TriMet Adjusts Service Cuts; More Public Meetings On Tap

TriMet, after taking in a whole lot of public commentary (and maybe reading a blog or two, who knows?) has refined its service cutback initiative. Here's the executive skinny:

Routes Eliminated down from twelve to five. And here are the losers: 41-Tacoma, 74-Lloyd District/Southeast, 86-Alderwood, 153-South End Loop Road and 157-Happy Valley.

That 41 elimination is what caught my eye. It's just as well; with only morning and afternoon service and no weekend service at all, it was a pretty lame replacement for the old route which was discontinued when weight limits made using the Sellwood Bridge out of the question.

The rest of the lines proposed for elimination will run on reduced hours/days or will be combined into new routes. Notable here is the 33-Fremont, which will remain but in a foreshortened form: only running weekdays with no evening or weekend service, and only between Emanuel Hospital and the Gateway Transit Center.

Emanuel Hospital? If you're going to end the line at Emanuel, why not go for broke and go to the Rose Quarter TC? More connections available there, one fewer transfer for line 33 riders. And you want to go somewhere after hours or on weekends? C'est la guerre, mon cher; C'est la vie, mon ami.

Another interesting bit of bus route alchemy: the 18-Hillside and the 63-Washington Park will be combined, and 63-Washington Park will elminate weekend service.

Many lines will lose weekend service. Lines 1-Vermont, 10-Harold, 34-River Road and 51-Vista will lose Saturday service but retain weekday service. Lines 17-NW 21st Ave/St. Helens Rd, 48-Cornell, and 67-Jenkins/158th Ave.will lose Sunday service but still have weekday and Saturday service. A few other lines will see drastic changes in weekend coverage.

There will be three public meetings on the 6th, 7th, and 8th of April in SW and downtown Portland and the Clackamas Town Center area respectively. TriMet has a press release on their site which has more complete details on the proposed service reductions and times and locations of the meetings.

Feel your area's getting the short end of the transit stick? Show up and make yourself heard!

Why Do I Still Take My Own Car With TriMet Close At Hand?

What Jenson Hagen said at BlueO raises a question worth discussing. The meat of his commentary goes:

The main point here.  I have watched TriMet fares jump quite considerably.  Was it not too long ago that a general adult all zone ticket cost $1.75?  It was something around there.  Then as gas prices were climbing, that ticket price began to edge up.  Now I'm looking at a $2.30 fare to travel in one direction as an adult.  The overall round trip for the day is $4.60, or $1.10 more than before.

I live in an area of inner-Outer East (yeah, that's kind of strange, yes?) in an area that's "convenientish" to two major east-west routes, a mere two blocks from a minor route that runs too infrequently and at awkward times, a seven-minute walk from a major crosstown route, and within shouting distance from the Gateway transit hub if I Go By Bike. When the Max Green Line finally comes on line, I'm going to be ever more fortunate, because the nearest station is a mere mile off.

I'm more fortunate than most as goes TriMet access, but still I take my car.

Why?

I work a third-shift job, which side of the clock TriMet has historically underserved even when the money was there, with awkwardly-timed and widely-time-spaced runs (by this I mean 30-min frequency minimum. Even going a short distance can take over an hour. And TriMet has the annoying concept of having the last run just as I usually get off work, which means I have to shave a few minutes off my time on-the-clock just to get my ride. This is one of TriMet's major flaws, and it makes me sore that they never really address the needs of the third shift. But I'm digressing).

But at least it's there. So why don't I try taking TriMet more often?

Because I live close enough to my work to make, typically, the cost of gassing up an 1972 automobile (a VW Beetle, if you must know) more or less equal to the cost of buying transit for the same time and frequency. It has actually always pencilled out a little more expensive to take transit than to take my 1972 automobile, and, following from above, a hell of a lot less convenient.

We're all watching our pennies very closely. We also all need something that works quickest and easiest–because the less time we have to take working out transit is just that much more time we have to address our other needs, and improve our own personal economies.

We who aren't making more than $32K/year see time as money. You might think that us poor folks don't see time as money. Anyone who things so is extremely wrong. We are always making these trade offs–more often than you'd think.

If you want more sanity in public spending, just put some of us poor folks, who always have to play the shell game with our money, in charge.

Anyway, I don't mean to say that TriMet shouldn't raise fares in tough times or adjust farebox to compensate for revenue. But TriMet should keep in mind that there are unfashionable reasons to use the bus (a lot of us poor folks need to get to work without the car) as well as green, fashionable reasons.

I don't mean to cast aspersions–I love TriMet, and I love TriMet drivers. But transit planners need to not just keep in mind, but take seriously the fact that a lot of people who would use transit aren't–because, even at todays gas prices, people will take the easiest way to make sure they get to work on time, and don't get in hot water for attendance, and for quite a few of us–ironically–keeping in a car by ourselves is the quickest, cheapest, and most convenient and dependable way to stay employed.

