Category / Urban

by Adron

Seattle Commute Chronicles: Bus Misadventures, Culinary Delights, and Urban Reflections

Riding the bus into Seattle for a day of coding via coffee shop. As always, via the 545 the seats that face inward give the stability needed to be able to type and code. However it’s still wretchedly difficult and the light rail can’t open soon enough.

On one of the turns leaving downtown Redmond, someone had used the overhead baggage areas on the bus, and a piece of luggage was about to plummet to the ground. I moved swiftly (which to others on the bus seemd like I was aggressively going after something) and pushed it back onto the luggage rack an densured it was placed correctly. It managed to wiggle around and almost fall again a few moments later because of the jarring movements of the bus, but this time someone else nearby saved it, having noticed after my rapid movements to stop it falling, was keeping an eye on it.

Meanwhile the person who put it up there hadn’t even noticed. People’s situational awareness for the loss. People are far too often a walking catastrophe and I’m amazed as many of us make it through each day that do.

As we pull into the Microsoft stop at 40th another odd occurrence. A guy with a face tattoo, which is always an immediate threat risk just walks on disregarding the driver. I’m all for people tattooing whatever the hell they want to but seriously, face tattoos point to some serious trauma and issues at this point in time. It’s not a mere “art piece” or some such, it’s an advertisement of being broken by something and trying to spite others around you.

Then we get rolling and the driver rolls up to a solid 75+ mph with the bus. A speed that is somewhat reckless on 520 and I’m not real sure how its possible with these buses. They’re not exactly setup for 75mph travel. After having already nearly thrown some passengers to the ground with his hard breaking and related driving behaviors this was concerning. It also made it even more difficult to get any work done or stay focused.

We’ve got the driver going speed crazy, tattoo threat guy skulking in the back seat, elderly folks holding their pain points from the hard braking and bumpiness, and I just want to be able to type up the rest of this post and make it to my destination. As we approach the mid-highway stops I’m fully expecting burning brakes as we go barreling into the stops.

This is, to say the least, disconcerting.

We make it into the first stop, and sure enough, one can smell the heated brake dust. IYKYK

We pull out, throttle planted in the floor with the bus – I’ll just call it twerking – from the throttle being planted. So between the two highway stops the driver manages to get up to speed again very rapidly, clearing around 65mph+. A little less shaky and sketch than 75mph but bothersome none the less. Around 50-55mph is about the top speed these bendy buses can take without becoming and utter shaky annoyance.

Anyway, as we have survived so far barreling across the 520 bridge I started to wrap this post up with a simple, “light rail can’t start soon enough, this bus ride quality sucks in comparison by a significant order of magnitude.”

But then… we blazed into the turn, we had a skip on the ramp that goes 520 to I-5 south and almost had a failure to maintain control incident. We made it though, and the driver did a superb job getting through traffic and to the first stop in downtown Seattle.

All went well and a few stops in we pulled under the Monorail as the 545 always does. I stepped off the bus and got a wiff. It was a wiff of delight and flavor I’d not smelled among the streets in a long time. You see, Seattle never really has food smells, usually other human smells which are not delightful in any way. On the better days you get the fragrance of the sea, which is nice for some folks. But today, this was different. It was seasonings and spice and everything nice. It couldn’t be though I presumed I must be dreaming or delusional or the fentanyl from some dying soul had affected me.

But no, no I was correct, after getting my chain back on I mounted my pannier on my bike and looked toward Westlake Square. Sure enough, NOLA dogs before me, I marched on immediately for some food! I strolled right up and ordered. Immediately I had to comment about NOLA and smelling andouille the moment I got of the bus being one of the most delightful entrances to Seattle in years! The proprietor and I chuckled at this fact and commenced to talk about crawfish boils, the horrors of Seattle’s food, and mitigating such things with our own home grown home cooked deliciousness.

First diversion of topic pondering!

Ok, so have you noticed Seattle has “squares” and all but they’re rarely squares? For example, Pioneer Square, but it’s a triangle within the intersection and confluence of several streets. Westlake Square, but it’s also a partial rectangle + triangle shaped park that is effectively a giant concrete and stone surfaced space in the middle of the city. Nothing real park like or square about it. There are numerous spaces like this throughout Seattle and I do get it, but we should just change the names to be more fitting.

Second diversion of topic pondering!

