This weekend I took a trip to go enjoy Seattle.  It included a lot of flange wheel riding and a few feet of walking too.  I’ll refer to we, as I did have a traveling companion, so don’t get confused.

We headed out about 11ish toward Union Station in Portland aboard the Green Line MAX.  It was just a short trip, from one end of downtown to the other.  We managed, ok, so I managed to miss the stop and we ended up riding across the Steal Bridge.  Fortunately, as is often the case, we where early for the departure so it wasn’t a big hassle.  We rode back across on the west bound Green Line and got off at the right stop.

With a while to wait we went up and took a seat at my favorite spot in the station.  The bench right up near the entrance and exit for passengers.  There we sat, waiting for #501 to arrive.  My father, as he does, decided he was going to come wish us well on the trip and ride from PDX to Vancouver just for some train miles.

The train arrived, he met us and we sat and carried on for a bit.  Boarding call was made and we all bounced up to board the train.  The took almost not time, being that trains are extremely easy to board with the 10 open doors and all.  Without further ado, we departed on the Amtrak Cascades for Seattle.

We went about our trip relaxing and enjoying the Bistro.  Checking out the sites, and for good measure, managed to throw in a half hour of sleep.  The train arrived about 15 minutes late, and en route we didn’t lose any time, so managed to pull into Seattle King Street Station at 4:05.

Sound Transit Light Rail

This is when I got the first real use (not a whimsical ride about) trip on the light rail in Seattle.  We walked from King Street Station across the street to Union Station, and down to the International/China Station.  The next LRV that came along we walked aboard and planted ourselves.  Within a zippy few minutes the LRV pulled up to the Westlake Station, end of the line stop, and we popped out and up the stairs.  At surface one can easily see the Monorail and Streetcar just beyond.  We headed that way, as the Hotel MAX is just beyond that.

Hotel MAX, Twitter, and the whole Social Media Thing

A short walk a few blocks and without any issue, we found Hotel MAX.  Hotel MAX is a pretty nice hotel, with reasonable prices for Seattle.  The other awesome thing is, as with any modern hotel that has a good marketing group with a brain, is active in social media.  That includes Twitter, Facebook, and the whole gamut of sites.  Between these sources I had found this hotel, and deemed it worth a visit.  Otherwise I would most likely never have known about this hotel.

With that said, everyone including UP, BNSF, TriMet, and others should or already have a social media presence.  In this day and age it is an absolute must.  The credibility of the medium to land hot leads, really get across messages, and attract people actually interested in your message is light years beyond yesterdays media.

I digress though, this is about the trip, so I will continue.

Hotel MAX is in a 10 story older building, think pre-40s.  They’ve put some rocker-ish stylings, plush furniture and other details in the place, and turned it into a pretty cool modernistic hotel.  Definitely a place worth staying at in Seattle.

We walked about Seattle and wandered aimlessly, with aim, throughout downtown Seattle.  After a Sunday of pastries, treats, Pike Place Market and other such things, we headed toward the train station.  Before that though we stopped in to Zeitgeist for a cappuccino before the departure time.  If you are ever in Seattle, Zeitgeist is actually one of the better coffee shops in the entire city.  It is worth the visit.  The shop also is a great place to sip on a beverage and pull out the laptop for a little bit of internet action.

After that, with just about 20 minutes to spare, we walked over to King Street Station.  It only takes about 5-6 minutes from Zeitgeist.  Upon arrival I got seat assignments and we walked right out to the waiting train.

We departed on Amtrak Cascades #509 on time, ran into a delay however down line.  Out of Tacoma a tree had fallen across the tracks.  We waited for about 20 minutes while they cleared the tracks and then we moved on.  BNSF was rocking with the quick response time.  During the delay and Portland we cleared up another 5 or so minute and got in at about 9:10.

Everyone hustled up off the train and headed for their respective destinations.  My compatriot and I made the dash for the MAX, but there where a few minutes to go.  With that we strolled by Backspace, which was having a packed house type of Poetry Reading.  We waited there and grabbed the last flanged wheel of the night.

A good trip, relaxing yet exhausting all at the same time.  Great food, good talk, great conversation, jovial travelers all around, cool visit, new names and faces, and all in all a kick ass weekend trip.

Will do it again.

I have been curious for some time about the sprawling layout of Lake Oswego, with the Interstate encouraging a push further and further south out of Portland.  This is an area of town more akin to other parts of the country than what Portland is known for.  The density is low, the transit ridership is almost zero, the cultural importance is zero, and the list of other uncharacteristic Portland traits continues.  Lake Oswego, by any definition, except for the very small central core, is a dirge of bad design, poor zoning, and only is maintained by sprawling subsidies and other fun stuff.  Of course, the area is also very Republican and denies any association to subsidies or socialist funding policies.  The irony does not escape me.

But I digress, my rant could continue but instead I’ll get to the tale of the trip.  I started at Kruse Way & Kruse Oaks.  About 4 or 5 stops from the Tualitan Park & Ride, so thus an almost empty bus.

I boarded and the first thing I get is a partial grunt mixed with a hello from the driver.  He’s a portly guy, as many of the drivers are.  He’s somewhat disheveled, with a TriMet hat of some sort on his frizzled long hair.  As I go to sit down he pulls the bus away from the stop.  Two other people boarded with me, which I found statistically odd considering the outlying area and low transit ridership.

As we moved along the road I stood to throw my empty coffee cup in the trash.  I saw his glance in the rear view mirror, and I knew I wasn’t part of the regular bus riders he has.  He hit the brakes just slightly enough with a grin on his face as I approached the trash can.  He of course doesn’t realize I know the bus surfing routine.  I think to myself, “driver, I’m your ally, don’t be an ass”.  But I know he’s just having fun with me.

You may wonder, on a bus, how would a driver know his regulars?  Well, when a driver drives the same bus, same frequency, every day they tend to learn the faces and sometimes the names.  Especially on a commuter bus like this.  The #38 doesn’t provide any real service beyond the early morning and evening rush hours.  With a mere dozen frequencies, split between the two, the riders are very specific.  Each morning the same riders join the trip at the same stops, at the same times, and often greet each other in the same way.  For many of the riders this is a comfort of their daily lives.  Many of these people enjoy this part of the day as they sit and read newspapers, talk about the latest Sunday Football Scores, or carry on about some of the latest gossip.  The one thing about a rush hour bus though, is that everyone is polite, and somewhat discreet about their interactions.  One can overhear the conversations, but they aren’t loud or boisterous.

Simply, these are the bus routes to ride for commutes, unlike the #4, #9, #14, etc, which get crammed full with commuters and crazies alike.  I think the later are more fun, but for most all they want is a comfortable, silent, somewhat safe conversational ride into downtown.  On the #38 that is exactly what they get.

As the bus rolls through the hills of southern Portland, we pass strip malls and other suburban sundry.  The bus finally reaches the average suburbanites comfort zone of one person per 2 seats.  I think to myself, it will only get interesting at this point.  Will further riders just stand awkwardly with all the available seats around or will they sit with others?

The first person that needs to either sit or stand gets on board.  He is a nice looking older gentleman with a hat, overcoat, and professional cloths.  All somewhat plain colors, nothing to sharp, nothing to jump out at a person.  I’ve scanned the bus.  My assumption is he’ll sit with pretty young professional looking lady behind me.  He steps forward from the entrance of the bus.  Eyes to his left, then over to me.  I’m sitting here against the window, with nothing in the seat next to me.  The young lady behind me has her purse in the seat.  He scans from me quickly looking over to his left again.  There sits a portly gentleman with some contraption in his seat.  He then looks to his right and see her, with the purse in the seat.  He immediately gains a smile upon his face and makes eye contact with her.  She moves her purse and he sits down, politely leaving a bit of space between them even though he’s a bit out of his seat now.  My assumption was correct, go figure.

This continues, with people making assumed paths.  I myself finally gain a seat partner and the ride continues.

The #38 Bus route at this time of the morning, 7:04 am to be exact, is amazing.  The sun is creeping through the crevices of the sky, a blue tonality cast upon everything.  The route takes us through a winding, twisting roadway.  Each bus stop is generally just a simple street corner with nothing more than a sign.  The driver, I can tell, knows which ones will have passengers and which will not.  He slows though, professionally, at ones that don’t just in case a rider surprises him.  As we twist through all of this the bus slowly fills up and the passengers’ faces start lighting up as they look upon the beauty outside of the bus.

Some riders keep reading their newspapers.  I thought nobody read dead tree medium anymore, but this bus load has surprised me with 3 newspapers out being read.  There are very few electronic devices being used for news or otherwise.  I then realize that the age average is probably 45+, so I guess the electronic medium isn’t the favorite for this group of riders.

The cultural makeup on this bus, as we move closer into Portland, seems to almost be a representative mix.  I always enjoy rides like this that are polite and everyone is cordial.  Watching the sky, seeing things awaken.  The eyes of the riders, regardless of culture, start to brighten and I can see others starting to conjure up in their minds what they’re heading for at work, or wherever they’re headed.

We’re 5 minutes out now, the sun has thoroughly broken the darkness, and I bid this entry adieu.  Enjoy your ride, whoever and wherever you are, may it be a good start to your day.

Ticket Taking Process #1

Sunset Limited – Boarding the Sunset Limited in Los Angeles Union Station the car attendants looked at the tickets at the door, but didn’t take them.  One aboard and in our roomettes the attendant then came and took the tickets.  I pulled the receipt part of the ticket since I usually always do so to expedite the archaic ticket taking practice that Amtrak follows still.  The attendant in Los Angeles also assigned the room that was not specified on the ticket.

In Maricopa the attendant that was changing out with the crew came around and took everyone’s tickets, and handed us our receipts.  In both of these situations nobody clipped or otherwise marked the tickets so that they would show as being used.  The time, train, and origination and destination where specific and technically, the ticket is either used or not.  Again, the attendant did not put us in the room that was on the ticket.  This time we did receive a reason why we were being given another roomette instead of the assigned one.

