Max Redline

Having spent billions of dollars on little two-car "train" lines and tens of thousands more on efforts to ram a line into Vancouver, Washington, the development agency known as TriMet finds that ridership has declined throughout the Portland metropolitan area.

At a time when mass transit use is on the rise across America, overall ridership on TriMet’s buses and trains saw a 3.2 percent dip during the period between Sept. 1 and Nov. 30, when compared to the same period in 2012.

Broken down, weekday bus ridership was down 3.6 percent to about 193,500 per day, and MAX ridership was down 2.6 percent to about 118,000, according to statistics released Tuesday. (PDF)

What an amazing turn of events; slashing bus services means that fewer people ride, while raising fares - and occasionally going so far as to enforce fare requirements on their little light rail "trains" - means that fewer people actually board. Who in TriMet "management" coulda seen that coming? Obviously, every "manager" involved should be given a raise. That's just how TriMet rolls.
 Impossible!