Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Trimet bus ridership continues to climb

The pattern continues, bus ridership gains MAX stays flat. It's interesting because back in 2012 when TRIMET  pretended there was a financial crisis they used that opportunity to reconfigure the Trimet system forcing many bus riders onto max. (The former 67 for example no longer went to Beaverton TC for transfers  or even the NW 17 bus which used to travel down the transit mall was ended making it impossible for residents of NW PDX to get down the transit mall on any other mode but MAX)

TRIMET also tried to break bus service into two distinct categories, 'frequent' and 'other'. One has to wonder exactly why Trimet officials decided to break the bus service into these two categories. My theory is that Trimet wants to concentrate only on 'peak hour' services and they have  been slowly dissembling all service outside of Portland (buses) for quite a few years  now.

But as we see from last month statistics all this hullabaloo about "frequent" service is just more BS hype as 'other' bus service climbed almost as steeply as as the "frequent".

The fact that MAX ridership has been so flat for so long is curious, until you start looking closely at the MAX. It's been more unreliable than ever and the heavy handed presence of the Amerikan police state alone is enough to make people avoid it.

Trimet has been bucking national trends for quite a few years now when it comes to ridership. It's my opinion  that ridership is of no concern to the Oligarchs.

 Trimet has lead the way from transit agencies actually traditionally  providing transit to people that need it but rather  instead Trimet caters to property developers and land 'use' priorities.

This shift in priorities accounts for why Trimet bucks the national trend, Trimet is no longer really interested in transit but in property development.

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