Launched earlier this month, Where’s Lulu (http://www.whereslulu.com) is a free, online database where Portlanders can rate and review places and services (mostly businesses) based on their accessibility. Example: Are the curb cuts next to the bus stop in front of a Stumptown Coffee Roasters wheelchair-friendly? A search tool allows for filtering using criteria such as whether nearby public transit options exist. Coming up: The ability to upload photos depicting accessibility or inaccessibility of businesses.
The site was founded by a disability specialist at a Portland nonprofit and a web editor with a focus on values-based startups. The outfit’s goal? To provide info making it easier for disabled people to get from point A to point B, as well as to establish higher standards of accessibility for businesses and public places in general.
The local disabled community is already on board, with users voicing opinions on everything from just how close a Mac Store is to the MAX line, to the wheelchair maneuverability between aisles at swank Southeast eatery Noble Rot. Similar databases for the Bay Area and New York City are in the works. To join Where’s Lulu for free, or to learn more, visit http://www.whereslulu.com.
16 responses to “Service Rates Accessibility of Portland Locales”
Now can we just get construction crews to stop placing traffic signs blocking the entire sidewalk? A blocked bike lane, while still inconsiderate, can be ridden around. Not so much for a blocked sidewalk with a wheelchair.
We shouldn’t be ranking businesses on a criteria that they do not control (specifically, ADA accessibility to bus stops and neighborhood sidewalks and crosswalks.)
We should be creating a site where destinations are identified which lack accessibility, to pressure those who are in charge of operating and maintaining these facilities to improve them to 20th century standards.
Portland should be the most accessible city in the nation. Rating businesses solely by the proximity to improved transit stops are not is unfair to the businesses who have no control over a poor bus stop.
“We shouldn’t be ranking businesses on a criteria that they do not control (specifically, ADA accessibility to bus stops and neighborhood sidewalks and crosswalks.)”
0) Most of the things they mention on the site they do have control over, like, grab bars in the bathroom, or accessible facets.
1) Wouldn’t you want to know if the place you were going, you could actually get to?
Seems pretty obvious, but knowing if someplace is accessible is probably more important than knowing if it is any good. I mean, it would be like reading a review of a restaurant but having to show up before you actually knew their hours/if they had a dress code. Do those things make it a good or bad restaurant? Not usually, but you definitely want to know those things before you go, or you might come home hungry. There is a reason that stuff is included in most reviews, and it makes sense that a site like that would have include things that were important to their readers as well…
2) Businesses do have control over that.
I know if I complain about things to the city, or more importantly, if I get my neighborhood association to complain about things like that to the city, the city often fixes it. For instance, we recently got a lot of our sidewalk ramps rebuilt, after we complained about the problems with them. And, in the process of studying the streetcar for Lombard, we compiled a list of all the bad sidewalk ramps/cracks/etc on Lombard, and while we didn’t actually “complain” about them in particular, that list did get passed onto the city, and the city was quite happy to see it. (They haven’t fixed them yet, but we only gave them the list a few months ago, so…)
3) Businesses do have control of that (2)
Seems like “location, location, location” applies to where where to site a business in the first place. If a business wants people to come in, it should locate in a place that people can get to it. For instance, most seaports are located next to water, very few seaports are located far away from water. That is because boats need to get to seaports, and boats travel on water. Even though the seaport doesn’t actually control if the water is there in the first place, (usually,) it is just sort of common sense: If you want to build a seaport, you need to be near water, and if you aren’t near water, then maybe a seaport isn’t the best use for the piece of property… So putting a restaurant along an existing bus line seems like a good place to put it if they expect many of their customers to arrive by bus. If they expect their customers to arrive by bus, but locate half a mile from a bus line that only runs at rush hour, well, they might not be in business for very long…
Matthew wrote: I know if I complain about things to the city, or more importantly, if I get my neighborhood association to complain about things like that to the city, the city often fixes it.