Ticket Taking Process #2

Coast Starlight – Boarding in Portland we enter the First Class Lounge which is basically a waiting room with nicer amenities.  The lounge attendant took our tickets, handing us the receipts.  Again, no other marks or specific directions.  He gave us a room and car assignment in station.  When we boarded, we got another room assignment than the ticket.  This boarding had us go through a total of 2 assignments, before we finally got our actual assignment.  It isn’t really a big deal, it is just ridiculously stupid to need that much busy work for the process.  In reality we shouldn’t even need but ONE room assignment and we don’t need anyone to help us get into or out of the room.

Ticket Taking Process #3

Pacific Surfliner – Boarding in Santa Ana to come north into Los Angeles.  The tickets are unreserved and completely unorganized.  There is no actual seating, you just get on and fumble until you find a seat.  The conductor then comes through the train at some point, takes the tickets (and don’t you dare take the receipts off ahead of time) and clips the tickets and the receipts.  The conductor requested, after I had removed the receipts, that she clip the receipts and that the tickets wouldn’t be valid without the receipts.  It seems beyond stupid to sell unreserved tickets on a train that has reserved seating – at least, that’s what the cars are designed for.  Again, a complete failure for Amtrak to once again be logical.  I do understand that the tickets are not for a particular train, but they are for a particular day, and if I just handed them to her they should NOT BE available to any other customers.  This flow of process is again, stupid.  It doesn’t follow a smooth, coherent, or streamlined process at all.  In many ways, several of the steps are even redundant.

Pacific Surfliner – Boarding again in Santa Ana to come north, a few days before the above mentioned trip.  I removed the receipts from the tickets in front of the conductor.  He clipped the tickets, did NOT ask or take the receipts to clip, and carried on.  Why this is different than the seating before?

The Historical Facts

So really, what is the deal.  This little annoyances don’t really detract from the trip, they just add a bit of confusion to the adventure itself.  For some people, it is reason to be turned away and not try to take the train.  For some people it really ticks them off, since the processes are dissimilar between trains run by the same Government Corporation, Amtrak.  The illogical breaks in the process sow these seeds of frustration and absolutely need fixed.  So Amtrak Execs, get your acts together and get this done.  The disparities are absolutely unnecessary and are wasting Amtrak’s/Taxpayers’ Monies.  One might think these little things don’t add much cost, but they easily add up to thousands upon thousands of dollars of wasted USEFUL employee time.

Amtrak, when it formed, was supposed to fix many of this frustrations, and as is apparent, has barely updated its trains let alone many of its other processes.  I do commend Amtrak on the online ticketing, but still, they have a major labor force that consists of doing unnecessary menial labor and could be utilized doing things that are vastly more important than running what, appears to be, dysfunctional passenger trains.

Overall everyone of our trains was ok, some where great, and some where rather exceptional.  So far, my ratings for the various trains I’ve been on in the last 4 years.  I put an * by the ones that where used recently on the PHX/LAX trip.

Anyone else got any Amtrak stories?  I hate to give em’ gruff all the time, but really, these things should have much smoother and simplified process around them.  The complexities that the archaic ticketing and seating processes currently used are completely, without doubt, unacceptable and should be resolved ASAP.

Day #12 actually started at 1:00am as Tony dropped us off in Maricopa for the Sunset Limited.  The Sunset Limited rolls into Maricopa at this crazy early time in this crazy out of the way place.  So he got us out there, and Jo & I loitered about in one of the creepiest Amtrak Stations we’ve ever been in.  Before I continue on about this station, I am going to say a few words in regards to the Sunset Limited.

Sunset Limited

The Sunset Limited, before Amtrak took control of it in the 70s, used to run between  New Orleans and LA.  It might have gone further but I’m not sure, I just know for a fact it, as with all Amtrak’s trains, predates Amtrak operation of the train.  I’m not sure what schedule or anything that train operated on, but it existed so feel free to look it up.

What I do know specifically is that Amtrak’s Sunset Limited leaves 3 times a week from LA.  It takes about 48 hours to travel the great southern expanse of the US from LA to New Orleans.  This is all fine and dandy, however there are some issues with taking this train.

1. The train is completely unorganized compared to the Coast Starlight, Empire Builder, and I’d suspect the other western US transcontinental trains.  The crew can’t seem to get people on and off, the stations are designed with standard nor any intelligible use for an actual passenger train.
2. The train only leaves 3 times a week.  This, unfortunately is probably part of a physical limitation from a lack of equipment.  Even though it seems, since the train doesn’t go all the way to Orlando anymore there should be enough.  Whatever the reason, the 3 day departure frequency just sucks.  It makes planning any connections really difficult.
3. Now this complaint isn’t about the train itself, nor the crew.  The last major complaint I have is about the people that ride this train.  I guess, it brings back my annoyance with the southern USA.  I’ll just suffice it to say that the average IQ went down about 20 points and the educational level ceased to exceed 8th grade.

The Sunset Limited really needs some help in becoming a world class train again.  I didn’t see a ridership problem, the train was technically full and there was approximately another half a train full of people that would detrain and board along the way.  No, the train wasn’t at capacity, but it wasn’t doing any worse at this time than most of the other intercontinental trains.

Maricopa

Now that I’ve explained the issues with the Sunset Limited you’ll understand why the station is rather creepy in Maricopa.  Aside from the fact there are some pretty decrepit, goofy looking creepy people, the station adds to the aura of creepiness by being located in Maricopa.  One can’t see anything in any direction except a gas station down the road.  Everything else surrounding the station is nothing more than pitch black.  Being surrounding by this blackened soot of night we sat waiting for our train with about 60 other people.

We had arrived at 10:00pm after Tony dropped us off.  Fortunately we were full of tasty Cuban Food so all we had to do was chill out and wait.  The time ticked by toward that 1:07am arrival.  Tick tock, tick tock.  We sat with all the creepy folk.  Finally about 12:40am we all headed out as the train arrival was imminent.  When we stepped outside the arrival wasn’t imminent, but it was instead arrived.

She sat there in the darkness with lights off, engine humming, and crew changing out.  The Sunset Limited cars, which couldn’t fit in the station while the engine driver swap occurred, sat upon the tracks in the soot black of the night.  After the engine crew changed out the train pulled ahead about 150 feet or so the first cars could be boarded.

The first few cars on the Sunset Limited were sleeping cars.  On the Sunset Limited there are sleeping cars on the front and rear of the train.  The reason there are sleepers on the front and back is because the Texas Eagle & Sunset Limited are joined together in Texas.  From there they traverse as one train.  Since this train in the past was the Sunset Limited, I stick to calling it just that.

The train finally pulled forward to the coaches where everyone else got on board except Jo and I.  The conductor had informed us a few minutes before that we would board last since we are the only sleeping car passenger boarding in Maricopa.  We waited for these people to board.  Once that was done she pulled forward further, and we boarded the sleeping cars on the end of the train.

Once aboard we quickly sprang into action stowing our luggage and other errata.  Within minutes our car attendant came by and informed us that the dining car would start breakfast at 5:30am.  We passed out at this point, enjoying the rapture of sleep.

What we had neglected to know, or be informed of, was that the psychotic announcer would actually announce breakfast at 5:30am over the intercom.  Addition, we had not realized that our in room intercom was on.  One can easily turn it off if they don’t want to hear the announcements in car, but we had not noticed.  So our oddball, somewhat brash experience on the Sunset Limited route was about to take a turn for the turbo brash.  By our neglect, and the somewhat stupid idea that people get up at 5:30am, the dining car was about to punch us square in the head.

THIS IS THE DINING CAR SPEAKING!!!

The statement blared over our internal intercom, which in addition was turned up to 10.  It blasted in our room and through the hallways as we slept.  I sat up immediately, knowing this would probably even wake Jo.  Waking Jo at 5:30 am would probably mean half the train & the staff would be given a verbal lashing of a vulgar and immense magnitude.  Being that I now also felt brutalized I reached up with both eyes still closed.  I flailed around trying to find the volume and button to turn this interruptive and brash voice off.  I poked haphazardly still without an eye open and found the control panel above the bed.  Now groping, still unseeing as the dining car attendant made their damnably loud announcement at 5:30am, I worked to find the dial.  Finally I found and flicked the dial.  The blathering voice now disappeared and we only could hear the hallway intercom now.  Still annoying, but silent by comparison.

I couldn’t seem to get the echo of the dining car attendant’s voice out of my head now. I laid there, with my arm still upon the dials letting my now tense muscles relax.  Slowly I moved my arm back to my side, sort of walking my fingers across the window.  I still had a surge of anger in my chest, a screaming in my head, perturbed that we paid extra for sleeping accommodations only to be roughly awoken at 5:30am for breakfast that neither of us wanted.  In addition, only about 5% of the train eats breakfast, and probably about 5% of that 5% actually get up at the blazing insane hour of 5am!

Slowly the calm of sleep came back over me and I passed into a relaxing slumber.  We managed to get another couple hours of sleep before our 1 hr early arrival in Los Angeles.  Still beat flying, still beat the hell out of driving, but jeez it would have been nice to sleep like we had intended.

Regardless of that, we were here, arrived in Los Angeles.

Baggage Stowed

Once we arrived we immediately set out to stow our luggage.  With the luggage stowed in short order the next order of business was breakfast.  Since we were back downtown the decision was to head to Phillipe’s again.  We headed out the main Union Station entrance and onward toward Phillipe’s.  After a short walk to Phillipe’s we had a great breakfast and still had about 2 hours before our friends would appear in Hollywood that we intended on meeting.  So we had a relaxing post lunch do nothing session in the park nearby.

Back to the Trusty Subway Red Line

Once we were done we set out to meet the married couple.  It was coincidence that we both happened to schedule ourselves to be in LA on Hollywood at the same time.  We boarded the Red Line Subway from Union Station to Hollywood.  Twenty or so minutes later we arrived in Hollywood and rode the escalators to street level.  A block up and across the street we managed to meet up with them and take a slow walk down Hollywood.

After doing the touristy thing, we all grabbed a few photos of random stars and other such things, lunch was in order.  After a short discussion we all decided that the best option would be to jump back on the Red Line and head back downtown to Cole’s for a French Dip.  Jason & Cubers LOVED the French Dips.  Jo & I, of course loving ours too, tore through the sandwiches like the hungry people we were.

