Should TriMet be running routes like this?


Before I begin my weekend rant, I’d like to point all Portland Transport readers to a rather interesting and useful resource, hosted by our good friends over at Portland Afoot: the 2011 TriMet bus rankings page. This page summarizes performance data released by TriMet (data which is available upon request, though not hosted online by the agency) for all of the agency’s bus routes, and includes information on ridership, reliability, crowding, bus age, WalkScore of service area, and fare evasion. It’s included in nice tabular form, sortable by any criteria. Rail service isn’t included–but service data for MAX and WES is easy enough to get directly from TriMet’s website.

That diversion aside, it’s now time for the meat of the post. It is useful, when speaking of transit planning, to divide different services into “ridership” and “coverage” routes. Ridership routes are those which are well-used, which serve dense, walkable neighborhoods, and have excellent patronage for most of the day. Coverage routes are those which have little ridership, and are instead provided for equity reasons–to serve a specific population along the line. Coverage routes cannot, and are not, expected to ever “run full”–they typically venture into low-density areas to provide lifeline service.

But there are several routes on TriMet’s roster which are hard to justify on either ridership or equity grounds.

One example of this is the 55. This route, a peak-only service (with three inbound runs in the morning, and three outbound runs in the evening), starts near Jesuit High School, loops around the neighborhood, then takes Beaverton/Hillsdale to Raleigh Hills. It then heads north on Scholls Ferry, east on SW Hamilton, to Dosch and Sunset roads until it reaches Hillsdale. It then follows Capitol Highway and Barbur Boulevard downtown (in express mode) ending in Goose Hollow.

I only cite the 55 as an example; there are quite a few other routes for which this argument also applies. (Apologies if any 55 riders are reading this; and try not to throw too many tomatoes).

Looking at the rankings data, one sees the following bits of information on the 55:

  • 500 boarding rides/week. (With 30 runs per week, six each weekday, that comes to an average of 16.7 boarding rides per run)
  • 81% on-time performance
  • 43% crowding (its busiest runs are on average, 43% full–not sure if that refers to seated capacity, design capacity, crushload capacity)
  • On the plus side, fare evasion is essentially zero.
  • Frequency is approximately hourly.

Clearly, the 55 is not a ridership service. How does it function as a coverage service?

  • Many of the neighborhoods it serves are upper-class or upper-middle-class neighborhoods.
  • Its service span is consistent with commuter service, not lifeline service (the latter is generally bidirectional, and provides midday service at minimum).
  • Much of its run is duplicated with other lines–the only parts of the line that aren’t duplicated by (or within walking distance to) other service are the stretch along Hamilton/Dosch/Sunset. And the service it is closest to, the 54/56 is a frequent service line.
  • The neighborhoods it serves are for the most part low-density, residential-only, single-family neighborhoods–this is particularly true for the Hamilton/Dosch/Sunset stretch.

I don’t know how the 55 is interlined with other busses; were we to assume that a single bus makes all the runs (deadheading back to Raleigh Hills in the morning, and back downtown in the evening, within the realm of possibility)–each shift of the service would only provide 90 minutes of revenue service, and 2 1/2 hours of deadheading (either back to the starting point, or to/from the garage, or extra time the driver gets paid to fill out a 4-hour shift).

Thus the question: Is this a type of service that TriMet needs to be providing? It doesn’t serve any unique transit-useful corridors, it doesn’t serve any economic equity purposes, its ridership is poor, and it spends a lot of time in non-revenue operation.

Of course, the dichotomy posed above is a false one. This is neither a “ridership” nor a “coverage” route, as traditionally considered–it’s a commuter route. It’s designed to get downtown workers to their Monday-Friday jobs and back again, and that’s it. I’ve never been a tremendous fan of commuter routes–simply because they are expensive to provide–but many of the outer commuter lines do earn their keep or provide a unique service. The 55 only serves 50 about unique riders per day; whereas the 99, 96, and 94, on the other hand, serve thousands of unique riders per day.

TriMet has announced plans to take the saw to the 55 (and many similar routes) as part of the upcoming service reductions, eliminating one run in the morning (the early one) and one in the evening (the late one). Many other lines are being cut in a similar fashion. How much reduction in service hours (including deadheading) will be bought by these reductions in revenue hours, I cannot say. I can say that elimination (in particular) of the evening trip may make the service unusable by professionals who may have to stay at work later on certain days. You can never eliminate the last trip of the day, as then the penultimate trip becomes the last one, and riders often avoid planning to use the last trip, because if they miss it, they become stranded.

