Bottom line is that, through reduced service, riders are now paying 40%+ more towards TriMet's costs even before the nickel increase.

In principal, I agree with you. But then I had the experience of going to the Portland Art Museum with my dad today. We drove from the area near Montgomery Park to the museum, then up to the Pearl for dinner for Thai food.

This could have all been done with the 15 and 17 or 77, or just the streetcar fairly easily. But buses are not for tourists.

Personally I don't think the bus is the problem. I think it's that the route is too inconsistent. See also the 15 during the recent changes, or even when it was re-routed from NW 23rd to NW 21st for construction.

When I'm in bigger cities I love their subways and things, but I'll admit I've taken cabs because the trains were too confusing. It's just really tough to try to keep track of where trains run, then add in a few bus routes. For a tourist here for a week that's too much work to remember all that.

When freeways and secondary thoroughfares are clogged people drivers into neighborhood streets causing all sorts of problems.

In the Portland region we have an agenda that instead of recognizing the need to move traffic
deliberately cloggs it.

The outcomes are not surprising.

Not suggesting they be catered to--a MAX extension to Cornelius and FG is low on Metro's priority list, despite the existence of a nice convenient ROW that could be repurposed. Bit it would be interesting to find out...

In my personal opinion, there should be no psychological difference between riding a bus and riding a light rail vehicle. Once when I was on a full bus, the driver encouraged standees to move to the elevated section in the back of the bus, followed by a comment of something like if anyone hadn't showered recently and/or seemed threatening, she wouldn't have let them on the bus in the first place.

If drivers don't have reliable ways to get across town in their automobile (a 10 mph streetcar that goes putt putt with stops every other block doesn't count), then drivers will be more frustrated and unsafe when speeds are lowered.

As for bike lockers, they could possibly charge for them and cover the costs. Maybe they could use the BikeLink cards, though those are really for more frequent users. But the issue might be security, as lockers create a hiding place.

Also, I don't know how much of it I missed, as I thought it would be an informal drop-in event like many "Open Houses" are. But I was surprised to see Neil there and leading it. Overall, I think that they are really trying to correct the problem.

And at least for those who aren't elderly, etc (which a lot of the meeting attendees did seem to be) its not like the next serviced bus stop is a mile away down a busy suburban road that may lack sidewalks.

No Dave, that was Jason Mchuff.

That wasn't you filming, was it? If that was you sorry I didn't recognize you. I'm the guy in the green shirt in the background of the still frame. (I had to sneak out early.)

Cameron, Neil did mention that they have other lines that they're considering changes to, and that the review isn't done. When they got to the 15 there was a fatal flaw that they could not manage to fix without a huge liability issue. It may help to bring these up to the TriMet comments email address so they can address them with less inconvenience to riders than happened this time.

Good. Nothing having anything to do with MLR should get any funding.

Hopefully the entire project will hit the breaks sooner rather than millions more later.

And welcome back! But I'm curious what you think PDX could do to improve bike access. Don't they have a bike assembly place now, for those who don't consider their bikes as baggage?

Like line 9 Broadway. A good portion of that route is on NE 27th. This street is your typical suburban backstreet, only line 9 follows it between Skidmore and Dekum, about a mile and a half. And let's not forget that snake turn on Killingsworth. It's not safe.

And Line 28. Sure, that route is less frequent, but it runs on SE 49th, Rockwood and Howe. These are the epitome of Suburban Streets. Look it up on Googlemaps on Street View. It should not host a bus!

And line 152 is a boondoggle similar to this one. It runs to the Challenge Center International, a place needed for the disable to access. Problem is, there is no official stop, the bus goes up a steep driveway into a Plaid-Pantry-Size parking lot, and actually U-turns in that tiny parking lot, and goes back out the driveway. There are plenty more, but too many to mention. There are some real unsafe routings in the system.

Like line 9 Broadway. A good portion of that route is on NE 27th. This street is your typical suburban backstreet, only line 9 follows it between Skidmore and Dekum, about a mile and a half. And let's not forget that snake turn on Killingsworth. It's not safe.

And Line 28. Sure, that route is less frequent, but it runs on SE 49th, Rockwood and Howe. These are the epitome of Suburban Streets. Look it up on Googlemaps on Street View. It should not host a bus!

And line 152 is a boondoggle similar to this one. It runs to the Challenge Center International, a place needed for the disable to access. Problem is, there is no official stop, the bus goes up a steep driveway into a Plaid-Pantry-Size parking lot, and actually U-turns in that tiny parking lot, and goes back out the driveway.

All in all, good commentary. I really hope they will do SOMETHING to the route.

Things I learned tonight at the meeting (I had to duck out early so I hope I didn't miss any) were that the community seems to care about the bus, even if we don't use it much. (Neil even joked that he hopes everyone at the meeting will show up and ride the route once it's fixed.)

A commentator mentioned the Thurman bus needs to be replaced. He was long-winded, but basically said we should extend the current streetcar back up Thurman and replace the 15 altogether. (I believe he was a park ranger.)

It sounds like what happened was TriMet realized they were liable if an accident happened, so they dropped the route to avoid that. It'll be back with flaggers (or spotters, as Neil said he's been told to call them), then a temp solution, then a hopefully permanent solution to the problem that is fully automated (think flashing lights that only are on when a bus is present.)

Overall, I'd give Neil an A+ on the solution, and only a B on execution. There's not much more TriMet could do to continue the route since they were in violation of state law about how U-turns have to operate.

I'm surprised by the turnout.

Not funded:
2 trolley buses for Salem
Bus garage for Yamhill County
Ride Connection home
North Portland Jct rail work
California airport terminal
Eugene airport car wash
Tualatin trail
Hybrid buses for coastal transit

The answer is no.

If this were the 19 through Felony Flats and up Mt. Scott that got black-flagged.... would we be having such an about-face?

Well, at least its "privatized" right, so that actual flagger will get no benefits of course.

That alone should make some of you happy.

instead of expecting people to just use caution around a difficult maneuver or obey a sign, thanks to a concern of frivolous lawsuits and a lack of any expectation of personal responsibility, our society has to go to ridiculous extreme measures... in this case, going to the extent of an expensive labor intensive process of stationing flaggers at the intersection for a bus movement every 20 minutes.

There's a page on ODOT's site which details the applications/selection process:
http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/COMM/CO/COIIIapplicationlist.shtml

Last time I owned a car was February 2009. My wife and I better go buy another! :-)

http://trimet.org/news/releases/aug25-line15.htm

http://blog.oregonlive.com/commuting/2010/08/portland_introduces_new_street.html

"The permit is ideal for the rider who comes downtown two to three times per week and parks two to three hours at a time, “or about six hours of total parking per week,” said PBOT spokeswoman Cheryl Kuck.

At $1.60 per hour, that’s $38.60 per month.

Parking enforcement officers will use their handheld computers to keep track of permit numbers. Riders caught abusing their permit by parking extra hours will be banned from the program, Kuck said. "

That sounds just like the Burnside-Sandy "concept streetcar corridor" highlighted in the Streetcar System Plan: west on Sandy, west on Burnside across the river to 18th/19th and then north to the Conway site. A westerly extension to Montgomery Park via Thurman is listed as a future phase "comprehensive plan streetcar corridor".

http://www.portlandonline.com/transportation/index.cfm?c=49304&a=252726

For comparison--commuting Mon-Fri by scooter, I paid about $30 per month in gas. Insurance is less than $15 per month.