Afterwards Jo & I escorted our comrades along the Red Line back to Vine & Hollywood.  They detrained and headed off, we all said our farewells.  Jo & I however adventured onward toward the last stop.  There we detrained and went above ground to find the Orange Line.

Orange Line Cancelled Because It Was Tired

We walked across the street and realized, as I had completely forgotten, that the Orange Line is actually BRT.  Surprised at this Jo gave some resistance to riding at first.  She wasn’t sure about riding around on a bus, being that she was tired.  But we walked across and began to wait for the next bus.  The frequency at this time of day was pretty frequent.  However as we sat, with my own growing weariness, the crowds began growing rapidly coming from the Subway and from the park & ride area.

Before the next bus arrived the seating capacity was already exceeded and it would be standing room only.  We watched the bus become a packed sardine can.  Now both Jo & I had a change of spirit, neither of us wanting to ride a vehicle this packed while we were so tired.  Instead we decided the Red Line was for us and went back into the subterranean expanse to board a Union Station bound Red Line.

Metrolink Run

While we waited I got a room reserved at The Standard there in downtown LA for Thursday night.  We wanted to stay close to Union Station so we would be able to make the train without trying to get up at 5am.  After the last few days we were needing all the sleep we could get.  Once I did that I plotted out how we would get back to Balboa Peninsula for beers, food, and whatever else Mike, Jo, & I might come up with in our nerd minds.  I purchased two tickets for the 6:30pm Metrolink Train.  I informed Jo while she napped in Union Station in one of the comfortable chairs they have in the station.  We concurred that I should go drop the excess luggage off at the hotel by myself so I could make haste.

I jumped down the steps with the luggage headed for The Standard via the Red Line Subway.  I hustled as best I could to get on the Subway Train that sat in the station, but unfortunately I just missed it as I was walking up.  The clock kept ticking, it was already 5:42pm.  I thought to myself, “I should have enough time.”  The next Red Line arrived, which I boarded, and off we went.  5:58pm and I was coming up on 7th.  I immediately pulled out my iPhone and began searching for The Standard.  Being that this was an artsy, modern, friggin’ awesome hotel, it was in a building that was unto itself confusing.  I eventually found it, but the clock read 6:12 when I stepped back on the Subway.

I arrived at Union Station at 6:17pm and immediately made haste toward where Jo sat.  I txt’ed here to tell her to be ready and find out what track the Oceanside Metrolink Train departed on.  Again, luck was not for me tonight, Jo’s phone battery was dead and I was txt’ing for no reason.  In addition to that bad luck, I had gotten off of the Red Line on the part that exits to the Metro Station part of Union Station, which meant I had to cover about 1000ft before I was back into Union Station proper.

I kept my quick pace up walking through the underground track concourse.  I walked into Union Station and immediately looked at the reader board.  I saw track 6b for the “…side” train.  Awesome, Oceanside departure is on track 6b.  I walked over and Jo had the laptop and other stuff out, so we worked together to hurriedly pack everything and head to track 6b.  We set out with the remaining bits of luggage in tow.  We got to track 6b with 3 minutes to spare.  I thought, “Wow, that was cutting it close.”  Jo went walking upstairs, for whatever reason I followed with the luggage.  That was a dumb idea, but hey, I do that sometimes.  We couldn’t fit them all in the train upstairs so I went downstairs with one and found another seat.

I sat down, but felt somewhat odd about something, so to be sure I asked an individual sitting nearby, “this is the train to Oceanside correct?” To which I received the horrible news, “No, this train is to Riverside.”  Immediately it all flooded into my head.  There where two trains on the reader board, a “R… side” and a “O… side”.  It didn’t occur to me that some place would end with “side” just like Oceanside so though there were two trains leaving.  At this point I freaked, ran up stairs, and told Jo we where on the wrong train.  We grabbed all of our stuff and detrained.

I was so ticked I tossed one piece down and had to catch my breath after all this running.  We then started out to try to make it to track 8b.  We had literally one minute, and time was ticking.  We started running toward the concourse area to run below the track and back onto the 8b track to board.  As I ran up the concourse ramp toward the train, with Jo barely 15 feet behind me, the doors on the Metrolink Oceanside South Bound Train closed!

I have NEVER missed a train I intended to catch in my entire life.  I was effectively PISSED OFF!  Yeah, I was enraged.  At that point, I was so tired, it was also effectively everybody’s fault in addition to mine.  I had never planned so poorly, and failed so monumentally.  At this juncture in time I wasn’t sure what to do, I wanted to fall into the ground and melt away.  In my own mind I was tortured by this failure.  How could I, the Transit Sleuth, screw up a train departure so bad as to miss a train?  New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Memphis, Jackson, Washington DC, Eugene, Centralia, Seattle, Edmunds, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Emeryville, Oakland, and more – all these stops, all those schedules, and I haven’t missed any of them.  But today I failed.

WOW.  :(   #fail    Oh My @#$%(@%^!)%#^)!%#^!*)^(*^$(&!#()%!

Alright, Sanity Sets Back in, I failed, call a good reliable friend and just ask to get a ride.  Admit defeat and just get the job done.  I picked up the phone, Jo was perturbed also.  I looked at her for a moment, she provided no solace.  I was being weak in mind so I mustered a phone call, “You Mike, can you go ahead and swing into LA and give us a ride, I royally screwed up the Metrolink Schedule and we don’t have another train south for some time, which will cause us to miss the transfer to the OCTA bus we need to catch.”, to which I received the reassuring can do attitude of Mr. Mike, “sure man, I’m on my way.”

It is a wonderful thing to know I have reliable, solid, trustworthy friends that will have my back when I screw up.

Train Schedule Screw Ups Get Remedied With The Hooptie

Mike, Jo & I rode back via the ole’ f-ing Interstate in the ole’ amazingly reliable Hooptie.  Hooptie, is the name of Mike’s car.  This beast has been through hurricane Katrina, LA driving, Jacksonville driving, and obviously more than a transcontinental road trip.

We get back to Balboa and after a short break head for something to eat.  The beauty of Balboa is we never drive, we always just walk or bike out on the Peninsula.  This makes for easily one of the most livable communities in America.  The catch is, you better have some money.

With a short walk, not 100% sold on where we were heading, we come across a Sushi Restaurant.  Mike had tried to take us here last week when we were through, so we figured why not, let’s go!

Proper Japanese Style Sushi

We sat down at the Sushi Bar.  The Sushi Chefs, two of them, stood ready and working.  Currently they were serving other customers.  We all looked through the menu, ordered a few beverages and sat somewhat unsure of how to order.  No Mike, Jo, & I are not sushi amateurs.  We know how the typical American sushi joint works.  Mark on the sushi list what you want, hand it to the sushi chef.  Sushi check makes sushi, hand sushi to you on a plate of some type.  Done.

Well that is the American way of getting sushi.  It isn’t the proper or even the Japanese way to get sushi.  In Japan I have heard that our way has influenced their way, but this place was a proper Japanese sushi joint!  The way you order is you simply tell the sushi chef what you want and they make it.  They then place it on a plate in front of you, but not your eating plate.  Assistants on the floor bring you sushi plates that you actually eat off of as the sushi is made.  Sometimes you get a new plate and sometimes you don’t, depending on the sauces and flavor mixes that might occur.  The idea behind all this is simple, the sushi and sashimi must be as pure to what it is derived from as possible.

We all received our drinks.  Jo got a Ramune & Mike & I got a bottle of imported sake to share.  In proper Japanese fashion someone immediately poured each of us a glass of sake.  Throughout the remaining dinner they made sure we did not ever need to pour the sake ourselves.  The goal with this, was that they must be the best hosts as possible.  This establishment held this traditional solidly!

When Mike ordered his sushi the sushi chef made a suggestion.  Another tradition is if you receive a suggestion from the chef you do not turn him down, but maybe only offer slight suggestions about what you do or do not like.  He then crafts a custom arrangement per the special of the day and other options available.  Since I had ordered a few basic options, Unagi, Ebi, and some others I received those almost immediately.  Meanwhile the check kept working on this custom cut of sashimi he was preparing for Mike, and each of us.

Eventually we received this amazing plate of sashimi.  Jo, Mike, & myself were informed by the sushi chef on the proper way to eat this.  Only add a slight bit of wasabi, no soy sauce.  We each tried and were amazed, enthralled with the smooth texture and flawless smooth cuts of fish.  This sashimi, we agreed in solidarity, was the best sashimi we had each ever had in our entire lives.  With a round of cheers, we sipped our sake and slowly ate this delicacy.  The night continued with the chef and each of us telling storied and going back and forth about various things.  He prepared several custom plates of sushi and sashimi for us, finishing with some special chips and finally a home made ice cream.

We all were seriously impressed.  So impressed that the somewhat large bill seemed more than worth it, it seemed a deal!  If anyone is ever out on Balboa, this is absolutely, without doubt, 100%, THE place to get premium sushi with premium proper Japanese style service.

That basically ended our night with a bang!  Amid all our trouble and missed trains, the amazing service and spectacular sushi service left all with a comfortable, satisfied flavor to fall asleep with.  That, was Day #12.

Sunday Night, Monday, and Tuesday Jo and I spent in downtown Phoenix at the San Carlos.  Meeting other people, seeing the wedding, and eating Brazilian in the burbs was all awesome.  But otherwise, the suburbs sucked in so many ways I would have to start another blog about all the ways that suburbs suck.  Economically, environmentally, efficiency, education, and by about every other measure, suburbs truly bring out the mediocrity in humanity.  But really, I digress, it was awesome meeting everyone in burbia and hope they come visit Portland soon so they can be effectively turned away from the soul sucking entrenchment of the burbs’.

So what happened on day #10 & 11, well Jo and I left the suburbs.  We left for the urban life style of downtown Phoenix.  We got some help from Tony (lightrailblogger) and Nick (raillife) to find the elements that allow one to live  without the ever tightening noose of the auto oriented lifestyle.  Out of all the places we went to, these really stuck out in our minds as places that just kick ass!  :)

Gallo Blanco

Gallo Blanco was amazing.  We actually ended up going back to Gallo Blanco because it rocked so much.  This place is something we honestly did not expect in Phoenix.  Our assumption, especially after all the milling about in the suburbs was suburban food, which rarely breaks from big generic corporate food.  Think Applebee’s, TGI Friday’s, and all that crap.  But this was a slice of sanity, a bit of beauty, taste, elegance, modern, and above all Gallo Blanco was delicious.

