Category / Transit Discussion

by Adron

Average American Lifestyle, What’s Your Excuse?

I’ve left the rat race of the car driving, fast food eating, sprawl living, Nintendo/Xbox/Playstation playing, boob tube watching day to day – or what millions in America call life – and even though there shouldn’t be excuses for living so poorly, I’m collecting what people have heard. So, what have YOU heard people say as an excuse for not living better? For not taking transit or riding a bike to take care of more things in their life? What about for eating fast food, what’s the excuse there?

Please leave comments and such!  Cheers!

Yup... rat race racing...

Yup… rat race racing…

by Adron

Transit Meetup in Portland (Oregon) – Day, Time and Place!

Hello all, so after voting, here’s the winning day, time and place. Of course, since the CL Streetcar is rolling, let’s meet along that line just for fun. We’ll meet on Wednesday the 3rd at 6:45pm. Here’s the meeting place I’ve come up with.

Sizzle Pie Pizza
624 East Burnside Street
Portland, OR 97214

RSVP for this meetup here!

Ok, so it’s really on more than just merely the streetcar line. I figured that’d make things even easier. I’ll call ahead and forewarn them that a bunch of transit geeks will be arriving to fix all the world’s problems – so the appropriate fanfare should be prepared. 😉

…and remember, have a good transit ride so you can share the adventure when you arrive.

NOTE: This is an all ages place, so feel free one and all to join us. There is beer available, so you can toast to transit if you’d like. Cheers!

RSVP for this meetup here!

by Adron

Amazon (Yeah, Amazon.com) is Buying 4th Streetcar & Increasing Service in Seattle

The private sector has stepped in, if there is any more proof needed that streetcars rock, you need look no further than this. Amazon is buying a 4th streetcar to up the service near the South Lake Union area in Seattle. This is the area where their primary headquarters is located.

I’m sure I’ll have more on this later, just had to bring it up now for future reference!

To those streetcar haters, yes indeed, they’re buying a streetcar. They’re not increasing the bus service around campus because people ride and want to ride the streetcar and not the bus (even though some do indeed ride the bus too). Amazon is working to build a vibrant center around their headquarters – not just some hollow soul less building like other big software companies do in the Seattle area. They’ve brought more life and helped more with economic recovery in a huge way. I could go on for hours about how awesome this is, and how more moves like this should be encouraged. But for now, happy riding!

by Adron

Learning From Each Other

Trimet, which considering comparative performance, does a great job comparative to King County Metro on a cost basis. Crazy you say, crazy not I say. They carry less per capita in their city core (i.e. the city itself, not the metropolitan area) than Trimet does, yet Metro does so at almost 2x the price per passenger as Trimet. Even though I think there isn’t much Trimet should imitate from Metro, there are two things I absolutely think they should invest in. These two things, would be easy investments since our neighbor Seattle has so much experience with them and has done most of the research and data gathering around it already.

  1. The first one is easy. Let’s get trolley buses back. Trimet’s diesel buses are nasty, especially those older buses. The older buses, based on what information I’ve been able to gather are dirtier than people riding in a bunch of huge SUVs. They’re barely worth running from an environmental pollution perspective. We need to toss those puppies in the recycling bin and get on board with the some trolley buses. If we’re really serious we’ll get trolley buses that can serve in my second suggestions…
  2. 60 ft BRT buses and some BRT routes to go with those buses! I love the light rail and over time the light rail will save the city a huge sum of money over BRT. But right now we need increased capabilities on the #72, the #9, and many other routes. Matter of fact, let’s toss WES and replace it with a nice clean BRT that can be bumped up to serious rail service – ya know – when Portland is like 4 million people. (whenever that happens)

These two things I know have been on the table and off the table, and overall Trimet has done alright. But they really need to start looking at some of these options. Once the city has a complete north, south, east, and western build out of light rail it is time to build up those rail lines even more by interconnecting them with BRT routes. Then the BRT routes can be shifted over the years as the BRT routes are bumped up to LRT or such. But for now, let’s get some serious frequency and capacity along the core routes of the city and build out those areas even more.

Anyway, that’s my 2 cents. I’m not going to complain like some of the light rail haters do and bus lovers gushing over buses do, but overall, Trimet should put a little emphasis on the services around the light rail.

by Adron

Calling Transit & Bike Portlanders

Hello all, I’m putting together a project that will kick off a set of blog entries across various Portlander’s (or anybody’s blogs for that matter) blogs. I’d like to do the following:

#1
Setup a transit ride on any of the lines that points out some of the best new amenities in the city’s system.

#2
Setup a bike ride on any major route that shows great street improvements, bicycle safety changes or features, and other characteristics.

Combine the results of either of the above into a set of blog entries from each person’s perspective of the trip.

So who is in?