Category: Light Rail

  • Mall Discontent

    The Portland Tribune is reporting this morning on continuing opposition to TriMet’s plan for Light Rail on the Transit Mall. While some of the opposition seems a bit cranky, there are also some serious names, Ron Buel and George Crandell, expressing significant concerns about unintended consequences on the downtown environment. The critics will present an…

  • Buses, Trains and Automobiles

    Last night, the Downtown Neighborhood Association invited TriMet to a meeting to discuss issues around the Transit Mall Light Rail project. Last Friday’s Tribune sensationalized this to a degree. Looking over the written questions the association submited to TriMet, I was reminded of a challenge in working with neighborhood associations on large capital projects: the…

  • Real Time Transit Info in Japan

    In the last few days we’ve heard quite a bit about TriMet’s failures during the 12/18-19 insta- winter storm. The Max breakdowns were one thing, but there were also a number of complaints about misleading internet tracking information ( “there was no notice of anything out of the ordinary with her route….She waited and waited…

  • Google Transit Launches with TriMet

    We got scooped by News4Neighbors, but here it is: today Google launched a Transit Trip Planner, using TriMet as their first partner, so right now it’s a Portland exclusive. My favorite part is the comparison of driving costs with the transit fare! What this highlights is that TriMet has great data, and a real willingness…

  • Audio: City Repair, Transit Analysis on Smart City

    This week’s episode (MP3, 14MB) of Smart City includes a discussion with Bob New of the City Repair project about their work at intersections in Portland (and other projects). It starts about 28:20 minutes:seconds into the show. There’s also a rebuttal of Randall O’Toole’s transit nay saying at about 24:38 minutes:seconds into the show. It’s…