Tag / portland

by Adron

Back in Portland…

Ok, so currently I’m staying with family in Vancouver, which provides a nightmare of a commute. I’m however determined to make it an adventure though. Today I’m heading downtown (Portland, not downtown Vancouver). The trip is a multi-transfer and long walking distance trip.

Segment One

The first part of the trip is about a half mile up and down hills. There is a sidewalk, which seems odd in Vancouver, as it seems nobody actually walks here. I see someone maybe every 1000ft. But then of course Vancouver has focused on car happiness and not people happiness, so it all makes sense.

Segment Two

I arrive at fourth plain after this walk/ride/bike up and down a 1/2 mile of hills to board the #4 to Delta Park. The #4 route is pleasant, at least so far. In the morning the bus appears to be clean with a well below half load of people. I counted 14 this morning. Strangely, there was also no traffic to cause delays crossing the great I-5 Bridge bottleneck either. So maybe it is a slow day?

Segment Three

Once I transferred to the Yellow Line MAX at Delta Park things immediately bumped up a notch. By the Rosa Parks Station Stop the MAX has no less than 82 people for the two car light rail train. By the next stop it had 106, which is a little low for a Monday, but sure beats the capacity a bus line could handle.

The day remained gorgeous with the sun shining and even slightly warm compared to previous days. Most were silent on the way in, which isn’t abnormal for the morning rush hours.

The Return Trip

The reverse trip was about the same thing. Easy, super quick transfer to the #4 C-Tran, and overall about 45 minutes between downtown and where I got off the bus in Vancouver.

Observations

  • 95% of the riders of the #4 C-Tran are all going to the Yellow Line. Obviously there is significant ridership demand.
  • Considering ridership in a particular are usually goes up about a 1/3rd past equivalent bus service when light rail is put into place, the Vancouver Ridership would be that or more. Matter of fact, I’d bet a fifty on it.
  • If the #4 was BRT, and connected with light rail in downtown Vancouver (ya know, if they actually build the bridge monstrosity across the river), that would see at least a 5-10% increase in ridership over the current bus operations. It would have to be at least 10 minute frequencies. Having this 15 minute headway during peak hours isn’t going to help all that much even if reconfigured to BRT. Yes, I’d also put a 50 spot bet on this too.
by Adron

I’m Moving, New Home Base: Portland, Secondary San Francisco, Seattle, and Vancouver BC

So I’ve done it, I’ve just switched my home base back to Portland from Seattle. However, I’ll be in Seattle, San Francisco, and Vancouver BC about as often as I was before (ok, slightly less in Seattle). So for those out there thinking, “But Seattle is so great, why leave for Portland?!?!” here’s the lowdown. I enjoyed my time in Seattle but it IS NOT Portland nor is the livability and options the same. Such as…