That said–how much benefit do these routes bring to TriMet? They aren’t justified on ridership grounds, or on grounds of social equity. By keeping peak-hour commuters off of the highways, these routes arguably help to reduce congestion, and demand for downtown parking–but the 50 riders/day (100 trips/day divided by 2) served by the 55 is probably a drop in the bucket. The 55, which lies mostly within the Portland city limits, is not required to preserve any part of TriMet’s taxing district. It is possible that TriMet derives political benefit from the route (i.e. its patrons would raise a big stink if the line were cancelled, and have sufficient clout to adversely affect the agency), but there’s no way to determine that from the data. :)

So what to do? One obvious strategey would be to simply cancel these sorts of routes, and redeploy the service hours elsewhere. Another, though, would be to find ways of turning these routes into more useful corridors. Dead-end routes generally suffer from low ridership, but routes which connect two useful places–which have good anchors on both ends–are much more beneficial. As has been pointed out, service cuts provide opportunity to restructure a transit network in beneficial ways, by providing political cover for changes that would be otherwise unpopular. Could the 55 be meaningfully combined with the 51 or the 53 (for example), to provide a new east-west corridor route? Could a bus be run between Council Crest and OHSU to provide through service?

Or is sending three busses per day through the West Hills really a good use of our transit dollars?


34 responses to “Should TriMet be running routes like this?”

  1. Coverage is important, especially when you take into account walk scores.

    And now, an observation and a rant:
    Why is it that the Marquam Hill routes are almost all towards the top of the rankings when you sort by oldest buses? I think 8 is the only route that serves the hill which doesn’t have old buses.

    The on-time rankings for bus 68 are misleading. In the morning it is very reliable, but the afternoon runs are horrendous. A couple of weeks ago there were 3 days out of 4 that the bus that I ride did’t even show up (or was >5 minutes early, which is as good as a no-show). Fortunately for me, I can take the aerial tram to the streetcar to where I need to go, so that’s what I’m doing from now on. That way is slightly slower to my destination (~4 minutes) but when 68 is so late, so often, I’m better off playing the averages.

  2. Combine the 39 and 51, using the 2.2 mile segment of Dosch Road and Sunset Blvd. between Hillsdale and Portland Heights.

    This will also provide a one seat ride from Lewis and Clark to downtown, albeit by an indirect route.

  3. The reason the Marquam Hill routes have the oldest buses is because they are peak hour service hours only. They assign newer buses on all day routes. Peak hour only routes get the 1400’s, 1700’s, and 2000’s, (and in the case of the 96 2100’s). Better use of capital resources by using the buses on all day routes.

    Second, we should not be keeping routes for coverage for just walk scores. Lets face it except for the section of the 55 that is near Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway the walks scores are going to be bad anyway or let as just say walk scores would be misleading since most of that area has no sidewalks and walking is dangerous on many of those roads.

    While coverage has feel good cogitations to it, it also cost money that could be used to improve services that are being used by more passengers. When Seattle King County Transit first proposed big changes for September, it was noted that while the cuts to service would affect 4,000 riders the service changes would benefit about a hundred times that number.

    Second I was also thinking about combining the 39 and 51. Despite the fact that it goes by less than I block from where I live I have never ridden the 39 but the few times I have seen it I rarely see more than one or two people on it and was surprised how many (relatively speaking) riders it does considering Lewis and Clark has competing service.

  4. I don’t know how the 55 is interlined with other busses

    A nice person out there has made this information accessible (it was already available using TriMet’s Google Transit data).

    What I would like to see is the 51 combined with the 39, picking up the Sunset portion of the 55. The 55 could then either go straight downtown via e.g. Broadway Drive or end at Sunset & Capitol, where a Hillsdale Transit Center could be constructed.

    But the bottom line is the real question should be: Should we encourage development like this, and that low level of transit usage?

  5. It would be useful to identify the universe of similar routes and present it to a group like OPAL to use in their lobbying. We shouldn’t be running low-ridership commuter routes when those same resources could serve more people at lower cost, and serve people who really need it.

