Trimess

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Destroying a perfectly good transit center

Adri on Twitter: "Sunset TC MAX station closure work... #TriMet http://t.co/AoiZg6FmFA"

8 comments:

Erik H. said...

Always money to "fix" broken MAX stuff...never money to fix patently unsafe bus stops that are located in drainage ditches or in street intersections.

Max said...

Yeah, I mean look at the great state of repair the MAX is in right now. It's that unlimited money for fixing the MAX.

Jason McHuff said...

How many of those stops besides ditches are like that because there is no sidewalk? Who is responsible for sidewalks and other pedestrian infrastructure?

Erik H. said...

How is that different than a MAX stop, Jason McHuffandPuff? Seems to me that a transit stop is a transit stop is a transit stop is a transit stop.

TriMet sure paid a lot for:

1. Lighting of the I-205 Bike Path, which is an ODOT owned, operated and maintaned facility,

2. Sidewalks improvements on North Interstate (a City of Portland/ODOT facility), S.W. 5th and 6th Avenues (a City of Portland facility), S.W. Lincoln Avenue (a City of Portland facility), S.W. 17th Avenue (a City of Portland facility)...shall I go on?

3. TriMet sure paid for crosswalk improvements at Gresham Civic Center, in Orenco and other locations along the westside MAX line, on city and county streets...

Hmmm...guess TriMet does accept responsibility when it's a MAX line. When it's a bus line, then TriMet doesn't. What's the difference?

Max said...

The difference is that the federal government is paying. That's where the $ comes for new LRT projects. More power to TriMet if they can (for example) rebuild the bus mall downtown as part of the green line, and get the feds to pay for it.

Jason McHuff said...

And that cities/other jurisdictions can require those improvements be made as part of the construction project, as well as contribute funding along with the Federal money.

Max said...

BTW: If the feds want to pay to build every sidewalk and rebuild every bus stop, as Erik would like - then I'm all for it.

I'd much rather the feds spend money on that sort of stuff than the various wars we seem to be getting into. (to which the orange line is just a drop in the bucket in comparison).

Jason McHuff said...

Couple of other things:
-There at least has been no sidewalks between the Ruby Jct MAX station and MAX yard which many TriMet employees could use. If TriMet was into building sidewalks/street improvements they didn't need to do, wouldn't it have been done there a long time ago?

-Regarding the Sunset platforms, how many people use them compared to the potential use of an improved bus stop in a less-busy area with many more stops along the route to choose from? Also, isn't there sense in maintaining what's already been improved before improving other things that then need to be maintained?