The Clarendon Hotel

The Gallo Blanco is located within the Clarendon Hotel.  This hotel has a somewhat grisly history.  A reporter was killed by car bomb by a mafia operative in the parking lot of the building in the 70s.  In one of the hallways they have the descriptive story of what happened.

The Clarendon has a super modern, minimalistic, and artsy.  The hotel was absolutely stunning.  The outer facing of the hotel seems at first glance to be somewhat boring.  With a white and slightly blue striped design the outside is a single face.  Without too many windows facing outwards from the building.  However upon stepping inside the hotel has a liveliness in the central courtyard.  There is a pool with an artsy design to it.  In the center of the L shaped pool there is a multi-colored separation that disconnects the pool ever so slightly from the short part of the L, which is a hot tub of massive size!  The rooms all face from a balcony walkway into this courtyard.

We toured through two of the rooms, the largest and mid-sized room.  The large room had a living room type area with a couch, coffee table, and TV, with the bedroom in the back room.  The windows that faced external to the building and internally toward the pool both had no blinds.  Instead, large pieces of art display over the window on sliders, sort of an industrial design.  These could be pushed aside to view either direction.  The rooms had various amenities one would expect, the difference being they were artfully designed and used modern pieces for the vanity and other parts of the hotel room.  The mid-size room was basically the same styling and amenities, except a bit smaller and under a single space.

Jo and I both decided that upon our next trip, we’d definitely be staying at the Clarendon Hotel on our next trip!

The San Carlos Hotel

We stayed these nights in the San Carlos, which is definitely in the urban core were as The Clarendon is a few stops from the core and a block off from the light rail (which remember, a block in Phoenix is about 4 blocks in Portland).  The San Carlos also has a pool on the roof, which is rad.  Even though it was a nice hotel, one has to be in the mood for a boutique hotel to stay here.  If you are in that mood, I’d definitely suggest it!

Tempe Transit Center & the Bike Cellar

I managed to travel to the Tempe Transit Center twice.  Once myself, and once with Jo and I both gallivanting about.  The first time when I went, I merely took a few photos of various vehicles pulling into and out of the transit center during operations.  Very nice transit center, but this first trip didn’t expose what really makes it unique.

Jo & I went back, on Tuesday, to check out the part that really makes the Tempe Transit Center unique.  The Bike Cellar is located in the transit center building on the ground floor.  The Bike Cellar is this awesome, secure, clean area of the center that is operated for bicyclists to have access to bike parking and showers.  In addition there are lockers, tools, and other services.  In addition the owner even sells bikes if you’re in the market for one.

One of the things I love about the Bike Cellar is that this is a private business run by people that have a real passion for the bicycle lifestyle.  This isn’t some random experiment from some random Government Department.  This I find ideal, real private interest and involvement in connecting and working toward a connected populace that doesn’t involve building massive roads that expand over vast tracts of land.  A beautiful idea!

While speaking to the owners of the Bike Cellar and mentioned that this is something that should absolutely be built in Portland.  After closer thought, there are a few issues to getting something like this built in Portland.  For one, I’m not sure how TriMet would work with a private business trying to provide a service in a transit center.  In downtown, there just isn’t all that much space, making it difficult to build out something like this.

I send all my wishes of success to the Bike Cellar Crew!  I imagine Tempe can really use a service like that, especially in the summer!

Lux Coffee Bar

I have to mention Lux again.  We returned a couple times over the course of our stay.  In addition we even purchased a half pound of beans ground for our French press.  The Stumptown bean supply had run out on our 8th day and the Lux beans provided a great substitute for the remainder of the trip.  In all honesty, Lux produces beans that could compete in Portland – and that is extremely hard to achieve.

Mill Ave & 3rd Street

The Mill Avenue & 3rd Stop of the light rail system exits directly on Mill Avenue.  Mill Avenue is basically a small block, street level commercial business area.  This area is what one desires and expects of a college area.  Lots of awesome niche restaurants, nick nak stores, custom t-shirst, bars, pubs, and more.  I imagine that this area is bumping on Friday and Saturday nights.

Valley Metro Light Rail

Of course, I have to mention the light rail.  This being one of the major things I wanted to see and check out while in town.  I’d been curious that Phoenix, one of the least …  [big list here]  …cities was going to get light rail.  At first I couldn’t help but think, “oh dear, it will for sure be a complete and object failure, the pro-road Republicans Socialists will surely jump all over this when it bombs out”…  but oh was I wrong.  I started studying as they where finishing up the line and saw that it did have some slight potential, it might just succeed.

Well when the light rail opened it exploded into success.  Running every 10 minutes I believe the average per day has been approximately 30,000 trips.  That measures well against our Blue Line, and TriMet’s Blue Line is a little longer even.  Mind you, Phoenix has a lot more potential for ridership growth.  They often run three car LRV trains, the line can handle more trains during the course of a day, and thus a multiplier over what TriMet’s lines run is fairly high.

Overall, the light rail is absolutely well built, which is surprising for a city like Phoenix.  They do have a few distinct advantages such as the high population (4 mil vs. Portland’s barely 2 mil), and the biggest advantage I see is that the line is built on level, flat, easy to build on ground.

Phoenix in Summary

Overall Phoenix has sprawl, the kind that really should be wiped from the face of the earth and replaced with a market based, intelligently built transit system mixed with automobiles that actually compete with each other.  Instead it is a massive Government subsidized sprawl of Interstates and Highways.  The Feds have dumped so much money into Phoenix and Phoenix has suckled upon the teat, feeding upon this cash flow.  However amid this cursed sprawl and disturbingly soulless expanse of ticky tack housing as far as one can see, the urban center of Phoenix exists.  It is beautiful in some regards even, contrary to some commentary.  Here, slowly, a new birth is taking place for Phoenix.  One with culture and humanity, one with life and opportunity, art and design, and heaven forbid, a break of the ticky tack.

Don’t get me wrong, there is still a lot to do before a place like Phoenix can stand upon the grand enclave that Portland exists in, of art, design, life, opportunity, humanity, and culture that only massively larger cities like Chicago, San Francisco, and New York can currently provide.  But Phoenix finally has the infrastructure groundwork laid to become a great city that can harbor and grow a lifestyle that would have these great traits.  I look forward to visiting again, maybe in just a few months, and definitely over the years I’d like to see how the effort is taking root.

But There’s MORE!

That’s right people, Phoenix is not alone in this effort.  The city’s of Tempe and Mesa are also working diligently to gain a foothold in the creative class, the cultured individual, the high earner urbanite.  Tempe has Mill & 3rd, the Tempe Transit Center, and the growing urban core around these two great examples of development.  One of the first expanses, that I’ve heard at least, is that Mesa will finally connect its downtown soon too.  That will be three core urban areas connected by a good effective, highly ridden light rail system.

My best wishes go out to Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa in their efforts to turn their cities into a connected, culturally relevant, livable city within the United States.

During the stay in Phoenix I’ve had a chance to converse with probably over a hundred people.  I didn’t write down every single thing everyone said, but here are a few of the notes I’ve made from random conversations with random Phoenix Residents.  This list is only the transit related conversations.  I have another entry in the works for the “suburban suburbanite” conversations, which are a jolting reminder of the lifestyle differences.

Scenario #1:

Riding the light rail from Mesa into town.  A professional lady sat across from me, she was looking out the window so I figured she’d be a candidate for conversation.

Transit Sleuth:  Hey, you ride the light rail much?

Sally:  I’ve ridden over 50 times since it has opened.

Transit Sleuth:  What do you think of it so far?

Sally:  It is great.  Before they built this I just drove everywhere, but now I get to take this a lot since I go downtown and live in Mesa.

Transit Sleuth:  Do you work downtown or something?

Sally:  Yeah, [I didn’t understand this part, a bunch of people were boarding and a loud truck was driving by].  Oh, here’s were I get off.

Transit Sleuth:  [I jump up to get off also, since I was heading downtown] I’m just wandering around downtown today, any food suggestions?

Sally:  Yeah, check out the coney place or the sandwich factory.

Transit Sleuth:  Awesome, what’s your name?

Sally:  Sally.  [Shook hands]  Have a good day.

Transit Sleuth:  You too.

Scenario #2:

Walking around downtown near the sandwich shops just referred by Sally.  I saw someone carrying a pistol on their side.

Transit Sleuth:  Excuse me, I’m kind of a 2nd amendment advocate, and was wondering are you law enforcement?

Gun Toter #1:  Nope, it is legal to carry and I have a CCW.

Transit Sleuth:  That’s awesome.  Phoenix seems to be pretty safe downtown here?  Ever need to unlatch the side arm?

Gun Toter #1:  Fortunately no.  I go through some questionable areas outside of downtown though.  Sometimes at night it gets [racial epithet for Mexicans].  I’d rather be prepared than sorry.  Just a few months ago somebody got shot for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  That aint gonna be me.

Transit Sleuth:  I can understand that.  Do you ever ride any of the transit in town?  I’m putting together information on the light rail and bus system here, and you’d be an interesting candidate to discuss this with.

Gun Toter #1:  I’ve ridden it a couple of times.  I don’t live anywhere near it though so I don’t have any use for it.  The buses are full of [Mexican racial epithet] & [Black person’s racial epithet].

Transit Sleuth:  You ever feel those words a bit prejudice?  Not that I want to talk about that issue?

Gun Toter #1:  If they would stop killing people and each other I wouldn’t feel this way.  You grow up here you might have a different attitude.

Transit Sleuth:  Alright, well, thanks for talking to me.

So after that little conversation I ate lunch, and wasn’t particularly inclined to speak with anyone else.  I didn’t really want to get into another edgy conversation with someone that would spurt out some dumb racial epithet every 10 seconds.  I was looking for cohesive and intelligible conversation on the topics of Phoenix and transit.