So, if I put a business next to an ESTABLISHED BUS STOP that gets REGULAR (i.e. minimum 30 minute headway service on weekdays, with some service Saturdays AND Sundays), and the bus stop is UNIMPROVED, that you are telling me that I can call up Fred Hansen on the phone and within short order TriMet will improve that bus stop with full ADA accessibility, shelters, etc., for the benefit of my business?
Hmm… I gotta love that bus stop at Naito and Harrison northbound. Lots of businesses nearby and bus riders get off the bus there. The existing “sidewalk” is not sufficient resulting in bus riders having to walk through the dirt.
And that’s in DOWNTOWN PORTLAND.
For instance, most seaports are located next to water, very few seaports are located far away from water.
That’s a ridiculous argument.
The point I’m making (which you constantly ignore) is that there is EXISTING BUS SERVICE that has POOR ACCESSIBILITY and POOR SERVICE. A more valid comparison would be if a harbor lacked cranes to unload the ships that wanted to call on the port, or suitable storage space to hold goods for shipment (or after being unloaded), so the harbor became less desirable for use as a shipping terminal. Or a commercial airport that lacked customs terminals (so international flights can’t use it), or jetways so larger aircraft couldn’t use it, or a control tower so the number of flights were limited. All of those things are controllable by the operator of the harbor or the airport – just as the quality of bus service is DIRECTLY CONTROLLABLE by TriMet (and not the business).
So putting a restaurant along an existing bus line seems like a good place to put it if they expect many of their customers to arrive by bus. If they expect their customers to arrive by bus, but locate half a mile from a bus line
Again, wrong argument. Many businesses are located WITHIN 100 FEET of a bus stop, and yet the bus stop is inconducive towards use not because of the business, but because of the bus stop and/or bus service.
Erik,
See also: http://nwexaminer.com/issues/EarlierIssues/August2008.pdf
Sidewalks are being blocked by businesses. See also:
http://nwexaminer.com/issues/September08.pdf
For the recent follow-up.
Dave Hogan
“So, if I put a business next to an ESTABLISHED BUS STOP that gets REGULAR (i.e. minimum 30 minute headway service on weekdays, with some service Saturdays AND Sundays), and the bus stop is UNIMPROVED, that you are telling me that I can call up Fred Hansen on the phone and within short order TriMet will improve that bus stop with full ADA accessibility, shelters, etc., for the benefit of my business?”
When I calling up Peggy Fowler at 2AM and complaining that my electric bill was too high, she asked me who gave me her number and then told me not to call again. And I know PGE inspects electrical meters to see if they are working properly, but I stood there with the lights on and the heat cranked up with the door open waiting until 4AM and nobody showed up to check it. What is wrong with that company, they have a monopoly on supplying electricity to my neighborhood, and they are unresponsive to my complaints.
(Okay, maybe I didn’t do that.)
Seriously, I think PDOT told us they’d get a crosswalk installed near the elementary school before 2011, and we didn’t hear that answer the first time we asked either, in fact, it took two surveys and a lot of going door to door to even get that far… Sometimes these things take time and effort, in fact, most things do, or someone else would have done them already.
“A more valid comparison would be if a harbor lacked cranes to unload the ships that wanted to call on the port, or suitable storage space to hold goods for shipment (or after being unloaded), so the harbor became less desirable for use as a shipping terminal.”
Besides the fact that a lot of ships have cranes on them specifically to address that problem, and it is fairly common to transfer cargo from large ships to small ships at sea to get around those problems, (including many oil tankers that unload at Houston, (when there isn’t a Hurricane in the middle of the city,)) you are saying that if a business wanted to ship/receive cargo at a location that wasn’t accessible by the the ships that carried that cargo, that they shouldn’t lose business to other businesses that had located near ports with better facilities just because of their lousy choice in location?
Wow.
I don’t even know where to begin…
“Or a commercial airport that lacked customs terminals (so international flights can’t use it), or jetways so larger aircraft couldn’t use it, or a control tower so the number of flights were limited.”
So 747s from China are just showing up in the air near the Pearson Field without any plans as to how exactly they were going to land there? If that is really a problem they are having, it seems like they needed to do a little bit more research before they made the trip, maybe look up some information about the airport before they showed up. I know, maybe there should be a website where they can look up what facilities are there BEFORE they get there. They could call it something like, ohh, I don’t know, “Where’s lulu” or something like that… Someone should create that web site.
