by Adron

Ah, Return of the Transit Sleuth

If anyone is still reading I am impressed and happy to know (so please toss in a comment!)

Anyway, I am now living in Seattle and riding the King County Metro and Sound Transit System on an almost daily basis now.  I must say, I’m impressed and unimpressed with some of the transit options up here, but it is at least as capable as TriMet.  That makes Seattle a pretty rocking city.  As always, I’ll now be blogging from up here, and of course blogging on trips down to o’ Portland too!

So stay tuned and I’ll have blog entries a flowing again soon.  Especially now that I actually have a commute again (Even though it is only about 25-45 minutes each way)!  🙂

I leave you with this hilarity (one of the things I do NOT find impressive, more or less just stupid)

by Adron

Sunday Streetcar Ride

I have not posted, obviously in a number of days.  My transit interests have taken a significant backburner to my career and other aspects of life lately.  However, today (Sunday), I decided I would take part of the streetcar loop along the south waterfront on my way to Backspace.  Backspace of course, is not anywhere near this part of the streetcar route, but figured it would be nice just for some thinking time.

I boarded at 3rd & Harrison.  The streetcar wasn’t real full so it was easy to just grab a comfortable seat for laptop use and start writing.  As the streetcar snaked the way down to the south waterfront we left the slow section onto the 30mph section of track.  Whizzing along and looking to the left, one could see the blue and yellow Cirque Du Soliel Tent.  We pulled into the muddling slow south waterfront finally and poked along again, as the Portland Streetcar does.

At this time I started working on some work related code and design finalizations for a prototype.  Wow, what a mouth full really.  I made some good progress while watching this small part of Portland go by.  Gave me some good contemplations too.  But alas, I’m not going into those at the moment, At some point I will kick off a new writing flurry on the ole’ Transit Sleuth here and you’ll just have to read about them then.

A few people got on board, which were interesting to watch.  Some grandparents and their granddaughters boarded.  The two daughters, probably in their tweens, were enraptured by the streetcar and surrounding scenery of buildings, greenery, and other various urban things.  One could tell they were not from the city.  After standing for a while they waltzed off to some seats.  Another dozen people boarded at PSU, and off when my ongoing observable pietry dish of humanity.  With me in the rear corner of the streetcar being all productive.

The streetcar rolled through the other PSU and park stops, while I worked away for a while longer.  I eventually got off the streetcar at Couch (pronounced kooch) and walked the last few blocks to Backspace.  I killed an extra hour plus of time this way, but it was time well spent with ideas & thoughts that I have been needing.

With that, adieu.

by Adron

Wow, Really? 34 Miles Per Gallon Would be Cool

Per the article on CNN,

In general, the regulations require all passenger cars and light trucks sold in the United States to get an overall average of 34.1 miles per gallon by model year 2016. It’s the first time there has been a national average for all vehicles.

By the 2016 model year, cars will be expected to average about 39 mpg while trucks are expected to get an average of 30 mpg.

This has been a long time coming.  What I don’t get, is why the Government decides to step in just after they forced the car manufacturers to make cars less efficiently for the facade of safety.  What gives?  A little hypocrisy, it sure looks at it.

Sure, this doesn’t measure anything compared the 60-70 MPG rating per passenger of a high speed rail line.

by Adron

Oregon Orders More Talgos! About time!

http://www.progressiverailroading.com/prdailynews/news.asp?id=22679

Oh yeah, Oregon has ordered two Talgos.  What do you think of that eh?

So I don’t get some of the logistics of the matter, such as the fact that Oregon is getting two trains with 13 cars.  Oregon can’t even get 10 car trains filled up between Eugene and Portland.  Maybe they’ll be able to change the schedule for better trips?  Who knows.

Anyway, would love to hear what people think.

by Adron

TriMet: MAX rail trips climb, bus trips tumble in January

In January, the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet) registered 7.9 million rail and bus trips, down 2.6 percent compared with January 2009 ridership.

The weak economy and a double-digit unemployment rate continue to impact ridership, primarily bus trips, TriMet officials said in a prepared statement.

In January, weekly trips declined 0.9 percent to 2 million; weekday trips dropped 0.8 percent to 321,600; weekend trips decreased 1.2 percent to 314,300; and rush-hour trips fell 2.1 percent to 104,000.

On the MAX light-rail system, weekly trips rose 11.4 percent to 716,500; weekday trips increased 11.2 percent to 116,700; weekend trips jumped 12.5 percent to 132,800; and rush-hour trips went up 9.6 percent to 35,500.

Meanwhile, the WES commuter-rail line averaged 6,150 weekly trips and 1,230 weekday/rush-hour trips in January.

Is that an increase over the previous month’s WES ridership?  I could have sworn it was only at about 5k last month.  Either way, this is kind of more of the assumed and expected results.  Rail up w/ the new lines and bus ridership down since TriMet is cutting ENTIRE LINES.  I hope people are not assuming things with these results.  That would be unfortunate, which leads me to believe that they probably are.