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So you're proposing they stop doing capital projects? Like buying buses, maintaining the damage the buses do the roads, maintaining the rails, expanding bus projects or light rail projects etc?
Adron - we all know that Capital Projects is nearly 100% focused on MAX, MAX, MAX, and MAX. Okay, a little of the Portland Streetcar, and WES.
Procuring contracts for bus replacements does not require a dedicated team of over 100 employees, in their own offices, that include architects and engineers. TriMet does not deal with road maintenance. "Maintaining the rails" is not "capital projects" but operations. And TriMet simply has not expanded bus service in the last 15 years.
So in that case, I agree - it is an entire department that needs to go. TriMet needs to focus on the basics. Just as you cite that maintaining the rails is crucial - so is maintaining buses. Buses have a 12-15 year lifespan; TriMet is running 23 year old buses. Maybe TriMet should have not rebuilt all of the Type I LRVs, nor installed A/C in them. Maybe TriMet should let rail slow orders go on for five or six years, before they get around to replacing them. Maybe broken TVMs should be allowed to be broken and simply patched up. This is what happens to the bus system - there is no excuse whatsoever for TriMet to be running 1990-1995 era buses - especially when these buses make up one in four buses in the fleet; the 1997-2000 era buses should likewise not even be on the roster, or should be relegated to nothing more but reserve vehicles used only when TriMet is short its regular fleet due to mechanical issues or things like MAX breakdowns.
When buses are sent on the road with duct tape to make a repair...are we in Portland, a city that prides itself on transit, or are we in a third world country? Ride a bus, and you'll wonder.
In the Fred Hansen era a dream took hold of Trimet. That dream was where every Whole Foods shopping, bike riding, smart phone surfing, dedicated green, middle class hipster would park the Prius and would hop on board the futuristic MAX and live a carefree light rail life for ever more.
Unfortunately, it meant not replacing buses as had been promised. But, hey, only poor people use the buses. They don't mind dirt and squalor. And maybe we can retire from Trimet before the piper has to be paid.
But this Portlandia dream of the nineties got terminally ill in the Great Recession. So, the MAX acolytes are just starting to replace the oldest bus fleet this side of Guatamala (and that may be a disservice to Guatamalan transit.)
5 comments:
So you're proposing they stop doing capital projects? Like buying buses, maintaining the damage the buses do the roads, maintaining the rails, expanding bus projects or light rail projects etc?
That would be nice, to actually concentrate of what they are supposed to be doing, which is making the transit they have run properly
Adron - we all know that Capital Projects is nearly 100% focused on MAX, MAX, MAX, and MAX. Okay, a little of the Portland Streetcar, and WES.
Procuring contracts for bus replacements does not require a dedicated team of over 100 employees, in their own offices, that include architects and engineers. TriMet does not deal with road maintenance. "Maintaining the rails" is not "capital projects" but operations. And TriMet simply has not expanded bus service in the last 15 years.
So in that case, I agree - it is an entire department that needs to go. TriMet needs to focus on the basics. Just as you cite that maintaining the rails is crucial - so is maintaining buses. Buses have a 12-15 year lifespan; TriMet is running 23 year old buses. Maybe TriMet should have not rebuilt all of the Type I LRVs, nor installed A/C in them. Maybe TriMet should let rail slow orders go on for five or six years, before they get around to replacing them. Maybe broken TVMs should be allowed to be broken and simply patched up. This is what happens to the bus system - there is no excuse whatsoever for TriMet to be running 1990-1995 era buses - especially when these buses make up one in four buses in the fleet; the 1997-2000 era buses should likewise not even be on the roster, or should be relegated to nothing more but reserve vehicles used only when TriMet is short its regular fleet due to mechanical issues or things like MAX breakdowns.
When buses are sent on the road with duct tape to make a repair...are we in Portland, a city that prides itself on transit, or are we in a third world country? Ride a bus, and you'll wonder.
Public money sponge.
HB
In the Fred Hansen era a dream took hold of Trimet. That dream was where every Whole Foods shopping, bike riding, smart phone surfing, dedicated green, middle class hipster would park the Prius and would hop on board the futuristic MAX and live a carefree light rail life for ever more.
Unfortunately, it meant not replacing buses as had been promised. But, hey, only poor people use the buses. They don't mind dirt and squalor. And maybe we can retire from Trimet before the piper has to be paid.
But this Portlandia dream of the nineties got terminally ill in the Great Recession. So, the MAX acolytes are just starting to replace the oldest bus fleet this side of Guatamala (and that may be a disservice to Guatamalan transit.)
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