The violent shaking of the 545 inbound was so bad, for the first time ever, a bus had done – technically at least – damage to my bike! It had knocked the chain off of the bike because of the violent shaking! I was impressed, and would have been highly pissed, except that I could re-rail it back onto the derailer and crank easily. But it could have easily snagged or caught on something and been ripped from or damaged beyond repair. There is zero need for this type of driving, but in spite of any need, it does seem that more and more the express buses do get driven like someone is going to a fire. The recent brakes giving out (or whatever happened) on the 545 that caused it to crash into a building in downtown Seattle is a prime example of this. It’s not a good look for Sound Transit, and it’s not a good look for the drivers. It’s also not a good look for the passengers who are being thrown around like rag dolls.

But I digress, ponderings over and my NOLA Dog was ready! Absolutely delicious, if ya see those available in downtown under the tent, get ya one, they’re great!

After trading details and an invite to a proper crawfish boil, I made my way down to Zeitgeist for my first bout of coding and email reading for the day. I arrived and sat outside while the line quelled itself and pondered a bit more.

After the stint at Zeitgeist I embarked on a ride from there to Starbucks Reserve shop at their HQ. I realized two things:

  1. The HQ is parallel, perfectly parallel, heading south via the Link Light Rail. Win!
  2. The HQ also has a kind of, almost, not sure if it is designated as such – greenway that runs perfectly in front of the HQ.

The ride from Zeitgeist by the arenas (stadiums?) and down 1st was mostly pleasant even with the industrial feel. 1st avenue, unlike the trail that runs parallel to the light rail, has no tents or heroin ODs occurring. Mostly it’s just folks going to and from the HQ plus general business. I’m sure the city has focused on this specifically to some degree, because up on 2nd or 3rd or whatever the busway is called, is just kind of nasty at points. Not dangerous, just a bit nasty. But I digress, onwards.

After the visit to Starbucks Research @ the HQ I headed down to the waterfront to check out progress on all of that. I found one things extremely hilarious, auto traffic is so bad you can just walk among or bike among the cars and beat them from point to point. If you’re driving, just avoid – entirely – the waterfront. There is zero reason to go there unless you’re driving to the ferry. But if you’re trying to go anywhere in the city, the waterfront isn’t going to speed you up by any measure.

After riding a big pseudo loop through all of that I head back toward Pioneer Square area to board a 550 bus out of the city and back toward the east side. My plan was to take the 550 and transfer at south station to the Link on the east side. That way, I could minimize bus usage.

It paid off. The bus ride on the 550 was quick, albeit kind of insane but not as ridiculous as the 545 earlier in the morning. Transferred as planned and boarded the light rail.

The Horrors of the “Motorcycle E-Bike Things”

Ok, so these beasts are popping up all over the place now. Basically mini-bikes but people think, because they’re electric vs. gas powered they can just magically use them wherever and on whatever trails. These go like ~40 mph (or faster in some cases) and happen to have pedals but are anything *but* a bike or e-assist e-bike. It’s kind of insane, and the disregard, negligence, and recklessness of riding these in pedestrianized areas is tantamount to blazing down the same with a motorbike or worse, a car. The dissonance that some folks find in their mind that this ok to do is beyond me, and when the police all of a sudden find the requests for policing these increasing to unavoidable levels, they’re gonna be cracking down left and right.

But in the meantime, they’re a risk factor in most places they’re meandering about, especially where they’re specifically detailed to NOT meander about. I hate saying that, because I’m a fan of pretty much anything that gets folks out of cars, but the behavior surrounding these is the problem.

I am all for alt travel and massively reducing car dependency. But holy burnt hot dog on a stick these are going to just cause a massive diversion of effort from that when they start killing some folks with em’. Just one giant utter face palm of disgrace.

Ok, but so far on goes life. None of these shits with the dissonance of reason and logic have run into me yet. I made it all the way back to Redmond and after some very light editing, have no posted this glorious log of my trip to Seattle today.

Cheers! May your cycling be rewarding, awesome, and your transit riding and elimination of auto-dependency be as rewarding – or more so – than it has for me! 🤘🏻

Sprawling Milwaukie (South of Downtown Milwaukie)
by Adron

Only 24% of Portlanders Want Suburbs, But 48% are Stuck Living There From Lack of Options!

