This article almost sounds like it could be about TriMet--there are quite a lot of similarities between the two transit agencies.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Punkrawker
Seems while activities in Clark Cnty were busy trying to get the C-TRAN measure to pass, no one educated them on 1125, since they passed it
Election Day
Answer: they want to build light rail, and they can't do it unless they can find some cash. They're determined to have a Portland-style choo-choo, and if Vancouver voters don't approve a sales tax increase, then C-Tran will follow TriMet's lead, and simply begin cannibalizing bus services to pay for rail.
http://maxredline.typepad.com/maxredline/2011/11/election-day.html
http://maxredline.typepad.com/maxredline/2011/11/election-day.html
Oregonian Editoral Board gives a scalding reality check to TriMet's management
A Crash Course in Transparency
View full sizeA Yellow Line MAX train crashed into a barrier at its terminus on Oct. 13 in Portland. With only two people aboard, there were no injuries.Jack Nicholson's haunting line in "A Few Good Men" could well estimate TriMet's outgoing greeting to the public: "You can't handle the truth."
It turns out we can. It turns out, too, there's a difference between Portland and Beijing or Moscow. It's called open government. Transparency. A willingness by tax-supported agencies to promptly release information that is, by its very definition, owned by the public.
The information in question is contained on a video taken by a surveillance camera at the MAX train's Yellow Line terminus at the Expo Center. The video shows a train failing to stop and plowing over its bump post and hitting a concrete barrier before halting. Nobody was hurt -- good news. The train took anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000 in damage -- not so much for an off-the-leash behemoth. Most anything could have caused the mishap, from mechanical failure to operator laxity.
But for weeks this may well have never happened. TriMet declined to announce it and withheld the video despite a request from a media outlet. It took the blogging TriMet bus driver Al Margulies to obtain the video from an unnamed source and post it to his YouTube account for the episode to find full daylight and for TriMet to turn spitting mad about it.
The TriMet explanation is that the crash represented a service disruption so minor as to not warrant mention and that the video constitutes evidence in an investigation not yet completed -- it must be safeguarded until all the facts are known, and to assure that any involved employees enjoy their right to a fair process.
To the presumption that the public's knowledge of the event could only corrupt the integrity of TriMet's internal processes, we say: Not a chance.
In fairness, TriMet says it all along planned to release the video upon the completion of its investigation. And we know TriMet to be bound by a union agreement stipulating the agency avoid negotiating in the media -- a clause that may foster agency fears of being misperceived in making its public announcements.
But the crash-stop happened around noon on Oct. 13, The Oregonian's Joseph Rose reports. It was pertinent at that time to the riding public and the taxpayers who built, own and maintain the damaged train. TriMet and its failures belong to all of us just as its successes, so celebrated around the nation, do.
Margulies was pressured into pulling down the YouTube video and placed on leave. He will be investigated for violating TriMet policy, which we take to mean he will answer a lot of questions from an employer that is irked he dared to share a public document before it was good and ready to do so.
Next time -- this minor crash-stop was the fourth in the agency's history -- TriMet should try this: Tap out a news release on the afternoon of the mishap saying a train overshot its mark, causing a brief service disruption, no injuries and minor repairable damage to the lead car. It should end by saying: The event is under full review, with a report to come.
In most any newsroom, that's just not a big headline. In making such an announcement, TriMet would achieve transparency while serving its goal of not making a sensation of the event before it fully knows what happened. But the episode inevitably blows into something big when it later appears TriMet could somehow be mishandling the truth.
Unvarnished truth sometimes hurts. But when it arrives on time, citizens typically handle it and often gratefully -- our democracy was built upon such reckonings. When the truth shows up late or against an official effort to contain it, however, it can be difficult to know it's even the truth anymore.
TriMet should reassess how it shows accountability to its public and then repair its practices just as easily as it does the dented nose of a train.
View full sizeA Yellow Line MAX train crashed into a barrier at its terminus on Oct. 13 in Portland. With only two people aboard, there were no injuries.It turns out we can. It turns out, too, there's a difference between Portland and Beijing or Moscow. It's called open government. Transparency. A willingness by tax-supported agencies to promptly release information that is, by its very definition, owned by the public.
The information in question is contained on a video taken by a surveillance camera at the MAX train's Yellow Line terminus at the Expo Center. The video shows a train failing to stop and plowing over its bump post and hitting a concrete barrier before halting. Nobody was hurt -- good news. The train took anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000 in damage -- not so much for an off-the-leash behemoth. Most anything could have caused the mishap, from mechanical failure to operator laxity.
But for weeks this may well have never happened. TriMet declined to announce it and withheld the video despite a request from a media outlet. It took the blogging TriMet bus driver Al Margulies to obtain the video from an unnamed source and post it to his YouTube account for the episode to find full daylight and for TriMet to turn spitting mad about it.
The TriMet explanation is that the crash represented a service disruption so minor as to not warrant mention and that the video constitutes evidence in an investigation not yet completed -- it must be safeguarded until all the facts are known, and to assure that any involved employees enjoy their right to a fair process.
To the presumption that the public's knowledge of the event could only corrupt the integrity of TriMet's internal processes, we say: Not a chance.
