You'd think that if the same problems happens over and over Trimet could fix it

Almost sounds like the military industrial complex. Never 'win' the war so the money keeps flowing. In Trimet's case never 'fix' the problem so the money keeps flowing

Lane Jensen considering new weekly radio show

Trimet decides to hold public hearing on its new unneeded fare system AFTER they decided to cram it down our throats

And of course in typical Trimet fashion the hearing is at 9am on a weekday

Gawd love em

Rumors

The latest rumor circulating among Trimet employees is that manager Jay Jackson ran a bicyclist off the road while turning into Center St garage. 

Henry Beasley

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

There needs to be a questioned answered, “What is this union about?”  Are we a lobbyist or are we a member driven organization who protects workers’ rights? 

In the big picture unions are an endangered species and have lost their way.  In the news, we are now on the clock for a decision by the Supreme Court (https://www.cir-usa.org/cases/friedrichs-v-california-teachers-association-et-al/) that could gut the public sector unions.  The very question of union viability lies on its membership, but are we just dues payers or are we a political lobby that has members attached?

Trimet social media team doing a damn good job

And you know that I would not say anything nice unless I really believed it!

OK now Trimet executives,  you're on the right track, keep going, I know its hard for you to include your public but you better go in this direction!

Fund the TRIMET TWITTER desk for all hours that Trimet is in operation. That means a dedicated person on the twitter desk. This is important and will only be more important as time goes on.

The MBTA does it and that system is a disaster right now. 

 Riders need to feel like they  count (even if they don't).

Trimet max crash

And we have the audio HERE!

Joys of Public transportation

Stay classy @trimet route 72 riders, stay classy. #BusArt pic.twitter.com/S3QgRsZ8Jq

— Kole A Myrick (@KoleBigEars) January 20, 2016

HIT BY A BUS

Todays Trimet rail fail

LOOK BOTH WAYS pic.twitter.com/kevq6kG2Lk

— PJ (@__P__J) January 20, 2016

TriMet accident with car on SW Jefferson/19th blocking both ways. @ABC @NBCNews @FoxNews @CBSNews @breakingPDXnews pic.twitter.com/YRcfwFsGX9

— Ryan Manis (@rpmanis11) January 20, 2016

Trimet bus 15 standoff

https://youtu.be/zBByv8WXAyE

Mcfarlane says he has no money for bus 71 enhancements at the same time he talks about the BRT

This is about the clearest example of the kind of chicanery and distorted factual presentations you will see.

He gets finished talking about a project that will cost hundreds of millions then tells the 71 rider there is no money to improve bus 71

There is always money for capital projects but never money for direct service.

What's wrong with this picture?

Global light rail agenda

All around the country and the world everybody is putting in light rail. 

Do you smell the  "GLOBALISTS"  like I do?

Even in Ethiopia, where people are starving ,they are spending money on this sort of thing!

The Trimet dickhead gives union buster Stedmen a new contract

Make no mistake, Mr Mcfarlane is no pal to the working men and woman at Trimet. He knows the kinds of tactics that Stedmen uses and he fully supports that and so does that board of sock puppets.

Pathetic

Trimet director Prosser....Does he really care

I've been watching these board meetings for years. (one of the few that does) Director Prosser seems a little different from the other directors on that board. He does seem to have some kind of actual conscience, this isn't the first time that he seemed to be genuinely moved. If this is his "act" he is one of the best I have ever seen. Remember, Prosser was also a career technocrat and is now living on a government pension, something pretty big, not as big as Warners (which is 10k a month). And all these career technocrats are pretty self absorbed, ego maniacs. 

Does Prosser actually care?

What happend to Jonell Bell?

I saw nothing about Jonell's departure from Trimet which was a little surprising but after a internet search I found out what happened to him.

I liked this guy

 

Will ATU survive?

The US Supreme Court seems to be poised to make the entire country a so called "right to work" country. From what I have been reading, in both mainstream and counter culture media the smart money is betting on the court to end compulsory dues.

I consider myself pro union 100%. I know that without unions the working men and woman of this country will be completely helpless to the will of the employer. There will always be someone who will do what is considered "unskilled" for less than you do. 

It's a documented fact that workers represented by a union receive pay at a higher rate than workers doing the same job without a union

Unions were largely responsible for all the gains in the graphic below

Truth!

Bruce Warner shuts down Ben Fein

Tireless activist Ben Fein

 These board meetings are about as "vanilla" as it comes. No debate, no excitement, no disagreements. Everybody is one big happy family over there. Trimet management gets up there and tells the board how wonderful they are and the board showers accolades on them.
 It's very rare for any sort of disruption to happen at these staged events which function as a pep rally for Trimet and where they hand out millions to the insider contractors for all the capital projects that go through Trimet

Randy Stedmen got up in front of the board of puppets to proclaim that his employee was BEING ABUSED  by the Trimet retirees.

It happens to be a lie. Stedmens claim to fame is his skill as a union buster. He will do anything in the form of retaliation if it causes distress for the union employees.

Ben called that out and true to form the head of the sock puppets Bruce Warner would hear nothing of it.  

These people control everything and the rest of us have to put up with it. When will Portlander's wake up to the reality of the selfish  lying technocrats that run the Portland transit agency called Trimet?

One city realized that fare evaders should not be treated like criminals

Come on "progressive" Portland, a city in Texas has higher ethical standards than a city in  Oregon?

Austin Metro realizes that the fare evasion fines were abusive and lowered them Your move #trimet End the madness pic.twitter.com/xhD3HvOcnE

— AL M (@AlYourPalster) January 15, 2016

Board of labor delays decision on challenges to ATU757 election

The US Department of Labor has delayed it's final decision about the last ATU757 election.

We will now have to wait till the end of February to find out if the election will be final or thrown out and a new election ordered 

Why I am against Trimet BRT

Powell residents can look forward to years of mayhem

Anybody that reads any of the material that I put out knows that I am 100% against Trimet capital projects and there never ending quest to expand the Trimet empire no matter what.

In 2011 I had the capital projects roster and what you see when you look at that is $10 million a year going to keep people employed in that department. I imagine that the roster has grown since then but that is the last information I have available to me. 

$10 million dollars a year is the equivalent of 100 full time bus drivers. 

Great twitter discussion with Brian R

Twitter is really my preferred social media. I consider myself an information junkie and Twitter is really the place to hang if you are interested in information. You can see literally millions of different feeds with  each individual  disseminating  information of some sort. There is a small group of transit tweeters here in Portland that get into some pretty lively discussions. Below is one I had with one of my favorite twitter pals and it covers a lot of Trimet ground

More meaningful Trimet statistics

Thanks Lane Jensen for analyzing the data

His analysis is a more accurate picture of Trimet delays

Trimet's wonderful schedule improvements

More Neils bullshit