  6. It sure is disappointing as someone who moved to a particular part of the city so that I would have access to several frequent service lines to see those routes being cut back while routes like this continue to exist. Frequent service routes need to be put back to every 15 minutes at the worst.

  7. I think its an issue of constituency. If voters are being constantly hassled over every capitol project then it behoves TriMet to offer up service to these likely voters. Even if it is tokenism. Ideally TriMet would be financially set up to limit this conflict.

  8. The 55 only serves 50 about unique riders per day;

    Those 50 people pay taxes (property tax) and are entitled to the service.

    I’ve always had a problem with the thinking over here at Portland Transport.

    First of all I don’t believe Trimet about their budget.

    They always have money to hire executives. (see my blog for a never ending criticism of the incredible arrogance of these executives to preach poverty while hiring and hiring and hiring)

    They build light rail and street cars thereby HIJACKING funds that should be used to transport people into money making opportunities.

    And stop talking about redundant service!

    PORTLAND IS THE KING OF REDUNDANCY.

    Buses overlapping by the dozens, streetcars and light rail just 4 blocks from each other.

    So stop harping about “nearby service” since you got no grounds being from Portland, the hog in the trough who can never get enough to fill its snout.

  9. Really, Al, you’re not doing your position any favors with such hyperbole and lack of factual statements. (I’m less sure from reading your posts lately just what, exactly, your position is)

    Please show how many “executives” TriMet has now, as a result of all this “hiring and hiring and hiring” compared to a time before the economic crunch, say 2007 or multiple times over the past 5-15 years, and the total compensation to the “executives” compared to previous times.

    As for the “hog in the trough” (Portland) which builds streetcars (TriMet doesn’t, by and large), that “hog” imposes taxes, fees, special districts, and general fund allocations out of its own budget in order to fund those sorts of projects and services. TriMet’s contribution to the streetcar (ever-declining on a per-service-hour basis) is proportionate to what TriMet would contribute to running a bus to provide similar service.

    This has been explained many times before.

    And do you really think that a streetcar circulator route, entirely within the central city, and MAX, a system of regional transit lines that extend far out from the central city, are “redundant service”?

  10. Those 50 people pay taxes (property tax) and are entitled to the service.

    First, property taxes don’t (directly) fund TriMet, payroll taxes do.

    Second, my parents live in rural Oregon City, a good two miles from the nearest bus (at Clackamas Community College). They are both retired, and not a good example, but many of their neighbors work within the District, and thus pay taxes to it. The street they live on is on a 1.5 mile dead-end road; there are more cows living in the neighborhood than humans.

    Should they be entitled to scheduled bus service at their doorstep?

    I’ve always had a problem with the thinking over here at Portland Transport. First of all I don’t believe Trimet about their budget. They always have money to hire executives. (see my blog for a never ending criticism of the incredible arrogance of these executives to preach poverty while hiring and hiring and hiring)

    I’m not sure what Portland Transport has to do with TriMet’s hiring practices (and I check out your blog on a regular basis, but I’m interested in what you think the real story is if you think TriMet’s books are cooked.

    They build light rail and street cars thereby HIJACKING funds that should be used to transport people into money making opportunities.

    Ignoring that TriMet didn’t build the Streetcar–are light rail and streetcars somehow not useful for “transporting people into money making opportunities”? While these things are expensive to build, they–especially LRT–can transport more people to money-making opportunities than a bus can. (And what about transporting people who need to go grocery shopping, or do any number of other errands not related to employment?)

    And stop talking about redundant service! PORTLAND IS THE KING OF REDUNDANCY. Buses overlapping by the dozens, streetcars and light rail just 4 blocks from each other.

    You’ll find that at least two of us tend to dislike redundant service, and prefer the “strong corridors” model–concentration of assets into well-served corridors so that quality frequent service may be provided, rather than sending busses up every alley where someone might be willing to ride one.

    So stop harping about “nearby service” since you got no grounds being from Portland, the hog in the trough who can never get enough to fill its snout.

    I live in Beaverton, remember? And many of the services described in the article (including the 55) lie mostly or entirely within the city limits of Portland–so whatever else you may think of this article, it doesn’t reflect a desire to concentrate service in Portland. There are plenty of good transit corridors in the suburbs which could use the service hours.

