Most CRC opponents I know of do very much want to do "something", starting with a local multi-modal arterial connection. What they don't want to do is build a giant project, the most expensive in our region's history, that creates as many problems as it purports to solve.

"But no, they cling to their vision of a car-less, highway-less greater Portland."

Who, with any kind of actual political power, is promoting such a thing?

The most I've heard from local politicians, when using the phrase "car-free" (if at all), is the desire to structure the city in such a way that car ownership is not a de-facto mandate. That means the promotion of alternatives, and not over-investing in car-centric designs.

So please drop the hyperbole. Thanks.

Because it doesn't differentiate between low and high volume streets without specific bike infrastructure, it will send you down Hall Blvd in Beaverton rather than Main St., for example. This is fine except for the fact that the bike lane on Hall disappears at Allen.

I'm hopeful that it will improve quickly, but for now, I'm sticking with bycycle.org

On the other hand, their geocoder is acting up. My destination address ended up blocks away from its actual location, on the wrong side of the street!

My thoughts here.

What innovation occurs at OMSI? Maybe I'm being an academic snob (my kids love the place, and I've got no complaints about its function as a museum), but it isn't, as far I can tell, a research facility. It has an important educational mission, but to compare it to PSU or OHSU is just plain silly. The Oregon Historical Society (which does actual historical research and is an archive for much primary source material) is more "innovative" than OMSI is--OMSI seems to only be part of the "innovation quadrant" because it deals in science--and because it's gonna get a transit line past its front door in the near future.

According to TriMet's complete January monthly performance report (not the abbreviated one on-line) the average originating fare collected was $1.106 while the system cost per originating ride was $4.75. Since some people transfer, the cost per boarding ride was $3.73.

I think TriMet's darkest days are still ahead. The next group of transit projects (streetcar loop, Milwaukie Max, and especially the LO streetcar extension) don't have nearly the rosy prospects that Green Line has, and even it inevitably adds to TriMet's operating deficits. [BTW, about 40% of Green Line's weekday ridership is entirely within the FRZ.]

It's not as if this was a growing movement, though. SMART was formed in 1989, SAM in 2000, and Canby departed in 2002.

Opinions and comments are entirely those of the author and not approved or condoned by TriMet

Wilsonville's a different matter; though when Wilsonville pulled out, it was an employment center with a minimal residential population--at one time sporting more jobs than residents--and it too was separated a bit from the core. Now, it's legit to call Wilsonville a suburb, albeit a third-ring one.

Trimet regularly runs what seems to be poorly planned lines in order to maximize payroll tax revenue, not to serve customers.

Id like to see Trimet limited to regional travel only, and have the counties and/or cities plan, fund, and operate their own routes.

We could have a unified branding, numbering scheme, and fare structure to eliminate confusion.

4. Suburban communities would withdraw from Tri-Met service district.

1. trimet would not be seen as rolling welfare, changing perceptions and expectations of the system in a concievably positive fashion

2. trimet would have more money for rail expansion: existing bus lines could be upgraded to streetcar or light rail, express lines could be added during commute hours, perhaps the downtown subway we all want, etc.

3. unserved suburban areas could develop private or even community- based jitney or minibus services,this sort of enterprise or community organizing could be very empowering in depressed areas

in any case throwing money away on bus lines nobody rides is insanity, perhaps jk would agree with this

Other things I'd like to say:
a.the eastside loop seems stupid, I hope it doesn't sour portlanders on the potentials for streetcars. replacing lines 6, 12, 14, or 15 might have been a better start

b.the green line sould have been elevated over 82nd ave.

What do you suggest raising to make it come out to the correct result of 22.6%

Thanks
JK

What's wrong with this "method" is that it produces results which are demonstrably wrong, and can be proven wrong with just a couple of mathematical sanity checks. If you run around promoting a single-fare price of $8.85, then you're incorrectly asserting that transit costs that much to deliver a complete journey. It does not. Stop spreading disinformation.