Scenario #3:

Leaving the Sandwich Factory, which I might add was awesome, I saw another armed citizen.  This was the 4th or 5th person I saw armed.  Just a side arm, appropriately holstered on their side, nothing crazy like a strapped rocket launcher or anything.  I walked toward the guy and with an inquisitive raised hand asked…

Transit Sleuth:  Quick question for ya.

Gun Toter #2:  Yeah, what can I help ya at?

Transit Sleuth:  I’m a 2nd amendment advocate, just visiting Phoenix and checking out the light rail, and was wondering if you’re a law officer.  I’ve found it intriguing the number of armed citizens downtown today.

Gun Toter #2:  Yeah, I’m bit into that sorta thing.  Why you checking out the light rail though?  What does it have to do with anything?

Transit Sleuth:  Oh, that is completely unrelated to the 2nd amendment for me, just an interest in the history, economics, and function of transit and general passenger transportation.  So what do you think of it?

Gun Toter #2:  I kind of dig it.  I’ve taken it to a few games and stuff.  I don’t ride it everyday though.

Transit Sleuth:  What about carry on the light rail?  Do you know the rules are for it on the light rail?  [Context:  I have zero idea here either, I’m just asking.]

Gun Toter #2:  I didn’t think they can…  the company is a public company, they gotta follow as wrote down in the Constitution and State Law.

Transit Sleuth:  Just my own paranoia about states and transit authorities abrogating Federal Constitutional Rights, I’d check just to make sure.  If they had some dumb rule, would you still use transit?

Gun Toter #2:  If I got a use for it, I’ll use it, I don’t think they gonna mess with the laws.

Transit Sleuth:  That’s good to hear.  You keep riding, I gotta run and catch a light rail train.

Scenario #4:

While riding back toward the Mesa Station on the first day I rode the light rail, I came upon several short conversations.  This first one started when a young lady asked out loud,

Young Lady:  Where am I going?

Transit Sleuth:  Where have you been, maybe I can tell you where you are going.

Young Lady:  I was down there [pointing to the western end of the light rail].

Transit Sleuth:  And you’ve forgotten where you originally got on.

Young Lady:  Like, I got on to go not where I got on.

Transit Sleuth:  [Chuckling out loud, with a big grin on my face.]  Do.  You.  Realize.  What you just said?

Young Lady:  What?  Like, that didn’t make any well, like, sense huh?

Transit Sleuth:  Nope.  None at all, logic is nonexistent in that statement.  [I sat back down to let her figure out where in the universe she was at.]

Young Lady:  Do you know where you are going?

Transit Sleuth:  Yup.

Young Lady:  Well, can I like get off where you get off and call someone to figure out where I am going?

Transit Sleuth:  [Realizing she didn’t think she could use a cell phone on the light rail]  You could call someone right now while we are moving.

Young Lady:  But it’s dangerous to like, use a cell phone, while moving.

Transit Sleuth:  [Realizing this chick was a slight bit dumber than stupid]  Yeah, you’re right, better not use the cell phone while we’re moving.  You might wreck into someone huh.

Young Lady:  Yeah.  So can I get off where you do?

Transit Sleuth:  You can get off anywhere you want to, even where I get off.

Eventually she got off, before I did.  No telling where she ended up.

Scenario #5:

While on the same trip back to Mesa.  An older grungy looking guy approached me.

Grungy Guy:  Hey you!

Transit Sleuth:  [I don’t pay any attention because I don’t always answer to “Hey you!”, maybe “Hey” or Hey you.” but not “Hey You!”  I continue looking out the window on the high floor part of the light rail vehicle observing the area we’re passing through.]

Grungy Guy:  Hey man, do you know where the stadium bar is?  Where people go after the game?

Transit Sleuth:  [Now that he’s fixed his tone I jovially retort to his question.]  That doesn’t narrow it down very much dude, you’re gonna have to try harder.

Grungy Guy:  Oh, the bar near the stadium.  Do you know where it is?

Transit Sleuth:  I know about 10 bars near the stadium and I’ve only been here for about 22 hours.  But I don’t know what you mean by “near the stadium”.  Besides, isn’t there one over by ASU and one downtown?

Grungy Guy:  Yeah, but I want to go to the one on Mill Avenue.

Transit Sleuth:  [Keep in mind, I’ve not been to Mill Avenue at this point, I only know it is near the stadium]  Why don’t you get off on Mill Avenue & 3rd and just walk a few blocks down the street.  The stadium is right close by.  Worse case scenario you have to walk 5-6 blocks around the area to find what you’re looking for.

Grungy Guy:  Dude, that’s a good idea.  It’s probably right by the stadium.

Transit Sleuth:  [If you’ve read scenario #4, this statement might sound familiar, and I wanted answers]  Do people in Phoenix commonly restate the exact fact they’ve just stated, after someone answers them?  You’re the second person that has said something like that to me.

Grungy Guy:  What do ya’ mean?

Transit Sleuth:  Well…   oh you better head out, here’s your stop.  [Saved by the bell.]

Grungy Guy:  Thanks dude!

Scenario #6:

[…and yes, if you read this scenario all the way through, there IS a transit related point.] As I approached the end and pulled into Mesa two college girls and I suspect a frat boy of some sort stood with them by the door waiting to get off.  The train came to a stop and the girls stepped off first.  As the two girls exchanged some conversation, that I couldn’t understand, the guy looked at them and interjected something.  One of the girls looked at him with a sullen face.  The girl not looking at the frat boy all of a sudden dropped all of her books and papers.  The slight wind started to blow them and I immediately grabbed a few and stopped some with my foot.  The frat boy just walked off and I realized that he was just going to leave the young lady in this fix.  Her friend reached down to help and a slight gust of wind blew her papers off, she instinctually reached out to grab the papers.  Well since she was holding the books and reached out by reflex, she then threw her books forward all over the exit ramp of the platform.  I leaned down and started helping them…

Sullen Girl:  Oh thank you thank you thank thank you.

Transit Sleuth:  Yeah, no problem.  I see your comrade took the asshole route and just left you two.

Sullen Girl:  He’s a prick.  We were dating, but like, he sucks, so like, I dumped him.

Other Girly:  He is a prick, but she’s just like, upset, cuz like, it wasn’t…

Transit Sleuth:  Here’s your books.  [Handing the “Other Girly” her books she had dropped.]

Other Girly:  Thank you so much.  [Looked up with a great smile, thus I couldn’t help but smile.]

Sullen Girl:  [Stops gathering her books]  F#$% IT!  [Just sits down, she is apparently very upset, and she starts to tear up while sniffling.]  I don’t want to do this, can you just take my books [speaking “Other Girly”]?

Other Girly:  Well yeah, what are you doing?

Sullen Girl:  I just, I need time to think.  I don’t want to go home.  I can’t think at home, I hate it I want to just get away for, like, some time or something.  Please just take my stuff.

Other Girly:  Ok [She takes the rest of her books and I hand her the papers I retrieved for “Sullen Girl”]

Transit Sleuth:  [Looking somewhat befuddled, because I do NOT deal with emotional situations like this well, even when I have zero investment in the situation]  Are you ok?

Sullen Girl:  I’ll be fine, I just need to think and not be around anyone.

Transit Sleuth:  [Yes, this is what I said next, I am a transit nerd and it is my “2nd Place” where I go to think]  You ought to just get back on the light rail, find yourself a seat, and ride the line.  That’s what I always do when I’m down and out – not that I know ya or anything.

Sullen Girl:  No, no you, that, it’s.  [Tears up a bit]  Thanks, that’s a good idea.  I’m going to… [tears up a bit again]  Yeah, I’m going to do that.  Thank you.  Thanks, I.  I’m such a mess.  Thanks.

Transit Sleuth:  Yeah, hope you feel better.  Just get that seat and get lost in the ride.

At this point she walked off and got back on the train about to depart.  Crying herself into a tizzy.  I almost felt bad, because with how choked up she was, she might get a lot of concern from people on the train.  Well, did what I could.

Scenario #7:

After the wedding Jo and I had moved to the downtown San Carlos Hotel.  The first day I left the hotel to take photos I ran into some kids skateboarding downtown.  They where hitting the Chase Building grounds and hitting the surfaces for grinds and such.  Overall, they where top notch skaters.  I was impressed.

Skater #1:  Wanna take some pictures?

Transit Sleuth:  Sure.  [I wasn’t sure I’d keep em’, but what the heck.  I dig skating big time, and if I caught some good images that would rock.  Usually though, this is Jo’s domain and I usually can’t get good action photos to save my life.]

Skater #2:  I’m going to grind left.  [pointing to his direction.]

Security Guard:  [Guard appears from inside the building.]  You kids can’t do that skating around here.  You’ll need to move on.

Skater #3:  God D@#$!@ uuugggghhh.  [Fussing loudly]

Skater #1:  Let’s go jump on the light rail.

Skater #2, #3 & #4.  Alright, [yeah, etc., etc…]

Transit Sleuth:  I’m gonna walk over with you guys.  Do you take the light rail much?

Skater #1: Yeah, all the time.  Usually a couple of times per day.  It is way easier to go hit spots [places to skate] taking light rail than trying to drive around and worrying about parking and shit.

Skater #2: Even though the skate parks are hard to get to.  But we don’t go to those too much cuz they’re way out.

Transit Sleuth:  So there aren’t any skate parks near the light rail?

Skater #2:  Naw, not really.  They’re all out where it is nearly impossible to get without a car.  It’s usually cooler to go hunt down good skate spots than driving all the way out to the parks though.

Skater #1:  Yeah.

Transit Sleuth:  So you guys don’t take the buses out there or anything?  Don’t they go out there?

Skater #1:  Yeah, they…

Skater #2:  No they don’t.

Skater #1:  Yeah they do, it just takes forever.

Skater #2:  Bullshit.

Skater #3:  Yeah they do, but they do take like a billion hours.  It’s way too much trouble to take the buses.

Skater #1:  The drivers usually look at you funny after you been skating hard too when you’re all sweaty.  Even if the bus is empty they didn’t let me on once.

Skater #2:  Yeah, the drivers are kind of weird.

Skater #3:  True.