Recently another article came out via OregonLive, “Most metro-area residents live in suburbs, but wish they didn’t: study“, that actually reflects something interesting about our living style here in Portland. The key measurement I’ve noted is that this article differentiates between town center neighborhood living versus suburban living. This is one of the biggest differentiators that often doesn’t come up between suburban and urban living. You see, town center living is dramatically more comparable to urban living versus suburban living.

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by Adron

Division Street is Looking Great! Let’s Destroy Division Street!

There’s new construction on Division & 32nd that has the road torn up and down to one lane. The construction gaurd is polite, offers me immediate passage across the street to the bus stop. I’m one of the many lucky souls in Portland that lives within a hundred feet of a bus, light rail, passenger rail or streetcar stop. Today I’m boarding the trusty #4 Route Bus into downtown Portland.

As the construction gaurd flips his sign from stop to slow, the traffic from the western direction, which is where my bus is arriving, starts to trickle through. I stand at the bus stop prepared to board. I check my smart phone to insure that I’ve purchased a day pass. I verify that I have and count the seconds. One car, two car, three car and four. The bus then pulls through and stops gingerly in front of me.

I step aboard to prevent any lingering wait that the cagers surely draw frustration from. The driver is already smiling and greets me with a “it’s really running the gauntlet today”. He refers to Division Street as a whole. From 39th to 10th or so it has been under construction from many months, if not more than a year now.

Division Street Grows Into Something Worthwhile

Four years ago Division Street was nothing but a small two lane arterial that switched into 4 lanes at random places. It is a residential street with front yards and children playing nearby. Now it is under immense pressure to become consistent, to grow in a smarter way than just acting as a naive arterial only for cars.

Division has grown sidewalks for the length of the street from 8th all the way to 82nd. Before there were gaps, dangerous gaps. Division has gone from inconsistency of two or four lanes to a solid two lanes from 82nd to 8th. At 8th is where something new is sprouting in the Portland & Milwaukee Light Rail Line. Between 12th and 30th there are fixes to and dramatic additinos of bioswales and other road amenities. These amenities are known to increase pedestrian and motorist safety. Between 60th and 82nd the lanes have gone from an unwieldy and dangerous four lanes to two, consistent with the rest of the street. Along the sides now are buffered bike lanes and other amenities for bus pull outs, timed traffic lights and other small items that help the flow of all traffic, not just cars.

Slowly Division itself becomes something, with bioswales and a consistent two lanes for its length. Service on the road is getting an increase in just a few more weeks. The #4 Trimet Bus is increasing back to what is referred to as frequent service. This means 15 minute frequency or better throughout the day. Beyond frequent service there is also going to be an increase for rush hour.

Slowly the auto dependency of Division is becoming less violent and fading into a small nuissence that provides a meager enabler for the street. Already today, actively there are three transportation means that already rule over the automobile when looked at as a whole; public transit, biking and walking. Not only have these modes become the dominent form of transport for customers to the growing businesses along Division. These modes, now dramatically safer with the taming of traffic violence, are once again becoming of dominant use to those teaching, attending and maintaing the schools in the area. That’s thousands and thousands of trips that no longer rely on the automobile, decreasing the auto-dependency of those that now have this new freedom.

A True Place

Some screamed when all of this started. Capitalism was at play in a huge way taming the automobile here. Some hate that, some love it. The city gave liberty to developers and stopped forcing them by regulation and law to build parking. If they saw a reason not to or demand didn’t dictate they simply didn’t have to build apartments with parking. Some of the residents saw this as a massive problem. With multiple apartments open that are without parking, there is still no shortage of parking. With the largest of the apartments without parking ready to open in the coming month or two, there still is a growing sense that this will become an enabler to the area versus a detractor.

Along this corridor the city has seen a dramatic increase in businesses opening up. This is in addition to new homes, apartments and other domiciles for people to live in the city. Almost 5x as many businesses, many local, now exist compared to just two years ago. Most of these businesses are now doing a brisk trade too. When auto-dependency ruled the street the businesses popped up but then immediately suffered. These businesses, many catering to the automobile, had not only been hurt by the auto-dependency but also hurt the existing businesses that were there before. The street was a ghost town as the 60s and 70s rolled in.

