Six months riding Trimet and Counting...

It has been about six months since I moved to Portland, about 3 months since I updated you on my travels on the Trimet System. Last time my travel was pretty straight forward: Take the 54 and 57 to work, then ride MAX, WES and 78 to PCC Sylvania and back home on the 44 or I would ride MAX, the 6, and 44 to PCC. After Christmas, my life completely changed and I am always riding the 44 to PCC and back but my work schedule has me traveling a lot more which you can see from the number of buses I have rode down below.

Here is a rundown of the rail vehicles I have traveled on:

Manufacturer Information:    # In Fleet      #Ridden       Most Ridden and Notes

1986 Bombardier                    26                 23             107 and 116 (7 Times Each)
*The three I have not ridden 106, 119, and 126 I have never seen them either so not sure if they are still in service, being repainted since many of these cars are getting new paint schemes or just missing them.
1997 Siemens SD660              52                 50              245 (4 Times)
2003 Siemens SD660              27                 All 27         303, 308, 309, 314, 325 (5 Times)
2009 Siemens S70                   22                 20              410 (3 Times)
Streetcars                               10                 All 10          7 (4 Times)
Colorado Railcar Power DMU   3                  All 3            1001 (21 Times)
Colorado Railcar Trailer            1                  1                  Once
Ex-Alaska RDC's                     2                  2                 Once Each                                          

Now for the bus fleet:

Year:    Manufacturer/Model    # in Fleet    #Ridden       Most Ridden and other notes:

1990    Gillig Phantom 40'             63?           18            1420, 1422, 1430, 1458, 1459 (Twice)
*Not sure how many of these are actually still running.
1990    Gillig Phantom 30'             43             12            1609 Twice
1992    Flxible Metro 40'              107           47             1738 (4 Times)
1994    Flxible Metro 40'              26             17             1821 (4 Times)
1992    Flxible Metro 30'              10             9               Each one only once
1997    New Flyer D40LF            22             7               2016 Twice
1997    Gillig Phantom 40'             65             50             2139 (5 Times)
*These are buses normally assigned to the 44 Monday-Friday so its no surprise that I ridden them so many times.
1998    New Flyer D40LF            118           33             2202, 2206, 2210, 2246 (Twice)
2000    New Flyer D40LF            60             16             2518, 2526, 2560 (Twice)
2002    New Flyer H40LF            2               0            
2002    New Flyer D40LF            55             38             2632 (Three Times)
2003    New Flyer D40LF            25             16              2715 and 2719 (Twice)
2005    New Flyer D40LF            39             16              2807, 2825, 2834 (Twice)
2009    New Flyer D40LFR          40             All 40        2908 (6 Times)
*Since these are the regular buses assigned to the 54 and 57 and sometimes the 78, its no wonder I was able to ride all them over a six month period.
 

Although I have a very love/hate relationship with low floor buses:: easier to get on and off, faster wheelchair loading, however they loose capacity, are not the comfortable to ride in, and are not that well put together, I will have to say that the D40LFR's from 2009 do seem to making some headway quality wise.

While Trimet may be a bus fans paradise with the large number of Flexible Metro's still around, Trimet  does have an aging fleet and with Flxible having been out of business for almost 17 years now, I imagine that some parts are now becoming difficult to get. Trimet does have 55 diesel buses on order along with 4 hybrids which are coming from Gillig.

While Trimet has many haters out there including many of its own bus drivers, as a passenger I have to say for the most part Trimet has done an excellent job. Only once has there been a bus break down that affected me and that was when I was still riding the 54 westbound and one of them broke down leaving the garage. However, Trimet while the 54 is run out of the Merlo garage on the westside, they pulled a bus out of the Central Garage on the near east side and the bus was only running a few minutes late.

The only other incident actually worked to my benefit. One of the 1992 Flxible 30' Metros was overheating and it caused the bus to run about 10 minutes late which meant I did not have to way 20 minutes for the next bus to arrive.

Drivers on the other hand are a mix bag. Trimet does have some excellent drivers. I have sent in commendations to Trimet on two of its drivers. The first one was a driver on the 54 who is now working the 67. This person has a wonderful personality, knows how to treat customers, and was always a pleasure to ride with. Sadly the replacement on the 54 has not lived up to him.

The other driver I sent in a commendation for was on the 44. This person is extremely friendly with a wise cracking personality that works perfectly for the clientele on the 44. I rode with him a few times when I needed to make trips to downtown before heading to PCC from Beaverton.

There is only one driver I have come close to filing a complaint about. This person shows a lack of personality when you board the bus and this person gives you a look like the driver would rather cut your throat than have you on the bus. This person never says a word, just gives you the dirty look. If a customer asks this person a question the customer is luck if they get a grunt.

I always try to wish the driver a good day, afternoon, etc. when I get off the bus if the bus is not extremely crowded. One time when getting of the bus I gave this driver the standard good day and I actually got a response of the driver!! The driver say "whatever." I guess its better than a something else the person could have said.

I have ridden with this person on a couple of routes so the person must be extra board. Clearly this is someone who needs to find a job where they do not have to deal with the public.

