Author: Chris Smith

  • Transit Surfer Enhanced

    We’ve recently got hold of a file of GPS coordinates for all the TriMet stops. We’ve employed that to add a new feature to the Transit Surfer. When you view the arrivals information for a stop, you not only get all the lines that arrive at that stop, you’ll also get a list of lines…

  • A Natural Connection? Open Source Software and Alternative Transporation

    I’ve often thought that the philosophies behind open source software and alternative transportation were fundamentally in sync. They’re about making better use of our shared commons. In one case, the commons of ideas and their expression, in the other, the commons of our public spaces and transportation infrastructure. I got a little bit of reinforcement…

  • Updates to the Bike Channel

    Based on feedback from users, we’ve changed the background on the Portland Bike Channel. It’s now a collage (updated daily) from Jonathan’s photos. It does not rotate, and content above it is no longer semi-transparent. Clearly this was a case of a cool programming feature not being useful to real users :-) We’ve also added…

  • From our Readers

    Cate points us to an editorial she heard on KINK about crosswalk safety. And Ron wants to remind us of the UN-HABITAT World Urban Forum in Vancouver, BC: http://www.wuf3-fum3.ca/ http://www.unhabitat.org/wuf/2006/default.asp http://www.unhabitat.org/

  • Standing Room Only

    Portland Streetcar does a ridership sample each quarter. We were all a bit overwhelmed when the summer counts came back and said we had 7800 riders each weekday. Hold on to that hanger strap, the fall (Sep-Nov) counts are in and we’re at 9,000 weekday riders. Saturday ridership is down slightly (6,600 down from 7,600…