http://trimet.org/alerts/mlkservice.htm#
A rant is coming soon on this...I just need to find the time to write it up.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
61,500 Free Rides Last Saturday Night
Hey, TriMet....think of how much higher that number could be if you gave buses extra late night service too on New Year's Eve.
Neil says Happy New Year
My best wishes to everyone at TriMet for a happy and successful new year. I hope your holidays were grand.The new year brings a chance to refresh the work we do, and how we do it. Certainly the coming year's budget challenges will require it -- but thinking anew is part of what each New Year milestone should bring us.
I continue to appreciate the challenges put in front of us in the 5 year strategic plan -- and know that if we succeed in those areas -- we'll be doing well. Recall the three major areas:
- Focus on the customer (including safety and excellent customer service)
- Ensure Financial Stability (not just a balanced but this year -- but a future of balanced budgets ahead of us)
- Partnerships for Transit Growth -- this is how we have built TriMet into a national model -- but more is asked of us every day.
I'm looking forward to the year ahead and working with all of you on this plan.
Again, happy new year to you all.
Neil
Again, happy new year to you all.
Neil
Wait a minute...TriMet...a national model? Since when? Do remember, Mickey, we never were #1.
Disturbing News
319 people died while traveling on Oregon roads in 2011; that's two more than 2010 and the first increase since 2005. Another bit of preliminary data shows that 15 people on bicycles were killed last year — that's a 114% increase from the seven lives lost in 2010 and it ties the highest bike fatality total since at least 2003.
Oregon roads claimed 319 lives in 2011: Bike deaths more than doubled | Bike Portland
A Must Read
Many of them will sit there for hours, waiting for a bus that never comes, but convinced they left the oven on in the apartment they haven’t lived in for sixty years.
"You can't rely on rational arguments with dementia sufferers," Richard Neureither from a home in Duesseldorf told TV station NTV. "You have to enter into their reality."
We REALLY REALLY want this bridge and these are all the reasons we should have it!
Apparently funding the Columbia River Crossing is high up on the Oregonian's list of resolutions for the 2012.
Their number one argument is freight and a linkage to jobs:
No, the first reason we need a new bridge is to safeguard our own economic health and assure growth -- and to create thousands of new family-wage jobs for years to come. Prosperity is at stake. And no public project can help to jump-start prosperity faster than construction of the $3 billion-plus Columbia River Crossing.
Our hobbled I-5 bridge is at the center of a transportation and trading system that supports one in every five jobs in Oregon. Freight industries using the bridge support an estimated 130,000 jobs at warehouses and distribution centers near the ports of Portland and Vancouver. Truck freight valued at an estimated $40 billion crosses the river every year.
Yet as trucks are slowed, scheduled to less congested off-hours or rerouted around the bridge, ripples of costly delay often are sent through a chain of production and shipping here, domestically and even internationally. This hurts Oregon employers, workers and their families -- and over time could make competitor states look like more promising places to do business. If we let our transportation system -- comprising roads, rail, river and air facilities -- become decrepit and cause delays, we'll threaten our own fortunes.
This conveniently ignores two facts:
- By the project's own numbers, peak hour congestion delays are only trimmed by a few minutes
- The vast majority of the investment in the CRC will go to the benefit of private single-occupany passenger vehicles
If freight is our real concern, then there are many much more cost-effective projects across the region that could benefit freight movement.
Posted by Chris Smith at 8:21 AM
It's simply funny. All these guys out in the media and high honcho jobs of government think they can really do this stuff throwing all this bullshit out to the public and we won't blink an eye, that we won't notice. How's that workin for ya, Boregonian?
Indy to Repurpose Stadium Seats at Bus Stops
http://www.urbanophile.com/2011/12/13/indy-to-repurpose-stadium-seats-at-bus-stops/
This is COOL! I wonder what ever happened to the seats that were in PGE park before it was renovated? Were they reused in the renovated Jeld-Wen Field, taken out as trash, or recycled and reused as something else?
This is COOL! I wonder what ever happened to the seats that were in PGE park before it was renovated? Were they reused in the renovated Jeld-Wen Field, taken out as trash, or recycled and reused as something else?
TriMet Diaries Links of Interest (30-December-2011)
http://trimetdiaries.com/2011/12/trimet-diaries-links-of-interest-30-december-2011/
Some good ones in there. Go explore!
Some good ones in there. Go explore!
Dr. Jeff: Regina’s tale
At this point, other passengers had begun listening in. The beleaguered traveler, whose name was Regina, had a captive audience. As we talked it dawned on her that she had a friend in Portland who might be able to help her. I lent her my phone, and she located him at a restaurant in southeast. “STAY THERE,” she nearly screamed at him. She looked at us. It was clear that she badly wanted to be in charge of this situation, to let us know that she wasn’t some loser from San Jose who couldn’t figure out what to do in our little burg. We’re Oregonians, though, natural-born helpers. And, we were transit riders, and transit riders stick together when the chips are down.
The Police State in Full Gear
Two cops were standing behind a man seated on the concrete. The man’s legs were stuck straight out in front of him. His hands were cuffed behind his back. There was a cop hand on each shoulder and a cop knee on each side of his back. In other words, a perpetrator was being immobilized as part of an arrest. He must have resisted arrest, or why the heavy force? But he looked about as strong as your average wasted junkie and positively breakable under the control of the two cops.
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