So, I just started with Trimet’s number. I have to assume it includes the actual mix of fare rates and captures ALL costs and thus can accurately be used to project these actual costs to a mix of fares that are accurately reflects these actual costs.

If one fare rate is unfairly treated by this method, then Trimet is not proportioning the costs accurately between the various fare rates. (For instance single fares are probably more expensive to sell than yearly passes.) Further if you identify one fare rate that is projected too high by this method, then another(s) must be too low since the total must end up at 22.6%. So any arguments really will come down to which fares are too high and which are too low after my projection - overall they have to be accurate.

What is wrong with this method?

Thanks
JK

No. Come on, JK, this is basic math. Why do we have to go over this again and again every few months?

TriMet's _bus_ operating cost per boarding ride is $2.88. At an average of 1.32 boardings per originating ride, that works out to an average of $3.80 per bus journey.

So, for your scenario, a single fare should be $3.80. If you want to use system costs instead, that comes out to $3.39 x 1.32 = $4.47. You're still off by about double.

And keep in mind that's talking about buses only. MAX has a much lower operating cost per boarding ride. A single-fare MAX-only rider already fully covers the operating cost of that boarding ride, and nearly covers the system costs.

We've gone from you being off originally by a factor of about 4 to a factor of 2. That's progress, I guess.

$8.85 instead of $2.00 for 1 ticket
$88.50 instead of $20.00 for book of 10
$21.02 instead of $4.75 for 1-Day pass
$86.28 instead of $19.50 for 7-Day pass
$168.14 instead of $38.00 for 14-Day pass
$331.86 instead of $75.00 for 1- Month pass
$3650.44 instead of $825.00 for 1- Month pass

Can I take the liberty of shortening this to a simple statement that the full cost of that $2 ticket would be $8.85 and a year pass $3650?

Thanks
JK

ws: Not really...any such oil extraction infrastructure would be cost prohibitive right now. There's actually plenty of available offshore drilling right now -- oil companies aren't going after it because it costs too much to set up.

Americans consume 20 million + barrels of oil a day. Even at its peak, ANWAR would only produce ~1 million barrels a day after refinement. Oil is also a global commodity; it's bought and sold on the global market -- so that does not mean that any such oil drilled in the US stays in the US. Even if we had more drilling in the US, that does not mean you're not consuming foreign oil from corrupt Middle East.

Meanwhile, other nations are trying to be the next America consumption wise w/ way higher populations than us (and our population is increasingly consuming more oil everyday).

So yeah, go ahead and drill away at the scraps. It won't solve much and just delay the inevitable.

Then knock it off. Don't be disingenuous. Make it clear in your arguments whether you're just being contrary, or are arguing something that you actually believe. It's one of the reasons that people get so frustrated with your comments. If you don't like it, go blog somewhere else.

Anthony wrote: "we aren't in Iraq or other "oil-producing nations" because of oil."

Support for this statement? We aren't in those nations, not even a little bit because of oil? Then why, exactly?

If we were, we could just take it--- all of it---

That would be kind of obvious and war-provoking, don't you think?

and there would be nothing anyone could do about it."

Anyone, anywhere? Seems to me that the locals have come up with a number of alternatives for "anything" in recent years.

It's this kind of militaristic swagger that gets us into trouble (and not to mention gets people killed.)

We also have plenty of oil within our own borders that has been locked up by environmentalists for decades--- including the Oregon coast.

"Drill baby drill" has not yet proven to be an effective political message, so at least for the time being, the people (in general) are electing politicians who pledge to protect the environment and our coastlines.

And, based on Al's link: Total cost of Iraq war so far == over 1,400 starter light rail lines (@$500mil) or 7,000 starter streetcar lines (@$100mil) or over 1.2 million hybrid buses (@$600k).

We also have plenty of oil within our own borders that has been locked up by environmentalists for decades--- including the Oregon coast.

Not saying the oil economy doesn't have its problems--- but oil is definitely not scarce enough to go to war over... yet

Thanks
JK

Either you believe this now (and it would be just nifty if you could explain this shift in positions), or you're making an argument from a position you don't actually believe (without clearly indicating the contrarian, devil's advocate nature of your post), which is something you were warned not to do anymore just a few weeks ago.

