A newspaper review of the introduction of technology similar to the Hong Kong “Octopus” cards. Could we do it here? Where would we put the readers on MAX and Streetcar? The good news is we have a relatively small number of transit providers to integrate. Portland has already rolled out smart cards for the parking…

A few months ago I wrote about discussion initiated in Commissioner Adams’ Transportation Operations Steering Committee to clear non-injury accidents from our freeways faster as one relatively inexpensive way to reduce congestion. Yesterday in the Trib we read about initial implementation steps for this policy. That’s a pretty fast translation of policy to action in…

Lenny passed on this pointer to an article about Seattle’s efforts to mitigate the closure of their bus tunnel. The meta-message is that lots of small operational improvements may have more impact on moving people effectively than large capital projects.

It’s must have been a pretty light news day, because Friday the Oregonian had an editorial about TriMet’s ticket machines. The gripes about reliability are real, but I had to laugh, because TriMet’s machines are 10 times better than Streetcar’s (we were ordering so few that we couldn’t interest a supplier with technology more modern…