Skater #1:  The trains are wicked though.  You can just camp out and people don’t freak on us, there is no driver staring at us, and we can just chill after we go riding.  [Yeah, he said riding, instead of skating – often means the same thing]

Transit Sleuth:  That’s cool.  At least you guys have this option now.

Skater #4:  Yeah, it’s sweet.

Skater #1, #2 & #3:  [Various sentiments thrown about in regards to the light rail being awesome]

Transit Sleuth:  Well, I’m going to head out, you guys keep shredding, and watch out for the troublemakers and cops.

Scenario #8:

I decided to take a trip to Mill Avenue.  The light rail bridge & is near the railroad bridge, and two nice road bridges that I wanted to photograph.  While en route to this I came upon another interesting chat about skateboarding.  It appears, that the light rail is a boon to kids heading out to go skate boarding or in general, to the parks and other features available in the city for recreation.  This group of people consisted of two guys and a gal, who I’ll call skater kid, the skater boyfriend and the skater girlfriend – being that the boyfriend and girlfriend were girl & boy-friend of each other.

Transit Sleuth:  Do ya’ll mind if I take a picture of your boards?

Skater Kid:  Yes [Meaning in reality, no, no problem at all.]

Skater Boyfriend:  Sure.

Skater Girlfriend:  Cool.  [With a smile]

Transit Sleuth:  Thanks [Click]  Where are ya’ll headed to skate.

Skater Boyfriend:  Not sure what the name is, but I know what the stop looks like.

Transit Sleuth:  That’s cool.  [A couple minutes go by without me talking with them, as we’re all just looking out the windows seeing where exactly where we’re traveling.]  So what do ya’ll think of the light rail?

Skater Boyfriend:  It’s really cool & easy to ride.

Skater Kid:  We can get to places that used to take hours to get to now, it’s really sweet.

Skater Boyfriend:  Yeah, we never got to go where we’re heading today unless we got someone with a car to drive us over here.

Skater Girlfriend:  I like it.  I like to be able to easily go places with other people when there are more than would fit in a car.  We go hang out after school which would usually take two or three people driving, but we usually couldn’t find that many drivers so we would end up stuck somewhere that was boring.

Transit Sleuth:  That’s interesting.  Good to know ya’ll like it.  I’m heading over to ASU to take pictures right now.

Skater Boyfriend:  Oh yeah, ASU has good games too, I went to one of those.

Skater Girlfriend:  That was fun.

Skater Kid:  Yeah, we didn’t get to go before, because we usually couldn’t get anyone together that could take us, but with the light rail its super easy.

For now, that’s it.  I might put together another entry with some more of the entries because this is truly just the tip of the iceberg.  I do want to make a point to get the suburban chats that I had because it really shows some of the contrasts.  Until then though, this is it for today.

We arrived in Phoenix (as you may have noticed from my previous entry, “Phoenix Transit Exploration #fail and #success”.  Our first few days we stayed out close to our friends Jason & Cube so we could help out with and attend their awesome geek wedding (<3 u 2).

The ceremony was an outside ceremony, on a beautiful day with the setting sun off to our backs.  As the sun slowly set, and eventually disappeared we all sat and mingled, enjoying great food at the festivities after the vows were spoken.

Afterwards we all drove off in our paths for the night.  The newly married couple heading off to California in the morning in their Hybrid Honda, Jo and I off to our last night in the suburban hotel, and others in various directions.

Jo and I rose early morning today, Sunday ~ day 9 of our adventure, and went about some after wedding errands and wandering about southeastern suburban Gilbert, Mesa, and Phoenix.  After running those errands we headed with our rental POS Chevrolet Cobalt to the urban core of Phoenix to check in at the San Carlos Hotel.

Out Of The Burbs’

Once we checked into the San Carlos Hotel we headed back for our last suburban excursion in the ole’ rent a car.  Off to 16 miles south of downtown to check out a Brazilian Grill.  There we met Aendenne and her son, Cyrus for a bit o’ meat, tasty bits, and dessert!  Some of the meat was spot on, some of it was off a bit.  The desserts pleased all at the table.  :) 

Aendenne brought up some of the positive Phoenix points (as Jo and I are both having a time of this perpetual sun thing bearing down, and the suburbia – well, we’ll just get over that later).  One of the positives is the eternally consistent weather.  The other is when it does storm, it is awesome and epic, something that is often missed in Portland – being there are no actual storms of any sort.  Even the things Portland calls storms are merely a bit heavier rain or heaven forbid, one of the rare snow flurries (that happen maybe every 2-4 years).

Afterwards we parted ways with our farewells for the day.  I hope to make a trip out this way again soon and hang out with all.  It is really good to see friends like this.  Aendenne then headed off to do what I’m usually doing, more coding & more work!  For once I was actually heading off to just chill.

No Jo and I are downtown, and we’ve taken a bit of a zonk, and now are ready for our Sunday afternoon adventure to find something to swim in since we have a rooftop pool (oh yeah, rockerz!)   All that, with light rail at our very doorstep to lead us off to Lux, Breakfast, and the other adventures we’ll have in Phoenix.  So with that I’m off, and more to come later.

I wanted to take the #136 north on Gilbert, transfer to the #40, and then transfer to the light rail.  I studied the schedule for the #136 and could not determine when it would arrive near where I was staying.  I would have been happy to just go and wait for it if the bus arrival times where every 15 minutes, but the frequency was 30 minutes.  Strangely I almost went to wait for 30 minutes considering the temperature at 10:30am was an awesome 72 or so degrees.  That temperature however wouldn’t last long, and since I’m rather sun intolerant, I decided a car was unfortunately in order.

I got a ride from Jo’s soon to be married friend Cubers (pronounced “CUBE-ERZ”) to Enterprise Rent-a-Car and picked up a POS automobile.  I then drove directly to the nearest light rail transit park & ride and ditched the POS Chevrolet Cobalt.  That was the end of that turmoil, I could now focus on life, people, architecture, and my surroundings instead of driving.  With the car ditched I walked myself through the expanse of parking spots, filled with automobiles.  Through the parked buses, one a BRT oriented ride, one a normal hybrid bus, and then onto the platform where an LRV set awaited my embarking.

The Phoenix Bus System Fails but the Light Rail Rules

I’m going to clause this next section with my assumptions, thoughts, and ideas about Phoenix.  I figured it was a right leaning, socialistically auto transport oriented catastrophe of pavement ala Los Angeles.  I assumed that there would be no real density, and the downtown would be a corpse with partially sullen people.  I thought the light rail would be at 20-30% occupancy even though I had read the ridership statistics.  I thought all these things, how could this famously inefficient city harbor an intelligent process of zoning and growth.  How could mile long blocks, as inhumane as that is, allow for dense development, beautiful architecture, and above all – intelligently operated and built transit?

Please excuse my excursion in vulgarity, but holy shit did I just get sideswiped into a new consciousness.  Thank you Phoenix.

Mesa, Gilbert, and Bulldozing

I boarded in Mesa.  In my previously stated stereotype of Phoenix.  Mesa, is simply …  well, most of it should just be bulldozed.  Same with Gilbert.  Probably a lot of the outlying suburbs.  These areas are expanses of non-communication, human un-involvement, a faceless expanse of human development without any humans.  Sure, there were plenty of people around, but they were hiding in their cars, in their homes, and away from any actual community.  The sprawl was beyond destructive to the surroundings, but to any human being with a soul that desired community, life, culture, ideas, thoughts, or other elements it was not the place to be.  I’m sure there are some in the burbs’ that would argue this, but sit me down with them and they’d walk away either realizing this and a high likelihood of planning to move inwards toward the city.  Simply put, the surrounding suburbs are a dirge.  Pure death of the soul, no authenticity, no art, no originality.  The suburbs here are the archetype of American mindlessness, allowing corporatism to feed us the majority of our thought, the grand slice of our ideas, from our religion to our diets.

But this ended within just a few stops on the light rail system.  By the third stop the train was full of human beings.  Smiling, some talking to each other, checking their phones for the latest text or E-mail.  The train was primarily college students, young and beautiful.  There were a few people heading to work or other errands, but mostly college students at this time.

By the fifth and sixth stops the train was even more packed.  Even once we reached ASU and unloaded a ton of people, a ton more got on.  We kept rolling at a good speed down the center street alignment.  In about 10 minutes we where downtown, rolling through the streets with cars and people everywhere.  Strangely though, and this is where my idea of Phoenix rapidly started to change.  I thought to myself, wow, “this is enlightening”.

There were people wandering around outside heading for lunch, EVERYWHERE.  This of course is just one test of a city, a good lunch crowd.  I also realized that citizens, regular ordinary citizens, were walking around with their second amendment rights squarely planted in armaments upon holsters on their hips.  Unfortunately for the staunchly anti-gun blue crowd nobody was gunning down each other – hmmm, the twisted irony of that.  On the note of the staunchly anti-transit red crowd, which I thought polluted Phoenix too, the transit was indeed full of riders and even the bus stops garnered decent numbers of people waiting for a ride.  I was, being the Libertarian middle of the road advocate that I am, euphoric to see high transit ridership and armed, proud, happy citizens all over the place.

American Citizens in Phoenix

Speaking of Phoenix citizens, I honestly thought there would be much more grumbling and aggression.  In the suburbs it seemed that this might just be the case.  I saw 3 arguments taking place, heard about a botched robbery and the robber being shot, and other various forms of aggressive crimes.  But here I was downtown being greeted by complete strangers as I walked the sidewalks.  At first I figured it was the camera, so to see I took it off and stowed it in the backpack – but it ALL continued.  People, in full honesty, were greeting me with hellos.  Of course not every single person, but a solid 2 dozen people greeted me with hellos and smiles.  I was, shall I say shocked.  I had not seen this in any city except Portland.  But really, most American cities do seem to be picking up this spirit of camaraderie among each other.  I have to admit, that it has improved even more amid Obama being elected.  His victory truly has made an impact in city life, just by the air of change.  Regardless of what is functionally occurring with the administration, his presence versus Bushy Boys presence has changed the attitudes of millions of Americans.  Phoenix seems to be no exception, except that it has bucked my idea by exponential degrees.