  11. We need runs to within half a mile of everywhere in the region, every 15 minutes or better, 24/7/365. Anything short of that is a massive failure on CTRAN and TriMet’s part.

  12. We need runs to within half a mile of everywhere in the region, every 15 minutes or better, 24/7/365. Anything short of that is a massive failure on CTRAN and TriMet’s part.

    Agree in part, disagree in part.

    This is a service standard that should be considered highly desirable. (Many transit wonks, however, place the figure at about 400m, or 1/4 mile–ignoring the fact that its the distance to the stops, not the distance to the line that matters, that would call for lines every half mile).

    Neither agency gets the funding necessary to do this, at least without massive changes to the cost structure (much of the sort that the various transit unions would not like). And a big part of being able to do this sort of things is getting rid of weak runs. In the case of the 55, much of the route isn’t really within walking distance to the 54/56, given the poor walking environment in much of the West Hills. (And to be clear, I’m not suggesting that the folks along Hamilton and Sunset are unworthy of service; instead I’m suggesting that either useful all-day service ought to be provided, or none at all. Strong commuter lines are an exception, but the 55 is not an example of one).

  13. I don’t blog to be popular!
    I blog soley to attempt to STOP the MACHINE!
    Everybody says “your to crass” in your approach.
    Right, sure, I should be ‘diplomatic’ while they cut my (and others) throat!
    Forgetaboutit!
    I see Trimet tax on my property tax bill!
    WTF is it if payroll tax is what keeps this machine rolling?
    We know this web site is pro Trimet management.
    I understand, I don’t hold it against you.

  14. And the 50 people work I’m sure which means they are directly responsible for getting payroll tax to Trimet so that Fred Hansen can get his $15,700 check every month so he can live in luxury while Trmet 55 riders can eat @&%#!

  15. I did forget one thing; there may be some outstanding TriMet bonds out there–these would appear on your property tax bill. (But aren’t funding operations).

    At any rate, nobody here is objecting to the content of your blog.

  16. “Many transit wonks, however, place the figure at about 400m, or 1/4 mile–ignoring the fact that its the distance to the stops, not the distance to the line that matters, that would call for lines every half mile).”

    >>>> Like Chicago has – the ideal street grid layout, being built on a flat plain. But Portland’s street layout is not nearly so neat. That’s why there are problems with the #s 8, 9, 73, and 75 arrangement in NE.

  17. It’s interesting that everyone has been fooled by the paradigm.

    We’re broke, says the management. Portland Transport agrees and comes up with all sort of creative ways to solve the budget crisis.

    But at the very same time a $1,500,000,000 construction project is going forward. We can’t fund the 55 route, but we can fund this huge project that nobody really wants.

    The suckers among us have the propaganda built right into their consciousness. Oh but that money can only be used for boondoggles.

    As long as the public continues buying the propaganda that government spits out we are hopeless.

    THERE IS NO BUDGET CRISIS! IT’S A COMPLETE LIE!

  18. I don’t doubt that Trimet has a bloated administrative overload and an unhealthy obession with rail transit for a region that is not suited for that mode, but excessive union benefits are a very big part of the problem also.

  19. The suckers among us have the propaganda built right into their consciousness. Oh but that money can only be used for boondoggles.

    Ignoring the matter of which projects are boondoggles and which aren’t, the fact that the funds appropriated for MLR can only be used for MLR and not for operations, is a matter of law. It’s not merely propaganda for suckers.

    Should the relevant laws be changed? Should Uncle Sam, which can deficit-spend in ways that neither TriMet, Metro, nor the State of Oregon can, help fund ops to tide agencies over in lean times? I’m all for that, completely. But that’s an Uncle Sam issue, not a local issue.

    But were MLR cancelled, the money from Uncle Sam, and from Governor John, both would go poof. Perhaps TriMet could convince the state Legislature to re-appropriate its share to help fund operations, but I kinda doubt it. As alluded to in a prior post, the elected officials in Salem who control the purse strings are under far more political pressure to deliver pork than the FTA is; there’s not much pork in transit operations.

    Maybe if ATU had better lobbyists…

  20. Ignoring the matter of which projects are boondoggles and which aren’t,
    the fact that the funds appropriated for MLR can only be used for MLR
    and not for operations, is a matter of law. It’s not merely propaganda
    for suckers.

