OurPDX Reports Borking

Leave it to Aaron Hockley of www.dogcaught.com and other tech fame in PDX to take a great shot and notify people of the upcoming delays for wiring the new Green Line into the MAX System.  :)  Check it out on OurPDX in “TriMet Warning: Gateway Area to be Borked Starting Tuesday”.

Transit Beer Rocking

Transit beer rocked.  Conversation ranged from transit (shock!) to subsidies for sports teams.  The community of people interested in transit (at least at Transit Beer) tends to be a rather intelligent group.  Thus the topics are wide ranging, with the normal focus on transit.

Other Bits

Amtrak isn’t actually spending any of the money they received from the stimulus on anything that will actually create economically, environmental, or otherwise sustainable work.  Most will be done within 1-8 months and the money will be gone in short order.  Most of it is probably going to be used on things that are ill prepared for purchase.  Also there isn’t a penny so far allocated to new service.  Every penny seems to be going for security or maintenance systems.  Don’t get me wrong, it is cool that they’re getting sustainment funds, but because of the “hurry up and spend it to save the country” clause it isn’t getting spent as intelligently as it should.

Transit Beer Decisions

We decided as a group the most intelligent next steps for TriMet would be to bump up the primary routes to BRT (or at least articulated buses for christ’s sake!).  On the west side the heavy rider lines need to be bounced up to AT LEAST frequent service.  I personally think shit should be done even at the cost of cutting some other low ridership lines.  Anyone else got any ideas on that?

That WES Shot

I published a photo from the WES free ride over at Dog Caught, go check it out.  🙂