That's the way we roll, because that's the way we have to. You give us a sane, sensible reason to take the bus, and we will so be there.

I think I can speak for an awful lot of people here.

TriMet: Providing Stimulus To Bike Park & Riders

Announced today via TriMet:

At the Bicycle Transportation Alliance annual awards dinner on
Saturday, TriMet General Manager Fred Hansen announced that the agency
is dedicating $1 million of stimulus funding to expand and improve bike
parking facilities throughout the transit system. The stimulus funds
will create a pilot project for bike Park & Ride facilities as well
as upgrade older lockers.

TriMet's bike initiative has always been admirable to me, but could be more.

This is more.

Commission Cogen Agrees With Me About The TriMet Line 33

A little while ago I opined about how TriMet's proposal to discontinue the 33-Fremont line is a pretty penny-wise, pound-foolish thing to do (I called it stupid, to be exact), and that corner of Portland, where adequate bus service is pretty much a joke anyway as you get out toward NE 82nd Avenue, is about to become very very underserved.

It would seem that me and County Commissioner Jeff Cogen are on the same page:

We've heard concerns from several of our neighbors about the termination of the #33 bus line and I've sent a letter to Fred Hansen and the TriMet Board of Directors urging them to reexamine the proposed closure of the line. We disagree with the notion that other Northeast Portland TriMet routes adequately serve public needs in these
neighborhoods.

Thousands of riders use the #33 bus line for trips that don’t begin, end or pass through downtown Portland. Many of these trips are on the east-west portion of the route on NE Freemont St. NE Broadway and NE Killingsworth are the next nearest east-west routes, both of which are about a one mile walk from NE Freemont. Of further concern to me are
the hundreds of students attending one of the eight schools on or near the #33 route.

The idea that that route is somehow optional to effective mobility in NE Portland is strange to me. And I don't plan transit. All I did was look at the map.

So, good on Commissioner Cogen. Damn shame I can't vote for you (I'm not in your district) but then they don't plan on ending any routes in SE Portland, we we're the lucky ones I suppose. But the voters made a good choice with you.

Just one thing, Commish: it's Fremont, not Freemont. Just one E.

TriMet: Why Discontinuing the 33-Fremont Is Stupid

I'm fortunate to live relatively close to where I work, so using TriMet to get in to work is an option but not an essential thing. I live within a bike's ride of the Gateway Transit Center, for instance. And even though TriMet is considering altering the 15-Mt Tabor–the closest main line to me–my access to the public transportation net doesn't stand to change too much.

If you live along NE Fremont Street, and use the 33-Fremont to get in and out of town or to get to shopping along Fremont, you've got something to worry about though.

Unfold yourself a TriMet System Map (or go to TriMet's website (http://www.trimet.org) and look at the PDF). The 33-Fremont starts downtown, follows the MAX Yellow Line to Russell Street, uses Vancouver/Williams Avenues to get to Fremont, then follows Fremont out to Rocky Butte on its way to Gateway.

It's that Fremont alignment I want to bring attention to. It's remarkable in that, in all of NE Portland, it's the only continuious east-west route between the Banfield Freeway (MAX Red and Blue Lines) and Killingsworth Street, a distance of two miles (more in some places). The bus that runs along Killingsworth in that area is the 72-Killingsworth/82nd Avenue, a crosstown route–you have to transfer off it to get downtown.

Moreover, even though the 6-MLK Blvd, 8-NE 15th Ave, 9-Broadway, and 10-NE 33rd Ave all go north-south through the area and some are within ten blocks of each other, east of 33rd Avenue the options drop considerably, with the only routes left into the area are the 12-Sandy (which doesn't do you well to get to the residental and shopping area round 42nd and Fremont) and two more crosstown routes, the 71-60th/122nd, and the 75-39th Ave/Lombard–meaning more transfers if you want to go downtown.

The area along Fremont Street, especially that east of NE 33rd Avenue, is going to get very very underserved soon, and if you live out in Rose City Park, getting around our fair city is just about to get a lot more difficult.

TriMet has apparently cited this route as a lightly-used route. Sometimes lightly-used doesn't mean unpopular, it really means only used by people who have no other options. A few months ago, The Oregonian highlighted the area around Cully Blvd, not too far off Fremont via NE 57th Avenue, as a place where mobility is at a minimum. The more transfers you have to make somewhere, the more time it takes and the less attractive transit looks as an option.

With the anticipated discontinuation of the 33-Fremont, people in the Piedmont and Rose City Park areas are going to feel a whole lot like their more down-market Cully neighbors.

Just because a route isn't perhaps as popular as it might be doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea to cut it.