Transit Sleuth

All of these shots are from my commute of Friday.

Caught the #19 after getting off the #10.  I had decided Friday was going to start with some Stumptown, thus I jumped the #10 for the scenic route to downtown.

At noon I headed downtown for some errands and for an afternoon of remote work.

While waiting for the #35 & #36 I caught the #43 coming on the short loop run around on to Macadam.

After a few minutes the #35 came rolling up.

I got off at South Waterfront and caught the following shots of the tram and streetcar.

After returning home after my downtown excursion for errands I caught the #9 for a run eastward to 60th and Powell to take care of rental, car, and other insurance needs.

The #9 was so frequent I was barely off of my own bus I rode on and another was arriving already.

On my return I got punked twice.  First by a "Not In Service" bus and then...

Then a garage bound bus.

Piece of junk, highly overrated yet non-functional and overly expensive.  I can't believe anybody is buying these things.

...and that was the Friday commute.

When I saw these bike corrals here, here, and here I was ridiculously stoked.

Basically take away two parking spots that "might hold" two cars with maybe, best case scenario, 8-16 people.  Now we get in return a bike corral that almost always has at least 20+ bikes, and in many cases even more!  I rarely see less than 30+.  There is no way any vehicle parked in these spaces in the past would have brought as much economic activity to the surrounding businesses. 

Better for the businesses around, better for livability, better for the businesses, better for the community, better for our health (kind of like having an automatic "anti-fat"), better for our energy independence, and more timely than an automobile for the same trips (because the distance negates any speed advantages).  Bike corrals are a true win win for everyone involved.  Most likely, the two people that might have parked there in lieu of the 30+ bikes, they'll just have to figure out something else.

Anyway, awesome results.  No we as a nation just need to get behind this type of thing more often, for our economy, strength, independence, and in the end, our freedom can be drastically expanded this way.

This is somewhat silly, but I felt it important to figure out the travel and walking times to the Stumptown Coffee Shops in Portland from the new residence.

4525 SE Division (18 minutes,  13 of that walking)

3356 Belmont (35 minutes, 16 of that walking) - this one has a transfer involved, not a fan of such nonsense.  The transfer is incurred because of what I mentioned here.

128 SW 3rd Ave (21 minutes, 6 of that walking)

1026 SW Stark (28 minutes, 15 of that walking)

So depending on the level of laziness either the 3rd Ave or Division are the places to go!  I sincerely am amazed that the transit planner gave these walking times, they must be for slow average Americans or something, because I sure don't take that long to walk the distances they've laid out.  Not complaining though, better to schedule around a slow time and be early for that cup o' Joe.

On a driving note, if there is basically no congestion, these are the times (Based on me driving a 350Z, which is at least 10% faster than other cars based on following the speed limits just because of increased cornering getting around the area).

4525 SE Division (9 minutes, 0 of that parking, 0 of that walking)

3356 Belmont (15 minutes, 2 of that parking, 1 of that walking)

128 SW 3rd Ave (25 minutes, 3 of that parking, 5 of that walking)

1026 SW Stark (32 minutes, 2 of that parking, 5 of that walking)

...these second numbers are based on the extremely rare times I've driven to the shop on SW Stark and what I've had to do when attempting to park around the 3rd ave area with other people.  Because simply put, I've only driven to the SW Stark location 4 times and the SW Division location once.  So they are WAGs and nothing more.

(WAG == Wild Ass Guess)

...that's my useless entry of the day.  Now I'm off via transit to either Division or 3rd Ave location for some coffee.  I've got grind to get and a French Press.

So I live on 21st & Powell now.  I'm loving the area and am loving the options that are available to me to get to downtown.  The one thing I find absolutely stupid is that there is no 21st avenue bus service.  As I looked closer there really isn't decent north south service to parallel the east west service at all.

This harkens back to the common complaint that everything is focused on downtown.  If I want to go to Belmont, TriMet's site tells me to go downtown on #9 and then board #15, to get to parts of Hawthorne, the same thing.  To get to Burnside in says to take the #9 downtown and then board the #20, #19, or other bus that goes near Burnside and 21st.  The catch is, I can walk down/up 21st and get there faster.

What is wrong with this picture?  Another issue of going where it goes and not going where people do go or need to go.  There are tons of people driving, biking, and walking north and south on 21st.  It is an ideal inner city north south avenue and there is no service at all.  The closest service is 70, which is mostly down around 12th between the Rose Quarter and Sellwood, there is 75 on 39th, which is a good solid north south route.  Then #72 is insanely busy out on 82nd.  But between 12th and 39th, and 39th and 82nd we have sparse, or nothing, for service.

