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What TriMet Needs Now: A Really Good Audit
Full disclosure: I was one of the “stakeholders” who got briefed beforehand on the presentation TriMet GM Neil McFarlane gave to the board last week, predicting dire financial straights if TriMet’s labor agreement, particularly health benefits, is not modified. There is clearly a messaging war going on. ATU has an “open letter” to passengers out…
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Revisting TriMet and Metro
Garlynn Woodsong is a planner and a frequent commenter from Portland Transport’s early days. He has recently returned to Portland after an assignment in California. A recent visit to San Diego opened my eyes to another possibility for the reorganization of transit in the Portland region. Currently, Metro does regional transportation and land use planning,…
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Pensions and budgets, and cuts. (Oh my).
On the heels of all the CRC goings-on down in Salem (and in various council chambers in Vancouver and Oregon City), TriMet yesterday tossed a little gasoline in the fire with some dire predictions for transit levels a decade hence. While its outlook for FY14 is essentially flat–no service restorations, no further cuts, depending on…
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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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A few new TriMet service surprises
TriMet has now announced all the details (i.e. detailed schedules) of its service changes which will take affect Sept 2. While most of the changes should be no surprise, given the intense debate over them back during the spring budget discussions, there are a few interesting surprises. Cameron Johnson has a good write-up over at…