All of those things are controllable by the operator of the harbor or the airport – just as the quality of bus service is DIRECTLY CONTROLLABLE by TriMet (and not the business).
Yes, these things are directly controlled by the operator of the harbor or the airport, and not usually by the shipping companies and airlines that call on those air/sea ports, nor by the customers that use the facilities of those {air/sea ports}/{airlines/shipping companies}, nor by the actual origins/destinations of said cargo/people, (since very little of it is going to the air/sea port itself,) and definitely not by the cargo that rides on the ships. So it looks like you are arguing that lack of sidewalks is PDOT’s problem, not TriMet’s problem. But in any case, what is your point? My point is that if you want to locate a business somewhere, a little bit of research into the transportation network might be a good idea, even if you don’t directly control it, because it might affect the profitability of your business.
“Many businesses are located WITHIN 100 FEET of a bus stop, and yet the bus stop is inconducive towards use not because of the business, but because of the bus stop and/or bus service.”
And the business couldn’t look down the street and notice that before they signed the lease? I mean, I’d understand if the school for the blind had that problem, but most of the places on that website are restaurants and bars: places that have to check IDs, and that requires a certain amount of visual ability…
Matthew wrote: When I calling up Peggy Fowler at 2AM and complaining that my electric bill was too high, she asked me who gave me her number and then told me not to call again. And I know PGE inspects electrical meters to see if they are working properly, but I stood there with the lights on and the heat cranked up with the door open waiting until 4AM and nobody showed up to check it. What is wrong with that company, they have a monopoly on supplying electricity to my neighborhood, and they are unresponsive to my complaints.
Wow. Just wow.
I guess I’ll have to out myself here for the sake of proving just how stupid you are. Yes, that is a personally directed comment.
I work for Pacific Power. Yes, that other power company in Portland. I bet you didn’t even know that the Portland Metro Area has actually FOUR different power companies – PGE, Pacific Power, Clark PUD (in Clark County, Washington), and the City of Forest Grove is its own power provider. You could also say that Columbia County has its own PUD, and McMinnville has its own muncipal power provider as well if you want to include them in the metro area.
So, being a Pacific Power employee, I’m pretty familiar with the process of dealing with a high electric bill. Heck, I do it for eight hours a day. And guess what? Our company has a customer service center that is open 24 hours a day. (PGE does not.) Which means if you called at 2:00 AM, you’d actually get a live person who actually would help you with a high bill question. (If you called the CEO, probably not so much, but the fact remains is that SOMEONE within the company will. Can you identify the person or persons within TriMet that will take personal action to improve a bus stop in an expeditious manner?)
So you claim that PGE inspects electric meters. How often do you suppose they do? Do you even know how an electric meter is tested? Has your electric meter ever been tested? Do you know how to have your meter tested? Did you know that you are entitled do have the meter tested (at your own request) at least once per 12 month period? Or do you think that PGE employs a department full of people that do nothing more than drive from meter to meter to test the meters and no other job function?
By the way, if you want to dispute any of that, feel free to call me at 1-888-221-7070. Or visit our website at http://www.pacificpower.net. Wait, you’re a PGE customer. I’m sorry. (I’m sorry that I am, too. Our rates are lower.)
Besides the fact that a lot of ships have cranes on them specifically to address that problem, and it is fairly common to transfer cargo from large ships to small ships at sea to get around those problems, (including many oil tankers that unload at Houston, (when there isn’t a Hurricane in the middle of the city,)) you are saying that if a business wanted to ship/receive cargo at a location that wasn’t accessible by the the ships that carried that cargo, that they shouldn’t lose business to other businesses that had located near ports with better facilities just because of their lousy choice in location?
So you’re telling me that all these big ships can simply unload their cargo using self-contained cranes onto smaller vessels, that can simply show up without any harbor facilities? They can just beach themselves and load and unload?