Past 82nd I could care less, if I ever even remotely need to move out there, I'm leaving the city anyway.  Living past 82nd and still being burdened with the 9.5% income tax without any of the urban benefits is insane to me.  I'm not sure how or why people do it.  I sure won't, I'd leave in a heart beat if a east of 82nd lifestyle was in my future.

This brings me to curiosity, how does one go about demanding or petitioning TriMet to provide service in an area?  It obviously, as has been proven a dozen times, that the city isn't particularly interested in meeting traffic or movement needs of people but instead places routes by political motive.  So since that seems to be my option for service, what does one have to do?  Do we have to write Sam Adams, Fred Hansen, or some other person?  Do we have to get the Federal Government to give the city and thus TriMet a big fat hand out?  How does one get bus service where it is needed, or get some type of service (I really don't care if it is bus, streetcar, MAX, or levitating floatie)?

I just want to be able to easily get north and south.  About 40% of my trips are north or south.  Because of this lack of service I've had to increase my car usage by about 5% (which means I drive about 1-2 times a week instead of about 1 car usage every 2 weeks).  The other 60% of trips are met very well by the #9, and nearby buses (#10, #19, #17, #4, & #70).

...that's it for my thoughts of the night.

But not always.  I've been studying China, India, and other up and coming country's economies.  The one thing, of all the threats from these countries, is the sprawl.  These countries have sought American life styles in so many ways, they have sought our wealth and other such notions that they are mimicking our sprawl just as we're trying to remedy the situation.

All I can think is that America spewed the sprawl during the American party and now countries have seen the fun of the party, but aren't realizing the spew festival that awaits.  Fortunately China and India are spending tons on infrastructure at the same time, something the US has failed to do over the last 40-50 years.

The US barely has functional Interstate and Airport facilities anymore, the primary ones being overrun with needs that should not be met by the respective services.  i.e. - Commuting should not be a car based function in big cities and airplanes shouldn't be used for short hop corridor trips under 300 miles.  Even trips under 500 miles could be reduced with a decent rail system to handle high speeds.  All of these things the US has wastefully pushed and encouraged through massive subsidies over the last 50 years while neglecting the modes that would best handle daily city commuting and short hop corridor trips.  Trains in the US, the railroad industry in general, has been forced by monopolistic action of the Government, subsidized competition, and often mandates by cities and states so strict that our system is almost gone or completely destroyed.

Now we begin our rebuilding, slowly but surely, but China, India, and other countries now have a massive head start on this much needed infrastructure.  As our unions keep wages at a modicum that cannot be maintained while keeping the US even remotely competitive with China, India, and others we maintain one of the most expensive forms of transportation in the world as our primary mode; automobiles.

While these other countries emulate us, hopefully they'll learn from our miserable failings with Suburbia, our plummeting standard of living in many areas of the country, and realize that they should stick to the tried and true.

...here's to hoping we Americans and the Chinese, Indians, Pakistanis, and others can work together and get ourselves aligned so we can live well, keep and increase high standards of life, and above all - not destroy our planet.

...or in other words, what we could do with 4 billion if we didn't blow it on the stupid CRC catastrophe.

Light rail is about $30-40 million per mile now (not sure why, freight railroads don't blow that much per mile).

Streetcar is about $20 million per mile.

Commuter rail is about $9 million per mile (I took the WES and upped the average big time).

Highway is about $6 million per mile last I checked and Interstate is about $8 million per mile overall.

The rail mentioned includes vehicles, the roadway costs obviously don't, that comes out of your pockets after taxes.

So lemme see, basic math gives us...

100 miles of $40 million per mile light rail...

or

200 miles of $20 million per mile streetcar lines...

or

444 miles of $9 million per mile of commuter rail lines (the places we could connect with that!!!)...

or

666 miles of highway at $6 mil per mile...

or

500 additional lane miles of Interstate...

Take away a few dozen or so miles and we even have enough money for a nice decent bridge here or there, just not to Vancouver.

...wow, the things we could do with that.  The bridge won't give us even a pittance of what these other investments would provide us.

Has anyone even done the math of how long before the economy would gain any ROI on the $4 billion expenditure on only a bridge?

Being that roadways are a net expense, and don't actually generate any wealth for people based on our funding models, I'd imagine we're talking about 30+ year process of gaining any ROI.  Pending of course, inflation and the monetary system even stays in place that we've had for the last 40-50 years since the Bretton Woods Accord (or whatever it was called, I keep forgetting the exact name).