You're perfectly welcome to pour over TriMet's annual budget reports. I'm not going to do all the homework. I merely had to show how your original assertion was way off base.

Do you have a complete breakdown of the various fares costs and % of uses of each?

Thanks
JK

COST OF MIDDLE EAST WARS PER MILE
JK: Good point. Especially since buses use more imported oil than small cars per passenger-mile, so we should be encouraging people to move to small cars, not transit.

Thanks
JK

COST OF MIDDLE EAST WARS PER MILE

CLICK HERE

If we assume for a moment that a pass-holder rides round-trip to work 50 weeks of the year and never on weekends (and never for lunch), that still works out to 350 daily round trips using 2.6 vehicles daily (on average), so 910 boardings or a passenger contribution of $0.90 per boarding.

Let's not forget that an Honored Citizen pass is $275 (used to be free when I was a kid), and that the bulk of those riders are not going to be driving around if we gave them cars, and taxis aren't cost-competitive for most trips.

Of course, the cost figures don't reflect all the underlying reasons. Close-in, busy bus lines are generally far cheaper to operate (on a per-boarding basis) than lines serving low-density suburbs. Our region has made the decision to at least attempt to serve a wide area, including low-density suburbs, with basic transit. That requires a subsidy. That's one reason why C-Tran's operating costs per boarding ride are higher than TriMet's, because the areas served are primarily low density.

Bus Passenger-miles=246,091,392
Bus Boarding rides = 66,153,600
Calculate average ride = 3.70 mile

Operating Cost per bus boarding ride= $2.88
System Cost per bus boarding ride = $3.39

Calculate Bus Operating cost per passenger- mile = $0.78
Calculate Bus system cost per passenger- mile = $0.92

Thanks
JK

This implies that actual fare per boarding is 2.88 x 0.285 = $0.82. But the farebox price is $2.00 for a 2 zone fare. Are they really giving away that many free rides?

Only a small part of the difference is due to transfers:
Boarding rides = 49.970.400
Originating Rides=66,153,600
Ratio: 1.32, so, on average, each trip takes 1.32 buses.

Can you give us more details?
On the surface it appears that all they have to do is charge $2.88 per boarding to not require a public subsidy? Why can’t this be done?

Thanks
JK

The report even recognizes that charging people twice would not be an advantageous situation, especially if someone is low-income (which brings up a good point, C-TRAN has a low-income pass where someone who uses/qualifies for other social services could get a further reduced pass, where TriMet doesn't).

IMO, in the 8 years or so I've been familiar with C-TRAN, I've found them very honest and open when it comes to the data and information they use to make decisions such as these. When they did their last major fare increase in early 2005 (the one that established "Premium/Express" fares charged on the Portland Express routes, including their 157, which I forgot on my earlier list), what they adopted was different than even the original proposal and even the consultant's report, after a 2 or 3 hour public hearing and about 3 or 4 hours of board discussion over two monthly meetings.

Be glad that even with the increase, you are only paying a tiny percentage of your actual cost and thank car drivers & taxpayers for the other 80% of your ride’s cost.
Actually, most of the money for C-TRAN comes from their ½% local sales tax. The car tab money went away after I-695 was invalidated but the Washington State Legislature lowered the fees anyway. Someone from Oregon concerned about how they're funded need only purchase lunch there to help out.

I was going to continue regarding the farebox recovery figures and overall cost, however Transit Surfer says the bus I'm waiting for will be here in about 16 minutes and my notebook battery is running down. I'll be back later.

2. Because I specifically singled out buses for this example, not system-wide averages.

There is no denying that public transit, as a whole, is subsidized. That doesn't change the fact that your original example was way off, wherein you had the hypothetical cash-fare teen paying 20% of $10, but the proposed scenario would actually be closer to 80% of $6 or $7.

2. Why does the pie chart at http://www.trimet.org/pdfs/publications/factsheet.pdf show 22.6% funding from “passenger revenue”?

Thanks
JK