able to get a contractor to put a leaky R.F. cable in for a few thousand $$.

    It takes much more than a cable to have cell phone service in tunnels, especially a 3 mile long tunnel. You can’t get a contractor to string 3 miles of anything in civil construction for just “thousands”, unless you mean “hundreds of thousands”.

    It should be noted that New York’s system solicited bids from cell phone carriers to provide cell phone service in subway _stations_, not the tunnels.

    Further, the major carriers offered up low bids of about $40 each (that’s forty dollars, no millions) to provide service. The winning bid went to a new company called “Transit Wireless” which plans to make a profit by forcing other carriers to pay them in order for customers to be able to roam, or charge the customers directly. So to use NYC’s system (which won’t roll out for another 2 years and then in just 6 stations), somebody’s going to have to pay, and they will be roaming regardless of the original carrier.

    You state things with such certainty, Greg, and so frequently, that turn out to be untrue. I suggest you do a little research before posting.

    – Bob R.

  15. Bob,

    I was in both NYC and WashDC on a trip a couple of years ago. I went in the subway and my cell phone worked everywhere I went so, no, it wasn’t “just in the stations”. There were a few spotty areas in NYC but DC and its much newer system had excellent service but that could be because I was using Verizon which tends to be better anyway.

  16. Greg –

    Source article about NYC subway cell phone service:
    http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny–subwayphones0920sep20,0,1201804.story

    Excerpts:

    All 277 underground subway stations _ but not the tunnels _ would be wired for cell phones and wireless Internet service in the next six years under a plan the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced Wednesday. It still needs approval from the agency’s board, but Chairman Peter Kalikow said he supported it and expected other members would join him.

    A company called Transit Wireless would pay the $150 million to $200 million cost of wiring the stations, plus about $46 million in fees over 10 years to New York City Transit, a unit of the MTA. Straphangers would be able to use their cell phones only if their carriers signed up for service on the underground network, which Transit Wireless partner Gary Simpson predicted they would.

    “There’s a need and a demand by riders and customers to use their cell phones down in the stations,” Simpson said.

    That demand was highlighted when a rainstorm last month caused a subway system meltdown. Some passengers found themselves unable either to get information on the problem or to phone their co-workers and families to explain their whereabouts.

    That article is from a week ago, FYI.

    None of the monetary figures in the article are in the “thousands”, in fact it quotes the cost (to be paid by the contractor) of $150 million to $200 million for the project. That works out to at least $500,000 PER STATION.

    As for cell service along MAX, my cell phone works at every station I’ve ever been to, except in the tunnel and at the zoo station. How many hundreds of thousands should TriMet spend (if an outside contractor doesn’t want to do it) to add cell service to the tunnel? How much is too much? When TriMet says they are “working on it”, I suspect that means they are hoping an outside contractor will take on the project without TriMet having to spend anything, as is the nature of the New York project.

    I’m glad your phone worked in the places that you went in New York. Judging by the people quoted in that article and others, you were one of the lucky ones.

    – Bob R.

  17. Well,
    Let’s just be glad that Greg is riding the MAX enough to be aware that occasionally he didn’t have cell-phone service.

    What I really need is at least marginally-continuous internet access along the Cascades line. That and high-speed rail. Imagine getting from PDX to Sea-Tac within 90 minutes, while connected to the internet.

  18. Manzell,

    My Verizon eVDO worked on a recent trip from Salem to Tacoma. I never lost connection and the speed was great – it never switched over to 1xRTT.

    As for the cost of cell phone service on the MAX, if Tri-Met can squandor millions paying for fluff marketing and public art (that attracts vandalism) along the route, they should be able to fund a necessary service, i.e. cell service.

  19. Just my two cents…
    In a cities like New York and DC it makes total and complete sense for them to put in the cell phone network. Its a massive underground area with long travel times.

    But think about it. your passing through the Robertson tunnel for… what… five minutes. You can afford to “disconnect” a little. The worlds not going to end because you cant get bars.

    And if it is that important, take a bus…

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