NOTE: This was written on Wednesday, but I didn’t get it finished up until now.

I was planning to take a trip up to Tacoma today, but I managed to not make the train.  I did however decide I was going to take care of some business today, get things in order, and make sure when I was done with my stay-cation (in lieu of vacation) I’d have things all caught up.  So far I’m off to a good start.

I went downtown, grabbed a Subway Sandwich, then headed to the UPS Store to check the mail.  At some point shortly after that I saw an older lady back into a car trying to parallel park.  She didn’t hit it hard, but I stopped to help if she persisted in parking.

While she was making her second endeavor these three young guys walked up, trendy looking brats really.  At first they seemed friendly when one of them spoke up and said to the lady trying to park, “woh woh don’t hit that car”.  I sounded off simple, “she did once already”.  To which the guy replied, “and you’re just standing there?”  At this point she pulled off and gave up on parking.  I started to tell the guy, “I was going to offer…” but before I could get the whole statement out he blurted out as if offended, “don’t turn around and act like you where…” to which I immediately got riled up at and told him to just “f@#! him, I was trying to help and you assume the worse.”  He then replied with a tepid and faltering response of “Just forget it, it’s…” to which I cut him off with a strongly worded, “you don’t walk up and disrespect someone like that as if you know what is going on!”  To which his friends and he moved further away on the sidewalk even though I had made no movements toward them, as if to show cowardice.  Even though I was only into my downtown errands and random adventures of the day by about 30 minutes these guys had to step up and get me perturbed.  What a way to start the day’s outings.

Either way it wasn’t such a big deal.  I had saw my friend Susan downtown and walked with her from about 5th toward the #14 before this incident, so I was actually pretty chilled already.  It’s always good to see friends downtown.  With that I took a deep breath, boarded the MAX, then decided not to ride it since it was packed.  I decided at this time it was going to be a ride a random bus day.

The north bound #35 came pulling up and it seemed a perfect candidate, so aboard I jumped and off we went.  The #35 is actually one of my favorite buses, one that makes good time and has a beautiful route.  That includes both segments, down to Lake Oswego and Oregon City and north toward Oregon State University.

For a short part of the trip the bus follows the Yellow Line MAX up Interstate Avenue, which is scenic unto itself.  When then turn left off of Interstate and basically clock a solid 45 mph out of inner north east Portland.  The route then rises along the precipice overlooking the UP & Industrial areas while running up Greeley Ave.  This route also takes us by the rather awesome Adidas Portland (North west/US?) Headquarters near the top of the road incline.  From there on it is a mix of residential and small commercial retail interspersed in the area.  Awesome neighborhood, great stores etc.

Just past the Adidas Office is a transfer point to the #72, which heads down Alberta and such, which is another awesome and lively area of Portland.  Just past that the bus route turns onto Lombard where one can transfer to the #75.  That pretty much covers transfers to both of the major north south buses for the inner Portland area.  I made a mental note of this, just for future reference.

Further down the way the #35 also crosses paths with the #4.  I decided this was a good opportunity to jump the #4 over to the Mississippi District.  While en route I learned what “Po’Shined” was, interesting Soul Food place on Denver.

At North Lombard and Denver the #4 bus stop had 8 people waiting.  Pretty impressive for a suburban stop.  Really good to see though.  This is one thing I regularly notice is a massive difference between inner east side and any other area in the TriMet District.  The inner east side is about 4-8x as busy with patrons as anywhere else in the area.  The #4 brought me to the transfer point with the Yellow Line MAX and I decided I’d go do something I’d wanted to for a long long time.

Checking Out North Star Coffee

I wrote up a whole review on my other blog on North Star Coffee, so go check it out if you’d like.  After several years, I finally made it into North Star Coffee.  Their location always seemed pretty awesome, right beside the MAX but not at the stop, as can be very annoying sometimes.  It’s only a mere 50 or so feet from the stop though.

After an hour long stop in the coffee shop to write up more of this blog entry, the Albina Press and North Star Coffee blog entries (the one’s on my other blog) I finally hit the road again and got back to coding.  I was thinking I’d jump aboard the MAX, but then decided to stick with the random bus theme.  So off looking for the #75 or #4 I went.

I went to the stop, but the next bus that arrived was a #6, seemed as good as any bus, so I boarded.  I have to say, one of the best bus rides I’ve had in years.  Most polite riders and jovial nature among everyone.  I got off at Killingsworth and walked toward where I could catch the #72 to head down Alberta but got side tracked when I saw the new Old Town Pizza on MLK.  I decided to stop in and check it out, grab a slice of Pizza for a measly $1.50.  I enjoyed my slice, fiddled with my IPhone and whipped the laptop back out for a bit of coding.

After this I headed over to Random Order Coffee House to wait for a friend.  That included a ride on the #72 down Alberta (yup, that street).  I completed a write up of that coffee shop also.

Income Payroll Tax:  This is the direct payroll tax Oregon charges an individual income earner.