Sandwich Factory

I jumped into the sandwich factory and got an excellent New Yorker Sandwich.  The shop had a great attitude (and armed employees also), and just gave me even more of an exuberant boost.  I gave Tony (of Lightrailblogger Fame) a call, got popped into voice mail.  I then tried to give my coworker from a job in another land, Aendenne a call, but my phone ceased to cooperate for a moment.  After about 15 minutes though Tony txted me back and we had a short txting exchange, which ended with me asking where a good wifi establishment, preferably with coffee, would be.  He pointed me to Lux.

Lux – Community – Coffee - Art

I mapped Lux on my iPhone and found it without much effort.  I fortunately knew where the light rail went, because I looked at the map and hit the “transit button” which failed to work.  I checked and came to the unfortunate conclusion that Valley Metro has not provided their transit information to Google.  I had a message for Valley Metro, GET YOUR INFORMATION TO GOOGLE!  Even without the transit directions I knew where it was, walked over to the light rail and checked the station stops.  A few stops north would land me almost at the front door of Lux.  An LRV arrived and off I went for a coffee surge and some electricity for my montage of devices.

I arrived, and was puzzled at first where Lux was, but then in short order with a tip from Tony, realized the located and stepped inside.  At first, walking into Lux was disorienting because of the darker lighting compared to the excessive sun outside.  My eyes adjusted and I moved forward in better clarity.  Stepping up to the bar I realized there was a roasting machine in the back.  Absolutely a good sign for coffee of credibility.  I got a smile on my face while I set my pack down beside the bar.  I ordered an ice mocha, figuring it would be a good default to jump into after the heat.

The girl at the counter asked, “want whip cream” to which I replied, “no thanks.”  She then got a sad puppy look like I’d hurt her feeling, which she then told me kindly, “we make the whip cream home made…”, to which I quickly changed my tune.  I received my mocha and must say, very tasty whip cream.  The mocha was good too, with a solid rich chocolate flavor and a slight bit of espresso bite.  I’d suggest one.

Lux was pretty packed when I got there, with only 3 seats empty in the whole place.  I was able to snag one after inquiring with one of the beautiful people seated aside me, “may I snag this seat?” to which I received a reply of “oh no, please do” from the young lady seated there.  I took my pack and set it aside, pulled forth my camera, laptop, iPhone, and all requisite cords to plug em’ all up and get juiced back to full batteries.  The pretty gal aside me plugged in my gadgetry for me, since I was across from the plug.  With the zappy electric flow going I commenced upon completion of this blog entry.

Needless to say, if you haven’t been to Lux and live in Phoenix, you should probably go.  You might kick yourself for not having been, especially if you actually like coffee of the higher quality (i.e. Not Starbucks burnt roasts & sugar induced comas).

The Ride to Lux, Light Rail Style

As I stood upon the LRV rolling north out of the heart of downtown Phoenix, I marveled at a number of things.  One of those things was the smoothness of the ride.  Because of the straightness of the alignment, the LRV could really scoot and still sustain a smooth ride unlike some of the twisting, turning, and raised embankments the LRVs in Portland and Seattle ride along.  I’ve come to find that the best riding light rail is planted firmly in cement along straight corridors.  The ride was absolutely chill, I dug it.

The second thing that outright shocked me was the level of development along the light rail.  Of course some was pre-existing and some is new.  But much of the pre-existing has now become transit oriented development (TOD), and garnered options to the lifestyle that being TOD provides.  There where shops, businesses, and massive apartment, condo, and other living complexes along this northern branch.  Every inch of what I had seen so far along the light rail line was in good maintenance, and the entire line tended to run through areas where the buildings where beautiful.  At least in the facade of beauty that many buildings exist hidden inside of.  This level of development continued extensively with only a couple blocks along that line being undeveloped or under-developed.

The other notable thing I noticed, was the continuation of people riding on the light rail.  Not just old, or poor, but everybody.  There was an older guy in a suit, a 30ish old suited man, some young kids in the tweens, some young ladies carrying on about some cute guy toward the middle of the car, probably in their early twenties, and a few single people interspersed in age range, lifestyles.  Also stood gazing into the distance a skate boarder, pondering what no one really knows, or possibly nothing at all.  One thing in common among all of us, was that everyone on the train was relaxed, chilled out, unlike the drivers I had seen earlier in the day in Mesa & Gilbert.

Packed to Crush Capacity

My last comment in this entry, is that while I sat in the wonderful air conditioned space of Lux.  I sat there watching each light rail vehicle make its way by.  When I got off and entered Lux around 1:30pm the trains going by were at about 95% seated occupancy.  By 2:15pm the trains coming by had 100% seated occupancy and had 10-20% standing occupancy.  By 3:15pm the trains coming by had reached 90% of crush capacity.  Each LRV set was going by with approximately 190-200 people each.

I’ll have a lot more to say regarding Phoenix, the architecture, design, zoning, layout of the city, and much more.  But for now, I bid the intertubez farewell for a bit and am off to wander the line a bit more.  This last photo I depart with is a shot of the city from the Lux Light Rail Station.

[Rant On]

I took a ride out to Gresham on the #4 recently, just to take a ride about town.  The bus serving the frequency I got on today was one of the new buses.  I have an official complain about these new buses.

TriMet recently purchased three new types of vehicles;  New Buses, New LRVs, and the WES DMUs.  The DMUs are beautiful, very quiet, ride smoother than anything in the entire TriMet system, and as for ride, are just unmatched.  The new LRVs are also smoother than any other LRV in use on the system, smoother than any bus ride also, and generally as comfortable as one would expect a public transit rail vehicle would be.

But the buses, where did TriMet get these buses?  These things are already a complete catastrophe.  I’ve had to get off of buses about 15 times the entire time I’ve been riding TriMet over the years.  3 of those occurrences have ALL BEEN IN THE LAST 3 MONTHS on NEW BUSES!  What gives?

In addition to the issues just described, it appears these new buses are low quality inside, with fewer amenities than the last series of low floor buses.  The inside rattle horribly when the bus accelerates up to speed.  Now, I don’t know about everyone else, but I seem to notice buses accelerate and decelerate a LOT.  This of course means the new buses are pretty much rattle all the time.  This makes these new buses very frustrating to work on (which, buses generally are more frustrating to work on, but the new ones just have a +2 to frustrate now).

Transmissions, let me tell you about the transmissions on the new buses.  Alright, one of the 3 broken down new buses I’ve been on broke down because of the transmission.  But it isn’t the first new bus I had been on that had a massive kick during gear shifting.  When a bus lurches that hard core, it isn’t uncomfortable, is is DANGEROUS.  Those goofy old folks, or those silly young kids, that just stand up at whimsical times would easily be tossed into something.  As any bus driver knows, there isn’t a lot of soft things to fall onto on a bus, which means the driver and the injured passenger are going to have a headache to deal with if a young kid or old fogies gets tossed onto the floor, metal pole, hard plastic seat, or some other hard spot on the bus.

So the new buses have all of these issues, but what really just ticks me off, is the nanny state nonsense with non-opening windows.  I don’t care if some idiot stick their arm out the window and gets it torn completely off.  What I care about is that I have enough responsibility and discipline to enjoy the wonderful breeze of a cool day while riding the bus.  Why I should be punished by some punk idiot eludes me.  Sure, maybe single plane windows are cheaper, but I don’t care about that either.  Don’t order as many buses, but give me windows that open for the love of sensibleness.

I do have a shining bright spot in all this complaint.  At least the new buses have amazing air conditioners!  Not sure if that has been part of the problem in reliability, but at least THAT works.

Solutions?

I’m not sure what realistic solution TriMet could take with the situation as it is.  If a regular citizen bought a car from Toyota, Ford, or even GM, they’d have the lemon law kick in by now and get their money back or a new car.  Hell, most car dealers wouldn’t even deal with the lemon law, they just hand someone a new car before that mess even starts (emphasis on USUALLY, some resist – like GM & Ford of the past).

My Solution

If I where in charge, I’d demand an immediate repair of every single new bus, transmission replacements, or even if it where necessary new buses that are designed differently.

[Rant Off]

So really, after all that ranting, is there even a possible solution to all this?  I really don’t want to hear the rattling racket of these new buses for the next 15-20 years.  Does TriMet have other options that are reasonable that could be completed in the next few months, years, or soon?  My personal option is starting to look like it is time to move back to the ole’ streetcar route downtown.  I’ve kind of wanted to get back closer in anyway, so this might be one of the catalysts to do so.  Living downtown I rarely have to use any transit except the MAX, the streetcar being merely optional downtown.

Well, we shall see over the coming months.  I’ll be riding the #9 for at least 6 more months.  So TriMet ops, if you read this, please do me a favor and don’t put any new buses on the #9 route!  :)   I’ll love ya for it (or buy ya a beer – feel free to contact me and name your beer)

Ok, I won’t even get into the political and moral reasons of why I hated fareless square.  Instead I’m going to empart some stories about my dealings directly with fareless square and the behaviors it encourages and the disabling effect it has on the city to do anything about these negative behaviors.

An Evening With Lovely Ladies & a Miscreant

I walked out the door toward the 18th & Lovejoy bus & streetcar stop.  Being in the north west area of Portland almost every single area is on the up and up.  There aren’t shady or questionable areas, and I honestly don’t think a serious violent crime has happened in at least 10-20 years in the area.  I arrived at the 18th & Lovejoy stop and looked up at the NextBus Sign to see when a streetcar was coming.  It read 5 minutes & 28 minutes.

The evening was darkening into night and some of the interesting characters that browse around the streets of downtown Portland where starting to come out.  I find most of these individuals intriguing, but am also keenly aware of the things they might do.  Often times they just mingle and rant against each other to each other, making for a bit of vociferous street entertainment of the Jerry Springer kind.

A good while ago, I believe about 12-13 years ago, one of these transient freaks just up and knifed another individual that they didn’t even know.  This of course breaks everything the statistics say about violent crime.  The victim of the attack died, the transient was arrested and also, I believe, later died in jail.  This didn’t happen in north west Portland, but it did happen somewhere in the city, I just don’t recall where.