  • Walkability in Portland is on par with Vancouver BC, both which are vastly superior in walkable locations than San Francisco or Seattle. The distance between any two things in Seattle is easily 2x the distance as key destinations in Portland or Vancouver.
  • I can get to Best Buy, IKEA, Target, and over a dozen other major stores by light rail in Portland. This cannot be done in Seattle. Buying bulk stuff and using light rail to get it home is super easy, doing this on a bus is not.
  • There are literally thousands of food carts, in pods, in Portland. Seattle can’t get its food cart scene off the ground to save the life of the city. I decided again not to keep waiting around.
  • Portland is 10-15 years ahead of Seattle with light rail/high capacity transit construction. Seattle will be paying 2-50x as much as Portland to have a system that will be half the size of Portland’s possibly by 2020 or more realistically 2040 or 2050. It however, is unlikely that Seattle will be able to find the money to do this.
  • Seattle relies so heavily on buses, the city is actually MORE vulnerable to cold extremes than Portland. Portland shuts down during cold, so just imagine that twice as early and twice as long! Not that snow days bother me, and I don’t mind snow days. I just find it somewhat frustrating in Seattle because everything is 2x farther apart, meaning I often do need to get around during the snow.
  • Seattle uses concrete, that becomes uneven, almost everywhere making the roads dangerous for cyclists and extremely rough while riding in the bus or a car. The roadways are actually less maintained than Portland’s (yes, Seattle actually has MORE dirt roads than Portland).
  • Seattle is politically bound by a warring city council and a mayor with too much power and too little impetuous to move forward on things. Again, I’m tired of waiting for Seattle to get things moving forward. In addition, Seattle is held captive to the warring (and often draconian or backwards thinking regions around the city) that don’t want light rail, don’t want livability zoning or livable street designs, want to just pave everything, yadda yadda yadda. Portland has this problem, but it has been put in check years ago. The battle continues, but Seattle’s battle is about 10-15 years away from becoming a “winning battle”. Simply, Seattle could still fall into a “Houston” or “Dallas” complex.
  • There are at least 3x as many breakfast choices, and a much more active (I’d almost say larger) foodie culture in Portland than in Seattle.
  • There are more coffee options, better coffee options, and more availability of coffee shops in Portland than in Seattle. That doesn’t just come from me, I have confirmed this with some of the top brewers in Seattle. They know Portland kicks some serious coffee ass!
  • I actually have to get into a car in Seattle sometimes and sometimes I even have to drive somewhere. This is absolutely unacceptable when there are better logistics capabilities in Vancouver BC, San Francisco, and of course Portland.
  • The tech scene in Portland is actually, albeit smaller, more cohesive, communicative, socially active in person and on Twitter, blogs, and other places.
  • No city I know of has the density of creatives and the messaging, art, advertising accumen, or capabilities as creatives in Portland. People care about what they create in this city and it shows.
  • Portland is basically the mecca of open source software. Linus Torvalds lives in Portland, err, well, Lake Oswego, which still is about the same, and works in the metropolitan area. In addition to that many of the Agile Manifesto signatures come from individuals that live in Portland or nearby in the surrounding state.
  • Portland doesn’t have an airport south of its downtown wrecking neighborhood connections, instead Portland has an airport and a race track separating it form Vancouver Washington – which to me, is just fine.
  • Seattle has more roadways planned than Portland, Seattle’s port is about to be overtaken by Tacoma’s, and Seattle also has a host of other issues that will make it fall even further into a less livable place if they aren’t rectified.
  • The distance between transit options on the west side of the Portland Metro area are often closer than the transit options in the heart of Seattle. I find this horrifying and absurd. Farther out the transit options almost disappear compared to Portland’s options. If anyone knows about Portland’s “west side transit options”, they kind of suck, or to put it more kindly, they’re about average in the nation. It definitely is not similar to the “Portlandia” area.
  • The number of 10-18 minute routes in Seattle are scarce, even more now with the budget cuts. Just as I had suspected though, Seattle has to cut more service than Portland by percentage of budget and riders. Partly because Seattle has to spend about 2x what Portland does to provide transit. I’ll take Portland’s cuts over Seattle’s any day. This is even magnified by the operational efficiency of having light rail over buses.
  • Portland will have light rail to Milwaukee, an east side Streetcar, increased bus service, and other additions to pedestrian and street facilities by the time Seattle finishes ONLY the First Hill Streetcar, the University District Light Rail still won’t be finished by then. Again, I’m not waiting around any longer for Seattle to catch up. I’d be a billion years old by the time they get to the same level as Portland, San Francisco, or Vancouver BC.
  • Voodoo Donuts. Nuff Said’
  • Seattle has the Burke Gilman Trail at 23 miles, Portland has the Springwater Corridor Loop at 40 miles.
  • Seattle has about 30 miles of signed bike routes, and 20 miles of bike lanes, Portland has 202 miles of painted line bike lanes, 46 miles of bike boulevards, 76 miles of paths that are off street and car-free, and several bike boulevards. Yeah, have I mentioned I like to bike? Portland clearly owns bike friendliness by an order of magnitude.
  • Seattle has 2/3 the bike corrals that Portland does, and as above, about one sixth the amount of bike miles, for a city that consumes as much or more physical space as Portland in the metropolitan area. I’m frustrated by this ratio, and the increased risk and danger of cycling in Seattle.

…and the last technical reason of this list…

  • There is about 50 kazillion more transit related things to write about in Portland then there is in Seattle. So maybe, I’ll be able to breath some life back into this blog!

So Emerald City Seattle, I will admit it has been fun, but it’s you not me and I’m back to my Stumptown City Portland. But don’t worry Seattle, I’ll be visiting regularly. 😉

NOTE: Don’t take offense to this, if you do, you should probably involve yourself to fix the city of Seattle. There’s plenty of opportunities to do so. I mean no insult to anyone working toward bettering the city either. I just had to vent/enumerate my issues. As I said, I have absolutely enjoyed my time in Seattle, but there are things I have grown accustomed to, maybe even spoiled by in Portland, that I want back. So I hope no offense is taken, cheers!

by Adron

Putting My Geek & My Transit Together

So on February 7th I’m speaking at the PADNUG – Portland Area .NET/Developers User Group. The location of the meeting is in the Intel Campus here:

5200 NE Elam Young Pkwy Hillsboro, OR 97124

I’ll be starting my trip out to this location from downtown Portland right around this lat and long:

45.519370, -122.675155

That gets me this flawless ride out on Portland’s TriMet Blue Line MAX. So if you’re in the area, we can surely ride together, it may be a bit packed being rush hour and all. At least however it is light rail, so it isn’t exactly “delayed” because of traffic.  🙂  Gotta love those dedicated ROWs (Right of Ways).

by Adron

Portland Envy by Seattle, It Keeps Going…

I was speaking with a friend about the crime on 3rd between Pine and Pike in Seattle. I’ve seen more violence and read about more violence on that street in the 1.8 years I’ve lived in Seattle than I heard the entire 6+ years I lived in Portland. I can absolutely relate with this article. The crime doers on this street are absolute scum, but the city does nothing to clean up or mitigate these issues except send in cops. If anyone has half a brain they realize that cops only stop a very small amount of actual crime. Maybe 15% or 20% is the somewhere around the official estimate.