Inferred Income Tax: This is the payroll tax in excess that is spent on roadways, etc, that is then utilized by transit.  This is an extremely small percentage, but since I’m attempting to be as thorough as possible, I’ve included it.  I’ve used 3% since that is about the average budgeted over the last couple of years (excluding the massive bail outs, etc, from this year so far).

Federal Income Tax:  This is the part of the income tax that is spent on transit, then the percentage allocated to Oregon and specifically Portland.  Yeah, again, not that big of a number.

The Government Incurred Debt on My Behalf:  This is cost that goes above and beyond the above collected taxes.  This is the money the Government is inflating through the usage of uncollected funds, also known as “printing money” to spend.  Which then we will owe at some point in the future unless the Government defaults on all the borrowed money.  In the past it has been about 10% of what is already incurred via income taxes.  This year (2009) we’ve incurred approximately $300 per person that will go to transportation, which I did not place below as I’m assuming it will eventually average out again in the future.

Fare Payments:  This includes my monthly pass, any extra passes I had to buy such as when I forgot to get a monthly pass.

Totals

	35k Yr Income	45k Yr Income	80k Yr Income	110k Yr Income
Income Payroll Tax (0.6718)	$235.13	$302.31	$537.44	$739.98
Inferred Income Tax (3% of 9.5%)	($3,325) $99.75	($4,275) $128.25	($7,600) $228.00	($10,450) $313.50
Federal Income Tax (15% of 3% of 25% to 28%)	($8,750) ($262.50) $39.37	($11,250) ($337.50) $50.63	($20,000) ($600.00) $90.00	($28,400) ($852.00) $127.80
Government Incurred Debt	$26.25	$33.75	$60.00	$85.20
Fare Payments	$1032	$1032	$1032	$1032
Totals	$1432.50	$1547.04	$1944.44	$2298.48

Some of the things we can learn from this information.  Nobody pays a full cost of their transit usage, not even the person making $110k per year.  The extra costs are distributed among the other 90%+ of tax paying citizens, who pay at the rate above REGARDLESS of whether they ever use transit.  The same situation of course goes for automobiles which I’ll cover those costs, out of pocket and taxes, in a future entry.

Looking at this though, it really makes one wonder what it would be like if we paid the actual cost of usage just within the city; LRV, Bus, Streetcar, at our current rate of tax & available disposable income it would be rough even for the 80-110k income earner to afford transit, let alone automobile transportation.

Stay tuned for more of this wealth redistribution for transportation story, I’ve got a lot more research coming down the pipeline.

Again, really, are you kidding me TriMet?  Another alert received today.

“After thorough inspections and testing of the three WES trains overnight, it was discovered that blooms from cottonwood trees were clogging the air filters on the trains’ cooling systems and blocking the sensors needed to keep the trains in operation. The filters have been cleaned, and will be cleaned weekly while the cottonwood trees are releasing blooms. All WES trains will be running for the evening commute.”

In all honesty, this is starting to sound like the little kid making up excuses for not going to school.

Everyone is amazed at Japan’s HSR right?  Make sure to listen all the way to the end.

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/6tHUazOZIAk&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1

Yeah, that’s right, it is now privately owned and operated.  They subsidized it and then learned it would be more efficient to allow privatized operation.

Imagine that.  To improve efficiency none the less.  Maybe it is time that we re-learned what our history (in the US) would teach us.

I was reading TriMetiquette, Portland’s local transit blogger of etiquette.  I actually found a point that I disagree with.  Here’s why.

First, the point that was made was,

“It was interesting reading recent posts about having bags on seats. What is the recommended etiquette for traveling to the airport on the Red line with luggage?”

TriMet is really lenient about luggage and other things on seats.  However MBTA, New Jersey Transit, MTA, Metra, and about every other system in the country, and especially the world hold to a simple rule.

“Seats are for the posterior of a human being”

So luggage does not go in a seat.  Neither does your dog that is legally or illegally on transit.  Your feet absolutely do not go in a seat.  The list goes on.  People often however don’t respect this, and I actually don’t profess much need to straighten someone out about it like I do many things.

If the objective is etiquette though, I’d personally take a queue from the rest of the world and NOT put anything except my butt in a seat.  On an aside, that just enables you to not have to pick up your luggage and put it on the ground if someone requests the seat next to you.  Because if there is an available seat that a human isn’t sitting in, you must release the seat.  If you refuse I believe you can even be fined on most systems, often they fine you before there request is even made, and at TriMet I believe they can fine a person in relation to this.

If you refuse me, I’ll just move your crap and it is getting tossed on the ground.  Even though I rarely say anything about stuff being in a seat, if it’s the only one, I’m going to sit there.  So respect the riders, leave seats for butts.

As I wrote this I thought, the Muni Manners ladies also wrote some things about this.  I went digging and realized they’d written multiple entries on this topic;  Etiquette Rule #8, Etiquette Rule #23, and Etiquette Rule #34 too.

Thx for riding!