A few hot items:
- Joseph Rose looks at final ridership numbers for FY13. (They are down. TriMet blames the end of Free Rail Zone and nice weather this past summer; the biggest ridership drop was LRT, with some summer declines in bus ridership).
- Metro Councilor Bob Stacey wades into the debate whether as to how much traffic would divert to the Glenn Jackson Bridge if the Interstate Bridge (or its replacement) were tolled.
- Speaking of Metro, they are once again looking to the public for folks to serve on the Transportation Policy Advisory Committee (TPAC).
- Some controversy over the new ticket printers on TriMet busses–they aren’t as generous about giving out longer-than-regulation transfer times as drivers were with the old transfer slips, which has caused some to accuse TriMet of enacting a clandestine fare increase. (It has long been common practice for drivers, when tearing off the rather-imprecise transfers, to err on the side of a longer ride; the printers print transfers good for exactly two hours, no exceptions). TriMet maintains that this is simply bringing consistency between bus and rail. Of course, it wasn’t long ago that bus transfers were only good for one hour, a situation that angered activists and eventually the agency agreed to rectify.
30 Responses to Open Thread for week of 9/29/2013