[PLUG-TALK] Re: [PLUG] PLUG meeting

[Brent Rieck]

[hopefully moving this to plug-talk]

On Thu, 2002-12-05 at 23:25, Preston Crawford wrote:
> I like it. I don't think it's a lie to say it's a great system. Am I
> stupid, then, I guess?

No, you're not stupid, but I don't agree that it's a great system,
merely a comparatively pretty okay system.  It is a very poor system for
those that live in the suburbs; Tri-Met serves the close in Eastside and
the (very) close in Westside very well, get beyond that and expect a
bus/max trip to take 2 to 3 times longer than a car trip would (not
counting finding parking at your destination).  7 years of riding the
bus into downtown from Beaverton showed me that.  Even worse is trying
to get from one suburb location to another - my commute from my house in
Beaverton to PCC Sylvania was 1.25 hours (including the 15 minute walk
to the bus station), when I could get a ride that time was shaved down
to 15 minutes.  Even worse than *that* is getting from one suburban
location to another suburban location on the opposite side of town, my
daily commute from Beaverton to beyond the Airport one summer a few
years ago now ate 4 hours of my day, every weekday; by car it would've
only eaten 1 hour of my day.

Poor suburban service (which is admittedly expensive to run) compounded
with the fact that Tri-Met keeps reducing the usefulness of their maps
by making them more and more diagrammatic and less and less
representational (particularly irksome because it's a completely
avoidable issue) making it harder to find out how to get to a location
using the bus, as well as completely different schedule layouts
depending on if you're looking at them online or on paper, poor night
and weekend service, and NEVER being on time, make Tri-Met look just
okay in my eyes.  And I'm the type of person that doesn't mind (that
much) when somebody sits down next to me who's body odor could be
measured in parts per ten, or planning in the additional time it takes
to ride Tri-Met; forget about it for most people.

About the diagrammatic maps: Because their maps are now diagrams rather
than maps I have to use a real map along with the Tri-Met route diagrams
to try and interpolate where the bus ACTUALLY goes and how close that is
to my destination; were I just driving I'd often be there by the time I
figured out what bus(ses) I have to take to get there.

A significant reason for moving to NW PDX was so I could avoid the bus
completely and walk to work downtown.

--Brent