In fairness, TriMet says it all along planned to release the video upon the completion of its investigation. And we know TriMet to be bound by a union agreement stipulating the agency avoid negotiating in the media -- a clause that may foster agency fears of being misperceived in making its public announcements.
But the crash-stop happened around noon on Oct. 13, The Oregonian's Joseph Rose reports. It was pertinent at that time to the riding public and the taxpayers who built, own and maintain the damaged train. TriMet and its failures belong to all of us just as its successes, so celebrated around the nation, do.
Margulies was pressured into pulling down the YouTube video and placed on leave. He will be investigated for violating TriMet policy, which we take to mean he will answer a lot of questions from an employer that is irked he dared to share a public document before it was good and ready to do so.
Next time -- this minor crash-stop was the fourth in the agency's history -- TriMet should try this: Tap out a news release on the afternoon of the mishap saying a train overshot its mark, causing a brief service disruption, no injuries and minor repairable damage to the lead car. It should end by saying: The event is under full review, with a report to come.
In most any newsroom, that's just not a big headline. In making such an announcement, TriMet would achieve transparency while serving its goal of not making a sensation of the event before it fully knows what happened. But the episode inevitably blows into something big when it later appears TriMet could somehow be mishandling the truth.
Unvarnished truth sometimes hurts. But when it arrives on time, citizens typically handle it and often gratefully -- our democracy was built upon such reckonings. When the truth shows up late or against an official effort to contain it, however, it can be difficult to know it's even the truth anymore.
TriMet should reassess how it shows accountability to its public and then repair its practices just as easily as it does the dented nose of a train.
Portland's darkest moment?
If not, this is close to as low as the Rose City has sunk. What a twisted sense of priorities our town has adopted. Why the so-called civil libertarians and Occupiers aren't making youth violence a big issue is beyond us.
Plan to Speed Bus Traffic Could Be Bad News for Drivers Source: The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/13KxS)
Tilly Chang, an SFCTA planner, said the plan, known as bus rapid transit, would transform the unpredictable 47 and 49 bus lines into something similar to a rail line. Buses would arrive every 3.5 minutes and the trip would be 30 percent faster. Passengers would be able to board at any door. The doors would be level with the curb, in the same way that BART train doors are level with the platform. And traffic lights outfitted with special technology would extend green lights so that buses could fly through intersections.
"I think you get close to the benefits of rail, but with a cheaper technology," Chang said.
Read more: The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/13KxS)
Portland 2nd best city to live car-free in America?
2. Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, Ore.-Wash.
Transit coverage: 83.5 percent (13th highest)
Service frequency (minutes): 7.4 (8th lowest)
Jobs reachable in 90 minutes: 39.9 percent (16th highest)
Walk score: 66.3 (13th highest)
Commuters who bike: 2.23 percent (2nd highest)
Transit coverage: 83.5 percent (13th highest)
Service frequency (minutes): 7.4 (8th lowest)
Jobs reachable in 90 minutes: 39.9 percent (16th highest)
Walk score: 66.3 (13th highest)
Commuters who bike: 2.23 percent (2nd highest)
Portland is such a good place for people to live without a car due to both its public transit system and the ease of walking and biking around the city. The metropolitan area is served by TriMet, which in addition to other services offers a Free Rail Zone — a region that includes most of downtown Portland and where light rail and streetcar rides are always free. The city has a number of benefits for bike riders, including designated bike-only areas at traffic signals and free bike lights. It has the second highest rate of commuters who ride bikes to work in the country.
The best cities to live car-free in America | MSNBC
TriMet MAX video coverup: Why?
Tri-Met sure has created a stir about that video we showed yesterday of the Interstate MAX train crashing at the end of the line at the Expo Center. First the agency denied that the video existed, and then it hassled transit employees who presented it to the public. The agency says it was necessary to keep the footage secret pending aninvestigation, but for three weeks? And it's not as though there's any detail revealed in the video -- it's a train crash filmed from a moderate distance. It's also a public record.
The culture at Tri-Met seems to alternate between secrecy and falsehood. That doesn't create a lot of sympathy for an agency that's woefully insolvent and faces a major shakeout over the next decade or two.
TriMet writing!
This is cool; I just got my first story thingamagig posted on TriMet Diaries this morning!
Go check it out here, and tell me what you think of it. I want criticism so I can make the next one better.
Now go read it! :)
Go check it out here, and tell me what you think of it. I want criticism so I can make the next one better.
Now go read it! :)
News media reports on the MAX video leak
KATU REPORT ABOVE
KOIN LOCAL 6 REPORT
I couldn't get the Fox 12 report, but I'd imagine it says just about the same thing and there is still no sign yet of a KGW report on this thing which is very strange.
Why I posted both of these is because I find it very interesting how one report (I think it was Koin's) just lightly dusted over this whereas the other one (KATU?) at least went into some depth.
Now, had this been some bus incident, there would probably be something close to a media frenzy right now over it, but since this a MAX incident, conveniently, they just dust over the issue and not give it much attention.
I am curious to see if there will even be any media follow up of this, but regardless, we'll hear the whole thing through Al's blog to the end.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)