Ok, I've been studying the Columbia River Crossing.  I really hate the whole thing because the easy, simple solution are being completely ignored (service bridges ala Broadway or Steal Bridge like we Portlander's have downtown).

The inherent problem I see in this whole thing is that Vancouver and Portland act like they're two separate cities, which in fact, they're more like one city.  The metropolitan area is all one, and really, it is one city.  Vancouverites act like Portland is there's and Portlander's often wish Vancouver would disappear overnight.  It's a brash, cold, hard, reality that the bridge project isn't taking into account.  The politicians, often not able to realize that they are, and have been, with their "Guv'ment Departments", in way over their heads for decades now.  With these types of projects they keep digging their, and our graves, deeper than they've ever been.

But I've flopped on my opinions of the bridge project a little.  I've seen what is the suggested changes.  The fact that the lanes, 3 total, of throughway are not going to change, but at the same time are going to be true thru-lanes things are looking better.

The slowdown on the bridge is caused by the older lane sizes and the current bridge width, the up and down also causes people to slow down.  Of course, this is a design problem that needs fixed, that is rooted in the incapability of American drivers to actually drive.  I cease to be amazed at how poorly Americans can handle a car, and will never be happy with our tepid and pathetic knowledge of how to handle an automobile.

With the new bridge the slowdown is limited.  The part that I was looking at, besides the true thru-lanes is the MAX and Pedestrian Bridge.  These parts are the only saving grace Vancouver has for getting itself back in line with a reasonable and responsible growth pattern.  Being the city is on a crash course with the problems that more parallel to Houston, Jacksonville, or New Orleans than great cities like Portland, San Francisco, or New York.  Rest assured, I'll take the later city's problem over the aforementioned messes (or jokes, however one wants to put it) any day.

The MAX and Pedestrian Bridge (not sure if I like the under the bridge or beside the bridge parallels) are awesome.  These features enable Vancouver to actually get people to Portland and Portland to get people to Vancouver (not sure if many Portlanders ever go to Vancouver - but I know a TON of Vancouverites come to Portland) without needing to burn another 2 gallon average minimum per trip.  I'm guessing at least 20,000 Vancouverites come to Portland and leave Portland every single day via auto.  If just 2% of those people drop of their autos somewhere and ride in on the MAX (or bike or walk - I'm fairly positive that percentage is drastically lower in Vancouver than one could hope for) that would be at least 800 (400 coming in and 400 coming out) gallons of gas not being burned PER DAY.  A more realistic number is much higher, but just take that number for a second.  800 per day times 365 days a year gives us 292,000 gallons back in the general pool of fuel available, and makes that little bitty dent in cleaner air.  However the MAX and Pedestrian Bridge are really the only part of the thing that I kind of like.

If a bridge is going to be built, this is my two cents of the positive side.  There are still tons and tons of negatives.  The number of other useful things 4+ billion would buy the Portland area is insane, but if they're going to build the damned bridge then so be it.

...don't take the car for coffee.

I got up about 9:45am yesterday (Sunday) and wanted a Stumptown Soy Mocha.  I decided that I'd go get one, and to be the awesome guy I am, I figured I'd get one for Joleen too.  So after fiddling around for about an hour or so I departed at 11:15"ish".

Now I decided to do something I don't generally do.  I decided I would take the car.  The decision was made because there were some items at the office that needed picked up.  So off I went through downtown and down Macadam.

The retrieval of items from the office was successful and I headed for the Stumptown.  Just for a change I veered off and went to the 46th and Division store.  I arrived, went in, and placed my order for two Soy Mochas and got a bag of ground beans.

Upon my preparation to leave this Stumptown I realized there were no lids.  I grabbed this wimpy soft drink lid and crossed my fingers that it would make do.

The great trek then began.  At a might 10, and sometimes 20mph I slowly made my way without spilling a drop.  I poked along and over the Hawthorne bridge and up through the 5th and 6th construction obstacles.  Right before Broadway a neckie (as in Red Neck) looking fella from Texas (that's what the plates had on them) just cut over practically on top of the Z.  I stopped immediately and looked over, the mocha was ok.  I was slightly annoyed at this and it made me a little shaky.  The last thing I wanted was to have my car smashed up and in the shop again.

Just before crossing Broadway I slipped the clutch, just slightly, and over the cup of beverage fell.  Stumptown Soy Mocha all over the back of the 350Z.  I was superbly pissed.  Now I was unencumbered but without the beverage.

I decided to stop at the Stumptown between 10th and 11th at the Ace Hotel.  I pulled around and made my million left hand and million right hand turns to get back around to Stumptown.  As I pulled up I noticed two signs reading, "Your 15 minutes of parking".  I though, "how cute".  But by that mere distraction I then curbed the Z's front right rim really well.