Let’s Destroy It All

Years ago the shortsighted advocates of auto-dependency wanted to pave all of Division, forcefully relocate the residents, destroy the homes all the way out to Clinton Street and possibly as far as Lincoln street in some cases on the other side. What they wanted to do, to be sure anybody could drive as fast as possible from downtown Portland to I-205 and the suburbs was build a new Interstate. They wanted to destroy all of this under the false guise that it would somehow make the neighborhoods better if they have more auto-dependent access. We know now, and thankfully didn’t make this mistake, that Interstates and increased auto-dependency do not increase livability or the quality or value of one’s neighborhood. If anything it pushes people further away and creates a massive thing that most people don’t actually want to live anywhere near.

As I ride through and down Division today to run my errands, enjoy an espresso and head into downtown for a few meetings I’m extremely happy that Division and most of the respective southeast neighborhood wasn’t destroyed to make way for an Interstate. The thousands of people that live here and enjoy an extremely high standard of living would have been left with a dwindling and disused neighborhood. A neighborhood that would have had little hope for repair. Now the neighborhood is anything but that. The number one reason why is because the city and the people of the city didn’t allow an Interstate to be cut through the area!

Until later, happy riding.

by Adron

So What’s Your Take on Graffiti? Is it Art? What About Mold?

There’s a very interesting point to be made in this Instagram photo and the comment that goes along with it.

Get That Graffiti! (Click to navigate to the original Instragram Post)

Get That Graffiti! (Click to navigate to the original Instragram Post)

There always seems to be a thin line between graffiti, tagging, art, mural and related things in public. One person’s art is another person’s disgust it always seems. So where does one draw the dividing line between a crap building and a good building, one that is blight and one that is not? In the picture, it’s obvious that the real problem is just as much the mold as the tags that were on the wall. It just makes one think, “what’s ok and what isn’t?” I’m always pondering how we could improve things in Portland.

I’ve always drawn differentiations between graffiti as something that is masterful, tagging as something done in disrespect and is trashy, murals as something the community has done and is similar in many ways to graffiti and art can be almost anything. Albeit there is one place where any types of markings are dangerous and uncalled for. Don’t tag the freight cars, there’s important information there. There’s also murals and other montages that have been put on the sides of trains before. Then there is the dreaded advertisement that ends up on the side of trains and such.

So what are the divides? How would you identify each of these divides? What offends you, bothers you or gives you a smile to wear on your face?

by Adron

Denver, Los Angeles, Seattle and Portland, What Was First?

Portland was first, again, as usual it seems. What was it first for? Well, the list isn’t short, but what I’m talking about today is the MAX connection from downtown to the airport. I just read a summary of news tidbits on The Source titled Transportation Headlines for Wednesday, November 27th. The segment that caught my attention was the Denver East Corridor Rail line to the airport that pointed to the Streetsblog Article complaining about LA’s airport connector that is under construction.

Portland’s MAX Red Line

MAX Red Line, Click for Trimet's Page on the Red Line.

MAX Red Line, Click for Trimet’s Page on the Red Line.

In Portland the MAX Red Line opened in 2001 on the very unfortunate date of September 10th. The next day being September 11th 2001 really put the airport out of commission. For weeks after the opening date the line barely carried a soul to the airport, for obvious reasons. The entire place was closed after the world trade center twin towers came down in New York City. The world mourned the event and the Red Line suffered because of it, just as we all did.

However, as the city, the country and people got back to the business of day to day activities and the airport re-opened the line bustled with riders. Between 1990 and 2008 the airport had gone from six million passengers through the airport (flying) to over 13 million. 2020 projects are that it will easily surpass that, likely in the 20+ million range. The four stops of the Red Line however do not serve just the airport, and the length of the route serves many other stops with a huge number of riders. For those stops it doubles the service along the Banfield Corridor with the Blue Line all the way out to Beaverton. There is even talk of enabling it to double service even further out toward the edge of Beaverton or even going a little ways into Hillsboro. Time will tell for those changes though.

Why do I bring that up? Because the Red Line serves far more than just the airport, and even a bulk of the ridership isn’t even airport bound. The ridership for the two stops before the airport stop have boomed as retail has exploded around them. An Ikea opened, and along with a number of other retail options. These options benefit from a number of things including Oregon’s lack of a sales tax, creating a situation of thousands of Washington residents driving across the I-205 bridge to shop there. Many of these people drive across that same bridge in the morning commute and board the Red Line at the Parkrose/Sumner Transit Center stop. Some even sneak in and park at the Cascades stop (even though that’s retail parking for the businesses there, we know motorists rarely care nor know they’re not supposed to do that). Overall, all those stops in between the airport and where the line resumes service with the Blue Line (and now the Green Line too matter of fact) on the Banfield Corridor are hugely important.