This article points out how Seattle should look into a follow the lead of places like Portland, Oregon and San Francisco, California.  I quote from the article,

“Physical changes such as more attractive bus shelters, more landscaping and better signage will help Third Avenue, Scholes said. He points to San Francisco and Portland as two cities that have remade their transit corridors into attractive, pedestrian-friendly streets.

Portland’s ambitious makeover, known as the Portland Mall, renovated or rebuilt 58 downtown blocks and intersections with high-end materials including granite, brick and wrought iron, added 45 new transit shelters, new bike lanes and public art. The price — $220 million — made it one of Portland’s largest public-works projects, said Mary Fetsch, spokeswoman for TriMet, the transit agency for the Portland metropolitan area.

Fetsch said the old bus shelters were dark and provided places to hide. The redesigned bus stops are open, well-lighted canopies with clear sightlines.

“You can see what’s happening on the street now.”

Third Avenue from Pioneer Square to Belltown encompasses about 20 blocks, but the council so far has appropriated just $350,000 for the street improvements and another $177,000 for additional cleaning. (Note: This is far less than the $500k Seattle has spent for zero improvements and only cleaning and policing)

“The city will need to invest much more to significantly improve the corridor and achieve something like what Portland has accomplished,” Scholes said. Still, he says, there’s a limit to what physical changes can do.

“More plantings, more lighting, more trees are great, but if we don’t deal with the drug dealing we haven’t improved the corridor.””

The original article is available here.  All I have to say is, “Seriously Seattle, you’re smack in the middle of some of the best cities in the world (Vancouver BC & Portland), and near enough to San Francisco to not be so behind in matters like this, simply, get your act in gear Ms Emerald City!” Simply put the city really needs to just stop, take a breath, and the city councils, mayors office, and all these groups need to get together to take effective and reason actions against these problems like these other cities have.

I personally worry about many of my friends and family in relation to this type of nonsense. What coward would attack a 60+ year old man taking a picture of Christmas lights. This makes me not want to invite anyone to visit and instead just start packing heat myself. I haven’t had this emotion and reaction since I lived, well over 10 years ago, in the New Orleans area where I actually was shot at before. I didn’t move to the north west to deal with this type of nonsense…

…until later, I sure hope to have a good story later.

by Adron

Libertarians Rule, Socialists Rock!

This is a somewhat contrarian blog entry, and yes, it is about transit.

Libertarians are about a serious lack of control. Something I strongly wish the Federal Government would take to heart, for the sake of transit and cities. Socialists have the opposite attitude, and want a very hands on Government, which locally and in cities I find to be a very positive and good thing. As long, of course, that this socialist Government at a city level is for and by the people. Here’s my reasoning.

First the Feds & Libertarianism

The Federal Government, in the United States and other places for that matter, suck at knowing much about local issues. The Federal Government is famous for wanting to make everything cookie cutter for every place, every locale, and not allowing each place to exist as it is. In the United States, the Federal Government has been largely responsible for encouraging a perpetuation of suburban expansion through very socialist policies (wealth redistribution, public roadways, large scale zoning encouraged everywhere, etc).

In Portland and Seattle, two cities that pay far more federal taxes than they ever get back, suffer because of Federal Wealth Redistribution through roadway construction, welfare, and other notions. In reality, the cities would be much better off without the Federal intrusion into individual’s coffers and incomes. I’ll add more about this in a minute.

Now for Socialism at a Local Level

At a local level, in a city, socialism works. Why does it work? Easy, it is the way people behave in the first place. We are a social animal, and we work together to achieve larger cities, greater inventions, new thoughts, and expansion of the human experience!

In Seattle and Portland especially, the cities basically pay for their own infrastructure plus the surrounding areas infrastructure. That includes thousands of miles of roads and such that expand far past the edges of the city. That’s fine, and those roadways have existed and would exist without Federal intrusion. It’s because cities will work together for connections, just as they do within the city itself.

What would this give us? If we achieved this split among Federal, State, and Local Politics? What would happen if cities actually could keep 100%, or even just 60% or 90% of that revenue that flows out? Here are some thoughts about that…

  1. Cities like Portland and Seattle would have even more extensive infrastructure (as they did 100 years ago, per capita, we’re pretty weak in the infrastructure department these days).
  2. Portland and Seattle would have happier people, less cars, and more livability than they do (and they’re not doing bad as it is).
In one of my next entries I’m going to step into where some of that money goes to after it leaves the cities. I’m currently researching where the Federal Government sucks all that money up and where it all ends up, because right now, 90%+ of it doesn’t end up back in the state. That money ends up in Iraq, Afghanistan, places like Idaho or South Dakota, Brazil, Israel, and a host of other places. But it doesn’t end up back here in the cities that create the wealth.
What could we do if we invested back into our country? Into our cities, into our states? I’d imagine, and am betting, that it would be a massive change!