That an oil tanker can just show up and unload its cargo into a huge line of waiting tanker trucks that somehow drove onto the beach without any type of infrastructure?
So 747s from China are just showing up in the air near the Pearson Field without any plans as to how exactly they were going to land there? If that is really a problem they are having, it seems like they needed to do a little bit more research before they made the trip, maybe look up some information about the airport before they showed up. I know, maybe there should be a website where they can look up what facilities are there BEFORE they get there. They could call it something like, ohh, I don’t know, “Where’s lulu” or something like that… Someone should create that web site.
Your arguments are getting more and more ludicous by the second. That 747 can’t land at Pearson Field. It’d go right through the runway (it probably wouldn’t even fit on the runway and would sink into the grass) and would have to be scrapped on site.
So, in the instances that you provided, those ships and airplanes simply wouldn’t go there. They would go somewhere else that is more suitable like an improved, dredged harbor or an airport that is suitable for the aircraft. Just like you won’t see an A380 at Portland. In fact I don’t think Portland can accomodate a passenger 747 at the terminal either.
So, if a business that ABSOLUTELY needed air service by a passenger 747 located at Portland, there’d be a problem and that business wouldn’t exist.
But that’s not we are discussing here. We’re talking about a business which is not fully dependent on transit service, but that it’s recognized that access to transit is worthy.
If a business locates near a bus line and specifically targets a location near a bus stop, and that bus stop is unimproved, how is that a negative of the business – there is a bus stop, there is a bus line, but the quality of the bus stop is TriMet’s responsibility – not the business’. Is it somehow the business’ responsibility to go out and spend private dollars on public infrastructure – nevermind the taxes paid for that very purpose?
But in any case, what is your point? My point is that if you want to locate a business somewhere, a little bit of research into the transportation network might be a good idea, even if you don’t directly control it, because it might affect the profitability of your business.
Maybe you can tell me the success rate of a “transit oriented business” versus a “non-transit oriented business” in Portland; The Round at Beaverton Central hasn’t exactly been a breeding ground for new businesses, nor has the commercial space at the LaSalle Apartments. The Orenco Station commercial development seems to have a substantial parking lot requirement and is positioned well away from the MAX line. The Old Town ChinaTown MAX stop has an unoccupied office tower on one side of it, and the parking garage retail space is occupied mostly by government and TriMet offices, with one dry cleaner as the sole commercial occupant. Up and down the Lloyd District portion of the MAX line is few MAX facing commercial businesses but quite a few government buildings. The “vibrant” Rose Quarter is…anything but.
What is your opposition towards improving transit access/pedestrian access in and around bus stops? You seem to have a personal vendetta against bus improvements based on your tone of conversation suggesting that the bus system is just dandy great, but at the same time both acknowledging and accepting the poor quality of bus service seeming to suggest it’s the fault of its users and neighbors. You seem to make it a simple choice that people “choose” to live next to poor quality bus service. To some extent it is a choice but based upon multiple factors. Most people can’t afford to live in the Pearl District, and not everyone lives and works and plays around the MAX line. If you live and work in Tigard, no amount of MAX investment is going to help you, but you’re forced to pay for it anyways. WES investment isn’t going to help you out either, especially if you have a life between 9:30 and 3:30 during the day, before 6:30 AM or after 6:30 PM, or on the weekends. The 12 line however runs at almost all hours and all days as one of TriMet’s busiest routes.
Why, in your opinion, should the 12 line not have the same amount of investment and quality as MAX or the Portland Streetcar?
Whew!
I think I’ll stay out of this ruckus.
Two points:
#1-Don’t potholes count as ADA NON COMPLIANCE?
(obviously dangerous to people with disabilities)
#2-How do you find the NW EXAMINER on line?
I guess I’ll have to out myself here for the sake of proving just how stupid you are. Yes, that is a personally directed comment.
And you’ll have to back down a notch if you intend to keep posting here. Comments left unmodified, but please take it easy. Thanks.
How do you find the NW EXAMINER on line?
Visit and click on “Past Issues”.
The issues are available as gargantuan PDFs, but the info is there. (Please take a moment of silence to pity those trying to read the NW Examiner over dialup.)