Time for Some Data!

In 2010 I found some data Michael Anderson had gotten from Trimet for ons and offs. This is the counter data that all MAX trains have that count boardings and detrainings from the MAX Light Rail Vehicles (LRVs) at each stop. Remember this is 2010, ridership is up over 10% since 2010. So even correcting for the +-1% for data reading mistakes or anything like that, this data is a conservative look into what ridership is today in 2013.

Airport Station
Stop ID: 10579 On 1694 Off 1635

Mt Hood Avenue MAX Station
Stop ID: 10576 On 50 Off 253
Stop ID: 10577 On 252 Off 54

Cascades MAX Station has about 450 on and 450 off. Keep in mind, this was in 2010 when most of the retail wasn’t even open yet.
Stop ID: 10575 On 402 Off 46
Stop ID: 10574 On 43 Off 411

Parkrose/Sumner TC MAX Station, MAX Rides on and off only. There’s over a thousand on and a thousand leaving the station everyday, just on the Red Line.
Stop ID: 10572 On 113 Off 926
Stop ID: 10573 On 962 Off 134

The line is technically 5.5 miles long. This accounts for the Red Line segment that is entirely new, between Gateway TC and the PDX Airport. It was finished and opened for public ridership on September 10th, 2001. Here’s a map of the line, running from the airport to Beaverton today. When it originally opened it terminated downtown on the turnaround from the original Blue line that ran from Gresham to Portland. Now the turnaround isn’t used as an active turnaround, but as an area for train extras. The terminus is now on the middle track at Beaverton Transit Center.

The Trimet Rail System. Click for a larger image.

The Trimet Rail System. Click for a larger image.

Here’s some other stats of significance. The Red Line was the first train to plane service on the west coast. It was built through a public-private partnership, nothing seen like this for many decades (think pre-1950 when most transportation was nationalized). The funding split was Trimet general fund at 36%, Bechtel/Cascade Station Development Company, LLC at 23%, Port of Portland (for the airport) at 23% and the City of Portland at 18%. No federal dollars or new local taxes were used. This is of significant note, as with Federal dollars it would have likely taken 5-10 years longer to build, if it was even able to be completed then. Federal involvement always makes things dramatically more difficult to get shovels in the ground.

Why Mention This?

Well it seems, since the line was opened Seattle has open their Link Light Rail service from downtown Seattle to the airport. It serves about 22k people per day last I checked, which I’m betting it is up to about 28-32k per day now. It’s been a while since I checked. Los Angeles and Denver are about to join the ranks of cities in the United States west of the Mississippi to offer train to plane service. There has been some debate whether LA’s connector will be worth the investment and if Denver’s isn’t’ a better example.

My Bets for Denver

What I’m betting, contrary to the article fussing for a direct connection to downtown Los Angeles, is that most of the ridership for the Denver line will not actually originate at the airport. Almost all of the ridership I bet ends up being commuters in and out of the city from the 5 intermediary stops along the line. In addition, if empirical data is any proof, then most of the airport ridership will actually be local workers at the airport and not travelers going to flights. However, I counter that to some degree. So here’s my bullet point bets for the Denver line. This bet I’m making based on assumptions of what service will be and what ridership will be from 2016 when it opens until about 2020. After that, all bets are off.  😉

  1. Most of the riders will be commuters riding from the 5 intermediary stops into and out of Denver. More precisely riders originating from and to the 5 intermediary stops of: 38th and Blake, 40th and Colorado, Central Park, Peoria and Airport (rd/dr) and 40th will exceed 51% of all riders.
  2. A large percentage of the riders for the airport (into the actual final stop of the airport, not the Airport St & 40th stop) will be airport workers. I’ll estimate that at least ~12%. I wouldn’t bet against someone betting on 30-40% of the riders being workers at the airport. Ideally of course, only about 2-5% of the riders would be airport workers, as one would hope the rider count on the train will be very high.
  3. It will for the first 10 years be a significantly higher cost per ride then the light rail or bus service in the area. Over the 20-30 year period it will drop below thanks to inflationary cost changes and over a 30+ year it will drop below or be maintained at about the cost per ride of light rail and bus service. Pending of course we still even get around this way in 10-30 years from now. We might just use transporters and aircraft may be irrelevant.  😉

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