For those of you that don't understand why this is a big deal, let me explain for a second.  First off, this is the 3rd set of rims.  Between people driving into the car and other assorted mess this car has been through, the rims have taken a beating.  Second off, the rims are aluminum, specifically to be light.  Aluminum is not a strong material, and bends, scratches, and tears whenever anything runs into them or heavy impacts are made.  Third off, the rims cost about $580-620 bucks EACH!

So now you know why I was effectively, and emotionally pissed.

I sucked it up and headed in.  Ordered another Soy Mocha and got two lids, for the half empty spilled cup and the new one.  I now planted myself back in the seat and off we went, me and the coffee beverages.

About half way through the Pearl on 10th I was moving along at a slow 20mph and some New Yorker (again the tag) cut me off.  That wasn't a big deal, whatever I though.  This guy was however now parallel to a bike, he began to turn again and drive directly over the guy on the bike.  Since he had his window down, in that split second, I yelled, "watch out for the bike dumb ass!" which woke up the guy real quick.  The bicyclist swerved to avoid the already turned front of the car and we all then carried on.

I drove slowly on up Lovejoy and finally made it home.  A multiple hundred dollar damage on my wheel, a spilled 16-18oz of Stumptown Soy Mocha all over the back of the car, an assisted biker and a yelled at New Yorker.  All that and one beverage for Joleen.  All I could think was, "She better like this frikkin' Mocha!"

....and that is why I learned, if you want a coffee, don't drive to get it.

(and yeah, she liked her Stumptown Soy Mocha)

I often make entries about why Portland rocks and other cities in this country...   well simply put, they don't.  Yeah, maybe it is inflamatory, but it shouldn't be.  Saying Portland rocks is like saying clean air is good to breath and water is great to drink.  Some might disagree, but they're usually unhealthy oddities that hate clean air, water, and Portland.

...so yeah, that might make no sense, but it should.

On to the topic of why Portland rocks, reason number 1498172345908712435.

Portland has tons of online presence and a bunch of bloggers that work, sometimes together, sometimes independently and unintentionally, at keeping a great network of knowledge about all the awesome events that occur on a day to day basis.

Many of these - this is my weak link to the topics at hand on this blog - are very transit accessible events and other such things.  Here is my list so far.  If you know of any others please leave comments with the respective blogs and I'll make a follow up entry to add them to the list.

• Beer & Blog
• Vanportlander
• Portland Music, Art, Events, Entertainment, Sustainability | PDX Pipeline
• Portland is Awesome
• Dave Knows Portland
• Silicon Florist
• Idea Whiplash
• Metblogs
• Technopaulity
• Simplicity
• Fast Wonder Blog
• Willamette Weekly's Blog

That's all I got for the moment... I gotta add some more, so definitely add to the list.

If you haven't seen it, bounce over to Al's Blog and take a view.  Very weird, very campy, but it is rather hilarious.

Another reasons to NOT make TriMet free, the hot chicks won't be riding anywhere the hoodlums and bums start riding the system in even larger numbers.  The "hotties" dissappear after about 6/6:30pm anyway.  There IS a reason there are a decent number of attractive women riding TriMet's services, but they'll dissappear if the stinky, smelly, homeless droves make MORE routes their "sleeping quarters".

I digress, a recent comment just has me riled about "free transit"!  It makes me sick, and concerned that Portland might one day go for such an absurdity.  I'll be one, for sure, that'll start driving in a heart beat if they make everything fare less.  I already get perturbed enough at many of the rather disgusting people that go riding about after the civil working persons are home for the day.  It's bad enough that these "other" people in fareless trade drugs, puke, spit, and otherwise desecrate the TriMet Vehicles, impose their persons upon others, reek of putridity, and generally decrease TriMet ridership after 6pm"ish".

Without a fare, they'd run rampant further out than would be remotely reasonable.

What gives I ask?  Hello America, let's get with the program, somehow, someway.  We HAVE to get more involved, our country is about to run itself into the ditch on non-productivity.

The Chinese have opened their first high speed line, 217mph, 75 miles long.  How many miles of track does the US have that can be used for 217mph?

ZERO!

Yesterday I biked it to work as I have been for weeks now.  Except today I rode the old trusty Streetcar & #35 into the office.  On the way home I hit up the #35 as always, but transferred downtown to the MAX to PGE Park.  From there I just walked the rest of the way home, all of a mighty ten minutes.