“I guess I’ll have to out myself here for the sake of proving just how stupid you are. Yes, that is a personally directed comment. I work for Pacific Power.”
You mention that every other week, it hardly counts as “outing yourself.”
“Yes, that other power company in Portland. I bet you didn’t even know that the Portland Metro Area has actually FOUR different power companies – PGE, Pacific Power, Clark PUD (in Clark County, Washington), and the City of Forest Grove is its own power provider. You could also say that Columbia County has its own PUD, and McMinnville has its own muncipal power provider as well if you want to include them in the metro area.”
My sister gets service through Pacific Power. One of my coworkers, (who changed from natural gas to electric heating, because it was cheaper,) is served by Forest Grove. So yes, I do know about those.
“So, being a Pacific Power employee, I’m pretty familiar with the process of dealing with a high electric bill. Heck, I do it for eight hours a day.”
I thought you were late to work everyday because your bus was late. Glad to hear you actually get 8 hours in.
“And guess what?”
You have rabies? Really, it is the only logical conclusion I can come to based on your behavior. (Note to moderators: He asked me to guess.)
“Our company has a customer service center that is open 24 hours a day.”
So you are saying that if I call up Warren Buffet at 2am on his cell phone and complain about my bill, he’ll come out and see to it personally?
“(PGE does not.)”
Ahh, so if I call Peggy Fowler at 2am, and she didn’t deal with my bill personally, that probably was pretty much to be expected, I needed to wait until 7am.
“Which means if you called at 2:00 AM, you’d actually get a live person who actually would help you with a high bill question.”
Good to hear. Although I’m curious, do you dispatch crews at 2am? I mean, for power outages and stuff, PGE has a phone number 24 hours a day too, but you’ll actually dispatch Pacific Power’s equivalent to metering services in the middle of the night to test a meter?
“(If you called the CEO, probably not so much, but the fact remains is that SOMEONE within the company will.”
That might be part of my problem too. But is this like trying to complain to Fred Hansen about an individual bus stop? Or is this different?
“Can you identify the person or persons within TriMet that will take personal action to improve a bus stop in an expeditious manner?)”
No. I don’t work 8 hours a day for TriMet and according to you that is the only way I’d be qualified to answer that question.
“So you claim that PGE inspects electric meters.”
Keep in mind that this was all followed by a “(Okay, maybe I didn’t do that.)” so I didn’t actually do that, but yes, they do.
“How often do you suppose they do?”
My meter was apparently inspected in July 2008. (That is what is written on the meter with a pencil, right nest to something that says “Prog #24”) They generally just test them when people request that they be tested or when they are pulled, (for one reason or another,) but there was some random testing going on too. If you want to know the exact schedule, I’d recommend looking through PGE’s PUC filings. However, they are stopping the random testing of old meters while they are changing to AMI, so…
“Do you even know how an electric meter is tested?”
Well, there is probably a IEEE standard or something about how exactly to do it, but you have to pull it from the meter base and take them back to the shop to apply a known load on it to see what it reads, and without a meter in the meter base, you (usually) don’t have power. You aren’t without power for that entire time it is being tested, of course, just for a few minutes, because they put a new, (recently tested,) one in it’s place. I suppose PGE could put the known load and stuff in the back of the truck, but it seems like a lot of work when PGE can just swap them out.
“Has your electric meter ever been tested?”
As I said, they test them before they install them, and mine is only been in service for a month, so yes, (in July, apparently.)
“Do you know how to have your meter tested? Did you know that you are entitled do have the meter tested (at your own request) at least once per 12 month period?”
What is the point of asking me if you are going to give the answer anyways? But yes, you talk to customer service, and then metering services comes out and swaps them out. And you can request it more often than every 12 months, you just have to pay $75. But in general, mechanical meters tend to slow down when they fail, not speed up, so unless you actually know that your meter is running fast, getting your meter tested is generally a bad idea. (Mine is solid state, all the new ones are.)
“Or do you think that PGE employs a department full of people that do nothing more than drive from meter to meter to test the meters and no other job function?”
