Tag / light rail

by Adron

Looking Through Just Yesterday

Not long ago, there was a higher speed streetcar route between south waterfront and downtown. It was a single track that ran along the current double track segment. With the construction and build out of OHSU and the light rail, the corridor needed improved. But here’s a shot when there was almost nothing (except the noisy interstate just behind where the shot was taken)

Streetcar heading to South Waterfront past where the new light rail & OHSU Building is going up.

Streetcar heading to South Waterfront past where the new light rail & OHSU Building is going up.

Here’s another shot, from back a little ways.

Streetcar heading to south waterfront, but from a wider angle view.

Streetcar heading to south waterfront, but from a wider angle view.

by Adron

Phoenix, Huge Light Rail Ridership Increases!

Impressive, Phoenix isn’t my favorite city, primarily for idealogical reasons and the mere physics of a city smack in the middle of a desert. But some people there are trying to improve things and make it…  sustainable? Not sure that’s possible, but this news is a good thing for sure.

The light rail that Phoenix had built a number of years ago has seen a surge in ridership.

Total Boardings for August: 1,166,156 vs 982,776 in July.

Avg. Weekday Boardings: 42,054 vs 34,168 in July.

Avg Saturday Boardings: 28,592 vs 27,935 in July.

Avg Sunday / Holiday Boardings: 21,138 vs 25,585 in July.

My suggestion, if you’re going to go live in the desert (at your own risk) then be sure to live along the light rail line. Better value for your money and less reliance on a single mode of transport (your car) is a good thing.

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

A Salem Commute, TriMet Almost Messes it Up and a Video of the Trip

Arriving in Tualatin.

Arriving in Tualatin.

Today started at 4:30am for me. I had some business meetings to attend in Salem, Oregon. This seemed like a good opportunity to take a trip to Salem with my girl Kristen. This commute would have us following this trip:

  1. Walk 6 blocks to the MAX Galleria transit stop (check out TriMet’s Map).
  2. Depart on 5:16am MAX to Beaverton Transit Center.
  3. Arrive and depart on the WES to Wilsonville, Oregon.
  4. Then take the Cherriots 1x to Salem, Oregon.

A relatively simple trip really, except for the 3 transfers and a theoretical 21 minute transfer wait to the WES. That’s kind of a bummer. However, what really caused stress is we ended up with zero transfer time. Cuz ya see, the frikkin’ 5:16am west bound MAX NEVER ARRIVED! That meant standing there on pins and needles hoping to catch the next MAX, which at that hour doesn’t come for…  drum roll please… 21 minutes!  Yeah, exactly 21 minutes, which would mean if everything departs on time then the transfer to the WES couldn’t occur, which meant the Cherriots transfer wouldn’t occur, which would mean I’d either be 30-60 minutes late.

WES Train o' The Day

WES Train o’ The Day

But as the trip started, amazingly, we caught that next MAX which was precisely on time 21 minutes later. Amazingly, the WES had not departed when we arrived in Beaverton TC. I guess, TriMet had managed to delay the train? Maybe the conductor or engineer on the train had held knowing familiar faces weren’t aboard. It is totally possibly since the WES crew generally tends to roll that way – they’re good with the passengers.

Either way, I’ve arrived, Kristen is off to work, and I made this silly video with happy goofy travel music (cuz it is canned, and it is a pain to find music that isn’t copyrighted on the Internet).  Next time I might add some of my own custom music, a little shredding for the soul always kicks a trip into overdrive.

Cheers!