    That’s generally true, but the several tens of millions that TriMet bonded as the ‘gap filler’ WILL come of operations in future years. That practice is one that I continue to oppose.

  21. Don’t give me that union benefit baloney, NICK, that’s the world wide movement to destroy working men and woman.

    SCREW THE LIGHT RAIL AND SCREW THE FEDS!

    Ya it’s a mess, all created by the government.

    They have wars and boondoggles then cry about union benefits.

    GIVE ME A FREAKING BREAK!

  22. “Don’t give me that union benefit baloney, NICK, that’s the world wide movement to destroy working men and woman.”

    >>>> Sorry Al, but this time you arguing with the wrong person: I was in a union shop for 22 years (OPIEU), and retired with pension and health benefits – so I damn well know the difference between good and excessive.

  23. I was of course referring to the funds appropriated by the Feds and Salem–Chris is correct about the bonding of ops revenue. (That said, the revenue being lost to pay off the bonds is being offset by a rise in the payroll tax–would the Leg have approved the rise if it were going to expand service? Somehow, I suspect not).

    At any rate, Al’s summation of the broader political context has quite a bit of merit: there’s lots of money out there, just very little of it available for transit, in particular operations. One of the reasons that the US government has long refused to fund ops is concern that the money would be used to pay better salaries/benefits to workers rather than improving service.

    Al–on the specific question of union benefits and union solidarity: A major beneficiary of capital projects are construction unions–as the state of Oregon has a so-called Little Davis-Bacon Act on the books. (The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 requires the “prevailing wage” be paid on federally funded construction projects–essentially union wages–and the state version applies to all public projects in the state, regardless of funding). Essentially, construction workers get paid far more for public projects than they do for private ones; and many private projects are built with non-union contractors.

    But here, it seems, an argument can be made that the interests of construction unions and of transit unions are in conflict. Even if one discounts the amount by which capital projects and ops compete for funding, a big selling point of capital projects is that they are more operationally efficient: a two-car MAX train can carry five times as many passengers as a 40′ bus. While I don’t know how much this drives union skepticism of rail, in many other industries labor unions have viewed productivity enhancements as a threat. (And in the private sector, at least, this view is completely legitimate, as productivity enhancements are often followed by layoffs).

  24. The union benefits are a “problem”?
    How about the health care industry is the problem?
    That’s the problem, not our benefits.

    Forget about this union argument completely.

    Sure the benefits are part of the problem, just one piece of the larger problem.

    The real problem, and I’m sure Nick would agree with me, is federal policy regarding transit in general.

    As in, sorry transit districts, we can’t help you get people to work, we can only give you money to build new stuff, cost is no object in building your new stuff

    The entire structure is rotten I said it in a previous post.

    The whole thing is a like a rotten fish that is just now starting to smell.

    We have a completely dysfunctional government structure, at all levels

    People better be paying attention to Europe right now, because that show will be playing right here in a few years, if not less.

    My bet for the beginning of the economic collapse is after the next presidential election.

    But don’t worry, it will always be the little people that will pay for all the mess, like the 55 riders, they did nothing wrong, but they are the ones that will pay.

    This little presentation HERE is a very good example of how the Federal government invades policy and creates chaos.

    It’s not about transit, but it could be using the same meddling principles.

  25. I for one tend to read Al’s blog more than others these days, even though I know/understand it’s considered unofficial information. Most recently, Al has provided information regarding administrative job postings while the agency publicly declares “we’re broke, so we’re raising your fares and eliminating your service so we can hire more people to tell you we’re broke.”

    When it’s been proven that TriMet tried to hide the MAX crash information until it was leaked, there’s no doubt they’re hiding plenty of other information.

    Additionally, people associated with TriMet have ridiculed and belittled my question but left it unanswered… why does TriMet think it’s OK to have 45 percent of an almost-billion-dollar budget go towards capital expenses and debt service; while a much smaller agency can do things with 14 percent going to capital expenses while having a much newer fleet including 60-foot buses, regular cleaning, and 15-minute service on their busiest routes? Oh, and the only thing being cancelled in September is a service cut:
    http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2012/jan/21/sta-cancels-cut-in-service/

  26. Additionally, people associated with TriMet have ridiculed and belittled my question but left it unanswered

    These people are brutal, they put it right in our face.