As I waited for the streetcar the #77 pulled up and I decided spontaneously to head over to Broadway on the east side of the river and catch a drink.  So I boarded and off we went.  The driver, two passengers and I sat quietly with little more than the sound of the bus between us.  One of the passengers was a young pretty lady, maybe in her mid-twenties and the other passenger was a man around his 40s.  Just before fareless square the man got off the bus and headed off toward the Park Blocks area.  Now it was just myself and the young lady sitting a few seats away.  The #77 pulled into the fareless square area and a man boarded.  This man wasn’t entirely gruff, he might have been homeless or just a hard working guy.  He was a bit dirty from whatever he had been doing previously in the day.  After he boarded he sat down right next to the pretty young lady.

As we pulled away the driver stated fareless only went to the Rose Quarter Transit Center, to which he replied curtly “yeah I know”.  So off we went without much fuss.  He sat down and started heckling the girl with offers of intercourse.  What a way to be a freak I thought, wondering if I might need to step this guy into a place of respectful demeanor.  I really wasn’t much in the mood, nor should I have to babysit the miscreant population every time it gets on the bus.  However I really felt for the young lady, she looked to be really uncomfortable with his forwardness and his topic.

The bus pulled into the Rose Quarter Transit Center and started to leave, when the driver piped up that he needed to show his fare now or get off the bus.  The man replied with a terse, “I just need to go up to Lloyd Center”, to which the driver stated, “you can board the MAX under the overpass and it will take you to Lloyd Center via the fareless route, but the bus leaves fareless and I can’t have you onboard without a fare”.  I was impressed by the drivers determination to do the right thing, to take responsibility that so few take responsibility for.  With the attacks on drivers, albeit rare as it is, I am even more impressed and amazed by them taking the bull by the horns and demanding fares in this situation.  Especially when fareless square makes it even more difficult for them to enforce.

I didn’t mention before, but the driver was no large man, nor man at all, but instead a petite woman.  She stood about 6 inches shy of my height, and I’m no tall guy.  So the situation was now laid out like this;  I was toward the rear door of the bus, the pretty young lady was mid-way on the bus on the right hand side, the miscreant was now standing up partially, leaning in the aisle toward the pretty young lady and the petit bus driver was sitting facing the front door, looking back toward this miscreant.

To my amazement the driver stood up and pointed to the door with the words, “either pay or get off the bus”.  I was at this point impressed, but almost concerned as he started to walk toward her.  He then splurted out, now halfway between me, still sitting, and the driver, “I don’t want to get off, just sit down and drive me up to Lloyd Center.”

This is one of the zillion reasons why I hate fareless square.  It perpetuates and encourages, enables this type of behavior.  But I’ll continue with this story so dear readers, you may have closure of the actions that transpired and the Transit Sleuth behaved appropriately to a good sleuth.

Ok, I’ll admit, I misbehaved ever so slightly.  At this miscreants absolutely rude and disrespectful behavior it hit me personally.  I’ll also admit, with a petit lady demanding such a simple thing of this man, I wasn’t, I couldn’t just sit there and let him behave like an ass.  So my southern drawl fell out of my yapper and I stood up and marched forward like a seasoned soldier en route to combat.

I walked up toward the rear of the man, encroaching heavily on his personal space.  He looked immediately unsettled by this drastic change in events.  I don’t think he totally realized I had been sitting in the back of the bus, but now he was very aware of this fact.  I held my hand ready to block any prospective blow, or worse a knife or other weapon he might slash backwards with.  Instead all I got was a turned face with a slight shock on it.

I asked with a clear, calm, stoic voice, “Are you getting off or are you buying fare?”

His tone changed a bit to a tepid voice and asked, “Can’t I just stay on to Lloyd Center?”  I looked at him firmly and said, “The bus driver asked you, stated to you politely before, and now has demanded you respect the fare and pay or get off.”  In my normal flare when ticked off, I continued, “if you are going to disrespect her and the fare, which immediately affects me trying to go out and get a drink, you’ve now obstructed my progress, my quaint bus ride, and I’m pissed so either pay now or get off, you have about 10 seconds before I remove you from the bus.”

The bus driver looked somewhat concerned but relieved that she wasn’t the only one standing between the miscreant man and his removal now.  I stood calmly, prepared still for whatever he might do.  Several seconds passed and we both stood as if a showdown was taking place.  The young pretty girl moved further toward the back of the bus, all while watching quietly.  A couple more seconds and I began in a still, low voice, “fifteen…   ten…  five…”  He looked at me and with an idiots remark stated, “are you counting down to me?”  Almost as if asking, but reactively trying to sound tough.

He failed, and I got to “one.”

I could tell the drive moved back slightly as I slowly lurched forward.  He turned toward me and started to speak, to which I stopped him with a curt and simple, “Shutup!”  No longer stoic I think it transitioned him into realization that I was indeed about to remove him from the bus.  I reached up from my slow lurch with intent and speed, grappling his arm, with my thumb pressing harshly against his bicep for grip.  I moved him toward the front door, with him posing a slight opposition to this but not enough to stop my forward movement of him.  I stated as we approached the front door, “You can step down off the bus yourself or I will do it for you, which might not work well.”  He finally piped up, in full realization I was pushing him by the arm off the bus, “Naw man, @#$%, I’ll do it, let go of me.”

His voice had gotten a bit shrill, I could tell his adrenaline had pumped and he had gotten a little shaky.  His fight or flight had initially started as flight by freeze.  He stepped off the bus and started yelling some nonsense at me and the driver about being various vulgar expletives.  The driver immediately closed the door and allowed me to sit down in the front row.

The three of us now pulled away as the miscreant yelled madly from the stop.  I watched as we departed, his yelling began to attract the nearby police & transit security.  He’d now sunk his night for sure.

The driver, once we stopped at the light at MLK turned and said kindly, “thanks for stepping up, that rider is commonly a problem.”  He’s always harassing riders and we often can’t prevent him from boarding because of fareless.  He gets on and then usually refuses to get off.  I told her that I was, “Glad to have been able to help out.” and added, “I’m disgusted by that type of disrespectful behavior.”

As we rolled out and parallel to Broadway I got off near the Rose & Thistle.  As I prepared to get off the bus I said “Thanks” per my usual farewell to the drivers, and turned to the pretty young girl and said, “have a good night, hope you don’t have to deal with any more nonsense like that”.  She smiled, raised her hand to wave bye, and spoke her first word of the entire bus ride, “thanks”.

I got off the bus and walked toward Rose & Thistle thinking about the millions of ways that entire scenario could have been avoided.  I in no way blame TriMet, but solely the bastard for his unacceptable behavior.  I however would have been very happy if the system would have discouraged his boarding in the first place.  Because if it had, the driver would have been able to prevent his boarding in the first place and never had to face down the sorry fool.  The man is to blame, but the system can fix the entire problem.

Bus Driver Rant

As I boarded the #9 during rush hour I scanned to see if I could grab a seat.  I saw one there in the rear.  I bee-lined it and made it just as others where starting to board.  We had two more stops in fareless square and then would be on the snake turns before the Ross Island Bridge.  One guy pushed away from me and kind of slunk down in the corner rear seat.  I looked at him and noticed he was attempting to avoid eye contact with the driver.

As we arrived at the last stop in fare-less the driver stopped the bus, put it in park, and got up.  He walked straight back toward the back, stopping just shy of the back door.  He pointed at this guy and a few other people and said, “you, you, and you either pay the fare or get off the bus.  I saw you get on in fare-less and know you didn’t pay”  This event I wrote about the day it happened in my entry TriMet Bus Driver Fitting of Respect.  The little brat of a kid, got up and left the bus.  The other two showed or bought fare.  I was seriously impressed.

Even though this was mighty respectable of the driver, the fact he had to do this was again a problem inherent in fare-less square.  We all had to wait another minute or so while these brat kids where kicked off the bus or made honest.  Again, I don’t blame the driver or even TriMet, but the kids for being dishonest, but something that can be remedied for everyone involved by removing fare-less.  It makes it easier for the drivers, and quicker for the passengers.

Maths

The last point of why I hated fare-less was for a simple math reason.  TriMet, Metro, the city, and a few other entities have estimated about $900k dollars of fares are not collected each year because of fare-less square.  When one digs into the math they’ll find that this is absolutely not the entirety.  The actual amount of fares not collected is very likely higher than $900k.  However, I’ll use this low number.

$900k gets us at least a couple frequencies of bus service.  Or it could get us a few more MAX trains operating during rush hour.  It could provide us enough to buy 2 new buses per year, the lease payments on a new MAX, or part of a streetcar.  $900k could go toward helping the system to expand, instead of perpetuating scenarios like those above.

If someone really digs down and checks out the math, fare-less would also enable appropriate enforcement and more police interaction onboard the buses.  Currently with fare-less they aren’t enabled to do so, with a fare in place they have a legal reason to initiate conversation.  Most of the officers when engaging in conversation with prospective thugs, ghetto, kids, and other sorts actually prevent negative activities that otherwise would harass, harm, or otherwise denigrate the downtown experience for people.  Most of these miscreants that come downtown and do nothing but cause trouble (such as the stabbing 3-4 days ago at Pioneer Courthouse Square) do so based on fare-less square.  Now the police need to stupid sit-lie law to keep these trouble makers in line.  Simply seeing them disembark from transit, without fare via the buses could land them in hot water.  Removing the ability for them to return home in the after hours also prevents them from coming down to cause trouble in the first place.

In Summary

All in all, it is one more tool that can be used to clean up downtown and prevent troublemakers from harassing honest, decent people living an urban lifestyle.  Sure there will still be miscreants and trouble makers, but they’ll have less leverage to harass the urbanites.  In addition the police can now focus a little more on where most of these troublemakers come from, the distant burbs of Gresham, Beaverton, Tigard, and other such places.  Maybe, just maybe we can keep em’ near their homes and those respective places can keep up with their own problems.

We have enough homeless & other issues we need to deal with downtown, we don’t need the burbs’ punkers, miscreants, and other annoyances troubling us also.

So all in all, peace out, enjoy the ride, and know that the Transit Sleuth has your back.  On a lighter note, I can provide useful information and tips n’ tricks on using the transit system.  ;)