The MAX, was ridiculously packed by the time it reached Pioneer Square, and by the time it reached PGE Park barely anyone else could physically fit in the thing.  I'm glad they bumped up the frequency, but the plain and simple is, we need even MORE MAX service to meet demand.  I wonder if the increased prices in a month or three will defer some of that?  I have serious doubts since gas is still so high.  Even if it dropped to #3 buck a gallon averages I think we'll still see a large percentile of the increased usage just stay the same.  i.e. I think a lot of the people using transit now are just about done with the whole driving mind set.

Over the next couple of week, leading up to the move from north west Portland to south east Portland I think it will be transit only for me.  I need fixin's for the ole bike and with all the boxes packed with stuff it is hard to get at the tools.

We' definitely (Joleen and I) looking forward to getting over to the south east.  For me, I'm somewhat happy with the idea that we won't be immediately downtown, which is weird since I've always wanted to be right smack downtown all the time.  In Portland though, the thing with the east side, is all the town centers and local neighborhoods are so much more "Portland" than downtown I've come to find.  10 Years ago downtown was definitely "Portland" but now it is more "mini-San Jose" or "mini-San Diego" than it is Portland.  As I've fussed about in the past, Californication has killed a ton of charm the city had.  For an example, just go fumble around the Pearl.  Tons of nice people, great neighborhood, but just not really Portland.  Eventually it will integrate I suppose, but for now it is pretty disparate in regards to the rest of the city.

But I digress, I'm heading over to the south east and am looking forward to it.  I might get a few more notes, thoughts, or ideas about the Streetcar to #35 route I take now, but I'm not holding out for anything new on that front.  I will have some opinions I'm sure of the #9, #19, #17, #70 and the #4 which I will have immediate access to upon leaving the north west.

Take the MAX shopping.

Enjoy views like this while shopping.

...and go home in relaxation.

...sometimes I forget how simple it is to just relax, enjoy, and be in Portland.  It's really like no other city in the US - by a long shot!

The trip starts out, sometimes with the Streetcar, but 90%+ on the bike.  The streetcar just takes way too long to get me to south west Portland.

Future streetcar path down south waterfront.  I can't help but wonder how hard these residents will fight to prevent it or if they'll be for it in the end.  The residents that don't like it could easily be replaced with residents that love being near the streetcar in short order.

More future Streetcar right of way.

This bridge, currently having been built by private enterprise, will in the future become a tax burden for us all.  I would guess, in today's dollars, they'd spend at least 2-5 million dollars on a bridge replacement here.  Realistically I wouldn't be surprised to see overruns in today's dollars approaching 20-35 million for this short stretch.

Flowers en route.

The same bridge as before, different angle.  About 80+ years old and it STILL actually carries a streetcar, just not the Portland Streetcar.  Needless to say, it was built to last (before Government involvement in the builders business, if only they knew how hard they'd be stabbed in the back by the monopolistic actions of the Government and the polylistic actions of the auto industry.  Egos die hard, they'd have still built it.

Someone's noble dog, checking out his domain.

en route flower.

en route rocks along the way.  I'm guessing for water run off and erosion prevention.

Naturally placed rocks and flowers.  I think.

A look back at the city, South Waterfront is a rather interesting new site from this vantage point.

The pill hill aerial tram.  I still haven't heard anyone call it by its official nick names.  I still hear frequently things like "sperm move", "waste of money", "what the #$%^ is that", and other such things from tourists and locals that just don't frequent downtown too much.  It really makes one wonder how much public input really went into it or if it was more a special interest effort on the behalf of a few people that just had a few pushers?  hmm, pill hill, pushers?  Naw, couldn't be a connection (and yeah, I'm being sarcastic in my question, I know who, why, and how they built with the current budget breakdowns - Just being a smart alec)

Someone's dog having a good old time playing the age old game of fetch.

I've arrived at work at this point and look back, as I cross the right of way, down the tracks of the Willamette Shore Trolley.

So Mr. BMW just tears out of the garage even though me and several other people were ALREADY out in front of him on the SIDEWALK!!

This is how close he got to me...

...and without a word, and apology, or even really noticing he almost just slammed into several people that were ALREADY on the sdie walk ...  he just drove off.  As with guns, I don't think it is the person viewing the gun that should be responsible for preventing being shot, the same goes for automobile drivers.  It is primarily their responsibility, however it doesn't hurt that pedestrians watch out too.  Just like you shouldn't stand down barrel of the gun.  So maybe we could start enforcement on that premise?

...and a shot of his cowardly ass running away.

I wont' say this much, but this guy epitomizes a33holez.  Meanwhile, but to our regularly scheduled transit chatter.