Portland transit follies are increasingly scrutinized by the local media, something that should have happened years ago when there was still a chance of stopping projects such as the $1.5 billion boondoggle low-capacity rail line to Milwaukie. (The video below shows why it is such a boondoggle.)
Joseph Rose, the superreporter who can walk faster than a speeding streetcar, has found that the fare machines for Portland’s low-capacity rail lines are in service a lot less than the agency claims. Some are down more than 35 percent of the time. Since they give out $175 tickets to people who don’t pay their fare, this can be distressing.
To make matters worse, Rose even more recently learned that the fare machines have been freezing transit riders’ credit or debit cards after they use them in the fare machines. For more than five years, 2,500 people a month would buy a ticket in the machine, and the next time they would use their card, it would be denied. Some people went through this over and over again. What a way to make friends with your customers!
Then there’s the case of the tiny surge protector that blew out and shut down most of Portland’s low-capacity rail lines for 12 hours. Portland opened its first low-capacity rail line 27 years ago and most of the hardware is supposed to last 30 years; perhaps Portland’s maintenance problems are starting a few years early.
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Interestingly, Rose seems to have fallen in love with the word “double-decker,” as in “lies, double-decker lies, and TriMet statistics” or “the double-decker, queen mother of reasons.” I hope he is reminding everyone that double-decker buses, which the Antiplanner has promoted for a couple of years, can do a far better job of moving people than streetcars or low-capacity rail lines.
Finally, United Streetcar–the federally subsidized Oregon company that is making $2 million streetcars and selling the for $4 million because they are “made in America”–delivered a streetcar to Portland for use on the new east side streetcar line. The line opened last year but has been running a crippled schedule because the streetcars promised by United Streetcar are so late and most have yet to materialize. Portland proudly observes that the east side line is “the most expensive streetcar expansion in U.S. history.”
People in Tucson are not so happy. In fact, they are as mad as transit riders waiting for a late streetcar in the hot sun because the streetcars United promised to it in March are now not expected until August. They’ll be lucky if they get a streetcar five months late. Portland’s cars were not only years late, but United arbitrarily decided it would deliver only five cars for the contracted price of six.
Like Portland, Tucson is not only paying United for the streetcars but has been forced to pay a consultant millions of dollars to oversee United’s work. Washington DC has also been caught in the United streetcar scam.
When United Streetcar president Chandra Brown announced that the company was only going to give Portland five streetcars for the price of six, she gushed, “You’re not getting less. I actually think you’re getting more.” For delivering crippled streetcars late or not at all, Brown was recently rewarded with a cushy federal job. Good job, Chandra!
” I hope he is reminding everyone that double-decker buses, which the Antiplanner has promoted for a couple of years, can do a far better job of moving people than streetcars or low-capacity rail lines.”
As long as there aren’t any low bridges. Bath, UK, has a lot of low bridges, and consequently has many articulated buses.
“Joseph Rose, the superreporter who can walk faster than a speeding streetcar,”
I can walk faster than speeding cars, too. At times the congestion in Bath brings everything to a halt.
How would I do it? I’d elevated it using an approach that can do a better job without a dime from the taxpayer. http://www.mist-er.com/home-page.html
Time to go back to the past when transit was privately owned and run and profitable.
“Joseph Rose, the superreporter who can walk faster than a speeding streetcar,”
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The same problem occurred in 1924-1928, just before the depression. The solution is simple, tear out the light rail lines. We did it then and we will do it again, or become a third world nations.
Matt, trashing rail lines dosen’t solve any thing, just as less life boats on the Titanic didn’t solve any thing. :$
Matt Young: The same problem occurred in 1924-1928, just before the depression. The solution is simple, tear out the light rail lines. We did it then and we will do it again, or become a third world nations.
THWM: So if we eliminated all the fire hydrants and closed all fire departments, there would be no more fires, right?
It has apparently not occurred to the highwayman that streetcars and light rail is not even in the same category of necessity as fire stations and fire hydrants.
Automobiles are not a necessity for that matter.