Trimet union members have the richest benefits in the country ...
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| I wonder if TriMet will apply the same essential cost-cutting measures to MAX stations. You know, since they have EIGHT large schedule signs for each stop, plus the Transit Tracker signs...when all they need is one three inch by three inch paper sign with the stop ID number and nothing else. Why spend thousands of dollars having to print up new schedule signs, then paying a guy (at high wages, of course) to drive (using a TriMet fleet vehicle) to the platform to post the signs twice (or more) a year? |
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| This is a seven car Sounder train. Each of its seven coaches can carry 162 riders. That's a grand total of 1,134 riders. Using a crew of just two, using railroad tracks used for dozens of BNSF and UP freight trains and Amtrak passenger trains. That's efficiency. Unlike TriMet's WES trains, that used seldom-used tracks that had to be extensively rebuilt (and now maintained at TriMet expense), whose (sometimes) two-car trains carry the same amount of riders as one of Sound Transit's coaches, using cars that have three diesel engines each in them and whose fuel economy (per car) is less than half that of a bus, but carries only twice the capacity of a bus. A one car train (most frequent mode of operation) still requires the same crew (two) as this seven car Sound Transit train. And unlike WES, Sound Transit's trains serve a very highly utilized transit corridor - Seattle to Tacoma (and Seattle to Everett), not connecting the fourth largest suburb to the tenth. However, like WES, these trains sit parked on the weekends...how many highways are simply closed down between 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM? |
Andre Meunier
George Lamar
