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Oregonian: TriMet abusing overtime?
Mentioned earlier in the open thread, but today the Oregonian’s Joseph Rose is reporting that excessive overtime at TriMet is resulting in severe operator fatigue–a factor which led to an incident in 2011 where a Yellow Line train crashed into the buffers at the Expo Center station. (The driver apparently had dozed off). Go read…
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January 2013 Open Thread
Happy New Year, everybody! This is the first Open Thread of ’13, in which you can post on any (transport-related) topic you like, and where Al can record each and every January MAX outage for posterity. :) Even though I’m typing this on the eve of the 31st, I will refer to incoming officials who…
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December 2012 Open Thread
Time once again to pass out the candy and coal. Relations between TriMet and the ATU aren’t getting any better. As the current contract (finally finalized just a few months ago by the ERB) expires at the end of November–most likely by the time you read this–it’s now time to negotiate the next contract; and…
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Hillsboro mayor trying to resurrect corpse of Westside Bypass
In an e-mail missive sent out to many decision-makers in Washington County, Hillsboro mayor Jerry Willey is proposing legislative language to require ODOT to conduct a study on a “Westside Corridor”–which is defined as a new, alternative state highway corridor route, and associated, supporting state and regional highway projects, west of Oregon Route 217 running…
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The whys and wherefores of MAX bus bridges
In the previous post, we lamented the recent spate of (sometimes bizarre) incidents affecting MAX service, in particular a car which ran off a freeway offramp and landed in the middle of Sunset Transit Center, shutting down MAX service on the westside for the better part of a day. (Nobody was badly hurt; the driver…