On Tuesday, I had my first encounter of adverse weather conditions on Trimet. Once again Trimet did what it was supposed to do and provided the best possible service under less than ideal conditions. Below is a picture of my 44 to PCC Sylvania on that day.

In fact the bus had to get around several cars that got stuck along Capital Hwy. and SW 49th. The driver did a great job and we arrived at our destination in good time.

In interesting note is that this was my first time every riding a transit bus with chains. The Utah Transit Authority I believe uses chains on its ski buses when conditions are bad but since I am not a skier, I never rode the buses to the ski conditions.

Another interesting note is the bus pictured above is equipped with automatic chains that engage with the flip of a toggle switch. The driver said these buses are the only ones equipped with them. I wonder if these were an add on order from another transit agency (add on orders is when a transit agency adds a bus order to another agencies order to get a better price on buses).

After six months of regularly Trimet, I can say that Trimet does what it is supposed to. Provide the best possible service to the most riders possible with the budget given them. I encounter many people in my travels that want to whine about one thing or another when it comes to Trimet, but overall service does the job it is supposed to.

Is Trimet a perfect agency? Of course not, there is issues that need to be fixed but it does its job well.

Related articles

• Numbers for the geeks... (transitinutah.blogspot.com)
• TriMet: Texting, desire for downtime help boost Portland-area transit ridership (oregonlive.com)

Portland Day 3

Day 3 in Portland was a very busy one. I was hoping to attend one of the morning mobile workshops but they where all filled up but as it turned out I would have some personal business to take care of so it all worked out.

I started off by getting up very early and catching the first route 20 bus to the Beaverton Transit Center. My purpose in this early morning jaunt was to ride WES which is Tri-Mets new commuter rail system from Beaverton to Wilsonville which is the first true suburban to suburban commuter rail system (unless you want to count some of the Conneticut DOT shuttles such as Danbury but thier primary purspose is to connect up with the New Haven to New York commuter trains).

I could have caught the first train after my bus arrived but I wanted to get some OJ but despite the early morning time (6:00AM) there was a good crowd getting off the train and a few people getting back on.

I caught the train that left at 6:28AM. There was a fully seated load getting off and a few people getting on. There is only 3 mid route stations but most of the passengers would board at the last two of those stations which suprised me. By the time we arrived in Wilsonville there was a full seated load. The Wilsonville station is kind of isolated but it does have connecting bus service to the state capital of Salem so many may have been state workers.

WES operates with DMU's (Diesel Multiple Unit) cars made by the late Colorado Railcar. These are the only DMU's that meet the current Federal Guidlines to operate on regular rail lines and fortunately despite the demise of Colorado Railcar another company US Railcar is taking over production.

The WES maintenance facility is located next to the Wilsonville station and I could only see one spare DMU car along with two RDC cars which are 50+ year old DMU's that the private railroads used extensively with the decline of passenger rail service in the 50's and 60's.

Leaving Wilsonville for the trip back we had a half a car load seated which comprised mostly of women which is unusual for commuter rail. However, the numbers evened up by the next stop at which time we had standing room only conditions. There was one lady talking loudly to a couple of friends who took up two seats so no one else could sit down next to her and a guy behind me who I saw later at Railvolution who made it clear no one was going to sit next to him. Some people are just down right rude and very inconsiderate.

The train remained SRO until we arrived Beaverton. I will discuss in more detail WES once I am done traveling.

My first Mobile Workship of Railvolution was in the afternoon and was "Portland's Maturing Streetcar Neighborhood's" which discussed how the Pearl District and its surronding neighborhoods came to be and we had question and answer sessions with one of the architects, devolopers and business owners that made the streetcar and the neighborhood successful.

One of the biggest surprises was the developer responsible for making the Pearl District what is is today was actually a suburban developer originally that is now solely focused on urban development.

Once will do several articles in the coming weeks going into more detail of what I learn at Railvolution and how it can apply to other cities across the nation.

Portland Day 2

Today was spent more time on foot than on transit taking time to check out near the downtown area. I had the opportunity to check out south, west and north of downtown including the Pearl District. However, I did make some trips on MAX and bus service.

Yesterday I missed riding the new Siemens S70 cars (or are they S90's?). These are the newest cars in the Tri-Met system and will soon be in service in Utah. However, today I finally was able to ride them not once but twice.

Riding both the older Siemens low floor cars that Tri-Met purchased for the opening of the westside line back in the mid-1990's and these new cars are better than comparable low floor buses and don't seem to suffer from the same downsides as on the bus side except for lower capacity.

One interesting aspect of the Portland cars is that only one side of the car has a operator cab. Since Tri-Met runs nothing but two car trains due to how short their blocks are, it made since to save the money and increase capacity by doing away with the second cab controls.

Tri-Met is able to save money by not requiring all the controls and electronics that are required in a cab and increases capacity in the car. UTA does not have this option since they can run up to 4 cars in rush hour but at other times can run anywhere from one to three cars. It is interesting to ride in an area that would be a operator cab if it was operated by any other light rail system.

Tomorrow I hope to have the opportunity to ride Tri-Mets WES commuter rail line in addition to going to my first Railvolution event which is a mobile workshop on Portland's maturing streetcar neighborhoods. It ought to be very interesting.