There were people at PGE that randomly tested meters. The department they work for is called “metering services,” so the entire job of the entire department probably wasn’t random testing, even back before they became the department that installed AMI meters.
“By the way, if you want to dispute any of that, feel free to call me at 1-888-221-7070. Or visit our website at http://www.pacificpower.net.”
Dispute what? You haven’t said anything, all you’ve done is ask me a bunch of questions, (for what it is worth, none of which I claimed to know the answer to in the first place.)
Wait, you’re a PGE customer. I’m sorry. (I’m sorry that I am, too. Our rates are lower.)
I think Forest Grove is less, as are the PUDs. I’m all in favor of the city taking it over.
And back to the beginning:
“I guess I’ll have to out myself here for the sake of proving just how stupid you are.”
You haven’t proved anything. You made a bunch of statements about how Pacific Power did things differently than PGE, (and I never said they didn’t,) and then asked a bunch of questions, (I don’t know why, cause you didn’t know the answer yourself I guess.) And them you called me stupid over it.
Matthew wrote, in response to Erik, “You have rabies? Really, it is the only logical conclusion I can come to based on your behavior. (Note to moderators: He asked me to guess.)”
Since I already nudged Erik to tone it down a bit, similarly I ask you to back away from the hyperbole, even if you feel provoked. Sauces, geese, ganders, and all that. Thanks.
And while we’re on the subject of regulated utilities and such, I recall an incident about 12 years ago where Qwest, in an effort to upgrade the neighborhood, completely changed the junction box on the outside of my house and wound up disconnecting two phone lines. I could tell the junction box was new (and it involved some kind of digital conversion electronics within) both because of the date on the sticker within and the fact that it wasn’t painted the same color as the house, like the old box.
It took me three days of calling from my office phone to get it fixed. Nobody at “Customer Service” would acknowledge or admit that their people had even been in the area. Finally they sent someone out, insisting that *I* had to pay if it didn’t turn out to be a problem they caused, because I hadn’t subscribed to their optional “linebacker” insurance plan.
The technician who showed up (after I had been without a home phone or dial-up modem line (it was 12 years ago) for 3 days) told me that in fact they had been placing digital multiplexing boxes on a few selected homes in the neighborhood because they had run out of copper, and weren’t going to run any new cables for awhile, and the installer had selected the incorrect line pairs for hooking up my house.
It was a perfectly reasonable and honest explanation from someone doing actual work in the field, and he fixed the problem straight away, once the call center finally sent him.
The lesson? Private entities, even ones with in-the-region call centers, aren’t *necessarily* better run that public agencies. And I’m quite sure I couldn’t have raised the CEO of Qwest to get a repair accomplished, either.
12 years ago? It probably wasn’t QWest, it was USWest, better known as USWorst, and 3 days was actually amazingly responsive for them…
Of course, the multiplexed lines totally sucked for dial up, which was the reason people were ordering them in the first place and the reason there wasn’t enough copper. Sigh.
Bob R.:
The lesson? Private entities, even ones with in-the-region call centers, aren’t *necessarily* better run that public agencies. And I’m quite sure I couldn’t have raised the CEO of Qwest to get a repair accomplished, either.
For those of us of a certain age, the great irony is that of all the utilities we have in this region, the one with the greatest number of options is telephone service. Ma Bell? What’s that?
Matthew –
Yes, it probably was USWest at the time, I don’t remember when the switchover was. Even before the change, I had QWest for long distance… they had purchased some other podunk carrier I was using for discount LD before that.
Getting back to locales and accessibility, that incident happened in Corvallis, which has a reasonable bus system for a city that size, and lots of bike opportunities thanks in part to the university.
Matthew wrote: No. I don’t work 8 hours a day for TriMet and according to you that is the only way I’d be qualified to answer that question.
Essentially you’re saying that nobody at TriMet cares about the bus riders…?
As for your (only legitimate in your excessively long rant) question whether Pacific Power will test a meter at 2:00 AM, per Rule 25 on file with the Public Utilities Commission we have ten “working days” to resolve a metering inquiry.