    They are well aware that we might have all the facts and truth in the world;

    There ain’t nothing we or anybody can do about any of it.

    They control the show, have the backing of the rest of the government crony officials, and most of the corporate media in their back pocket.

    They can just ignore us if they want.

    Then they just do whatever they want, heck look at Tiffany Sweitzer.

    She breaks laws, gets no penalty, and stays on the board of directors even though she directly profits from street car construction.

    (oh yea, prove it right? duh)

  27. The fact remains that while TriMet serves the 25th or so largest market in the country…just beyond big league status, its 12th or 13th in ridership or 7th in per capita ridership…clearly big league. What is Spokane’s ridership per capita?
    Of course we must presume that TriMet does not cook the books. If one believes they do, then evidence must be produced not just uppercase/capitalized assertions. Is 8.2 million rides in February bogus? I doubt it.

  28. @Al

    I disagree that everyone deserves equal access to mass transit. People who choose to live in higher density areas should have better service than those who choose to live in low density outlying areas. I moved to a denser part of the city with pre-existing frequent service lines, trading a larger yard and poor access to transit for a smaller yard and better access to transit. Low density areas are very expensive to serve per rider and should lose service faster than high density areas when cuts need to be made.

  29. ” Low density areas are very expensive to serve per rider and should lose service faster than high density areas when cuts need to be made.”

    ~~~>Well ya!

    Places with higher population should get MORE service than places with lower populations.

    But that doesn’t mean that people that live in less populated areas should GET NO service!

    That is just not equitable, especially if the person is actually paying taxes of some sort into the transit system.

    Portland gets way too much service, and they have been getting FREE service.

    People in outlying districts are getting poorer and poorer service.

    Portland needs its own transit district.
    Washington County needs it own, etc…

    The MAX should not be in competition with the bus service, which is what is happening because the same management is responsible for both.

    Monopolies are always bad for the people, and TRIMET is a monopoly and it is failing the citizens, I don’t care what the phony hype says.

  30. Were transit service broken up by county, and the payroll tax maintained, Washington County would likely see somewhat better service, whereas Clackamas County would see somewhat worse.

    As far as MAX and the bus being in competition, that’s a framing I just don’t buy. Is the 12 in competition with the 35 or the 72? If not, why would it be viewed in competition with the Blue Line? TriMet’s services FTMP serve different corridors.

    Is US 26 in “competition” with Barbur or McLoughlin, let alone a local street such as NW Quimby?

    Here’s another question for you to think about: How should service hours be allocated: per land area (each square mile gets a certain number of service hours allocated to it)? Per population (each person is entitled to a certain amount of service nearby, with the result that denser areas get better effective service)? Per the square of population? Per jobsite? What’s fair?

  31. We are approaching the point where on frequent service lines we are charging more for a one time pass than the operating costs required to provide that service, we are already there with max, although obviously max has a large initial fixed cost. The non frequent service routes, actually cost more than 1 dollar more per rider to operate. Perhaps part of the solution is instead of having prices vary by number of zones traveled we ask people who want to ride lines that have fewer boardings per mile to pay more to use that service.

  32. operating costs required to provide that service, we are already there with max, although obviously max has a large initial fixed cost. The non frequent service routes, actually cost more than 1 dollar more per rider to operate.

    ~~~> I really do believe that this is a red herring issue. To look at this issue in the proper light you have to look at the issue of GOVERNMENT SPENDING in general.

    Much ballyhoo about how much it costs to provide transit to American citizens, I say SO #$%@ING what?

    It’s virtually nothing compared with the amount of tax dollars used for the killing machine or for salaries to keep the government in business.

    One again it requires a basic change in the way things are funded in this country, which obviously is not going to happen anytime soon.

    But the issue itself is a smoke screen, it’s such a miniscule amount of money in the overall picture that it shouldn’t be an issue at all.

    It’s only an issue because of the structure that has been created with its “artificial boxes” that determine who gets what.

    It’s an issue because the power elite are undertaking the destruction of social safety nets in the first world in order to bring us down to third world status.

    The financial CRISIS is going to destroy us all eventually.

Leave a Reply to al m Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *