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WES Truck Accident?

adron.nospam@nospam.adronbhall.com (Adron) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:55:00 -0700

Any word on the big headline at www.trimet.org?

“WES Service Disruption

Due to an truck accident affecting the Grahams Ferry bridge in Tualatin, all WES trips for the morning commute on Thursday, July 9, will be served by shuttle buses. Trains are not able to travel along the tracks because of damage caused by the accident. Shuttle buses will serve all stops between Wilsonville and Beaverton Transit Center starting with the first trip from Wilsonville at 5:19 a.m. Riders should plan to add about 20 minutes to their commute. WES service is expected to be on schedule for the afternoon commute.

Updated: 4:26 a.m., Thu. Jul. 9, 2009”

I’d sure love some extra information if anyone has it.

UPDATE: It was really NOT the WES this time. A truck peeled back its top running into the trestle the WES goes over. Truck 0, Trestle 1. It boils down to massive truck driver #FAIL

Green Line Preview Ride on Mall

adron.nospam@nospam.adronbhall.com (adron) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:01:06 -0700

Today I got to take a preview ride on the new mall on one of the new MAX LRVs. Here are a few of my initial observations.

Observations

The new MAX LRVs are wicked smooth riding. The braking, seating positions, and the rear (middle?) bubble positions are awesome. They make for some great views from the ride. In addition to the seating and better braking for a smoother ride, when sitting near the front or rear one can actually see out of the cab now! So seeing where one is going or has been when in those seating positions is possible. This just strikes me as a rather awesome new feature. I like to be able to see out the front of the vehicle. The image to the left is of the rear vestibule area of the lead LRV of our two car LRV train. Click the image to check out the larger available image (along with the others).

When boarding they had a "Not In Service" displayed on the reader boards. This is the first time I’ve ever gotten to ride a MAX while the reader boards displayed the not in service message.

The spacing of the stops I really like. It is a vast improvement over the cramped spacing of the previous bus mall & current Yamhill & Morrison Street stops. We where able to make the whole loop and take a break at the turnaround in 30 minutes. So the length of the mall was easily covered in about 10 minutes, and I’m thinking operations will enable an 8 minute cross town trip. If the rest of the MAX line through town was setup this way, we could get a cross town commute of about 16-18 minutes instead of the current 22+ from Lloyd Center to Goose Hollow. If I ever have to make that commute again, I'd sure appreciate 16-18 minutes versus 22+ minutes. That 4-6 minutes really starts to add up over the course of a week.

The serpentine approach really doesn’t seem to be causing anywhere near as much confusion or problems as I originally had imagined. If anything, with the train & buses in operation the idiot auto drivers actually pay more attention. After hours when the frequencies increase and the mall is often empty, drivers just end up all over the lanes without regard for where they're supposed to drive. I guess, one really can't expect more from American drivers, Portlanders or not. Simple fact is, drivers are intolerably unobservant on average.

Bike

Yup, even on the first preview ride we already have a bicyclist aboard! In actuality probably 30% of the riders on this first ride ALL came to the preview ride on bikes. Most had locked up their rides nearby instead of bringing them on board.

The Ride

We started out at the information store on 6th & Alder. After everyone met up the group walked down to the 6th & Burnside stop to entrain. Once everyone go planted in a seat and checked out the new LRV we had our announcer start providing us some information about the new mall line. She started off with the tidbit of 1.8 miles of track on the mall, and continued while everyone listened and talked. She might have just thought we weren’t! ;)

To the right is an image from the tail end of the train with fellow riders Gabriel Amadeus Tiller, and Jo looking away to ignore the camera. Several other familiar faces where along to enjoy the ride too. If you follow me on Twitter you’ve probably seen my tweet, if not, get signed up.

First we headed north toward the train station and slowed at each stop, as if in service. I grabbed the following shot from the clean clear window, which you can see a slight glimmer of. It is truly awesome to be able to get to the train station via MAX now. Every major mode of intercity transport is now connected via light rail. Train & Plane, the city is now set. :)

As we made our turn to head back south I grabbed two photos of the inside sharp twist of the LRVs. The first here is looking to the front of the train and the second is looking to the back. I must say, I think these are the sharpest turns in the system, I could be wrong but jeez, they are sharp.

This second image with Reid hiding in the turn of the MAX, is of the rear of the LRV set. Through the window you can see the rear LRV twisting sharply through the turn.

We rolled on steady after that as a jovial camaraderie was had by all. With keen observations taking place by the riders one could see the interest and excitement. The rear seats where immediately taken up by a happy quartet of individuals, which grew into a group carrying on with smiles among the entire rear vestibule.

We made our way back to Burnside, past Backspace (grabbed a shot of that later, take a look at the images toward the end of the blog entry). After that short bit we rolled through and uphill to the southern turnaround. There we all stopped for a short breather, I mean, we where all with bated breath from the excitement of being some of the first to ride the new MAX. Dibs right!

While heading south we also came to a stop and waited beside our little flanged wheel brethren the streetcar.

After the short ride back north to our departing stop, we all detrained with the giddiness of a kid with their first lego toy. I think everyone was pretty stoked after our little foray. After that it was time to hit the carts on 5th. Below are a few more shots I caught while walking about.

A angle focus shot of the LRV.

Upcoming Transit News, Streetcar Price Increase, and Maybe Bike Bits

adron.nospam@nospam.adronbhall.com (adron) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:49:23 -0700

Ok, probably not bike bits. I'm just going to stick to riding for a while and not saying anything else about bikes for a bit, especially since people that ride bikes don't seem to actually READ my blog before rambling on death threats and such. But woe is me the ever writing transit user. So yeah, love blogs, hate taxes, on to new topics.

I have a Green Line MAX Preview ride coming up tomorrow, which should be cool. I believe the idea is we’ll make the loop around the Portland Mall on one of the new MAX LRVs. Should rock, I'm looking forward to it. Also Joleen will be joining me after she rides downtown on her bike (yeah, we ride bikes, did I mention that previously?)

More Bike Comments

So any new readers please note that I'm very pro-bike, so don't get fussy (Argh I couldn’t not comment). I love cycling, I have since I’ve lived in Mississippi and even after ALL 6 incidents where a motorist has hit me. All the motorists where at fault btw – just so you know. Two of those have been here in PDX. So I know what it is like to be threatened by automobiles. It's a little different than being annoyed by a cyclists blowing a stop sign. A cyclist might get killed, but if you're driving your greatest threat is the other vehicles (and yourself) on the road, not the cyclist.

Streetcar Bits

Ok, as expected (by me) the new streetcars will be $3.4 Million EACH! That’s a FULL MILLION above the price of the original cars that where shipped from the other side of the planet. We get them in country and they just balloon to $3.4 Million each? I call foul. People are a fuss about prospective bike taxes, they need to get a fussing about the price of the streetcars. I want service, I want frequency, I don’t care that they’re spiffy looking new ones. I WANT MORE STREETCARS but without the obscene stupid price tag. Take out the twisty parts, buy some smaller ones, do something. Sam Adams, Fred, and the rest of you guys come on! GO PRICE SHOPPING for some streetcars dammit! 204 where purchased recently by our northern Canadian neighbors who are paying significantly less than we are. If we piggy backed on that order we could get them for almost a million less per car. In addition we could probably still get something built HERE in America for vastly less money. What are you guys doing? Are you ignoring the price tag on these things and just hoping the streetcars will breed like rabbits or something? Come on!

Bicycles & My 2 Cents

adron.nospam@nospam.adronbhall.com (adron) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:34:55 -0700

Ok, so a lot of people jumped my case for the ad without even thinking it through. They didn’t think the ad through nor did they realize they where attacking a bicycle advocate. So I just want to get a few things straight right off the bat for any current and future readers.

I don’t support bicycle registration, taxes, or any other nonsense of that sort. Period. I’ve already written the politicians involved and they’ve been informed of my opinions as well as other politicians that are directly responsible for the area I actually vote in. I’ve blogged about this in the past, and have debated such many times and even posted pro-cycling blog entries such as my Bike Dedication & Bike Dedication Part 2.
I’m an advocate of closing MORE streets to pedestrian and cycle only traffic.
I’m an advocate to enforce, encourage, and perpetuate that automobile users pay vastly larger sums of their road usage so that competing modes; bicycles, buses, light rail, passenger rail, and anything else can actually compete fairly on a cost & right of way basis. That would be vastly better than the lopsided mis-configured mess the Government has us setup with these days that leaves us; vulnerable to foreign energy, dependent on the dirtiest sources out there (oil/coal/etc), and ill-prepared for future progress of technologies without massive subsidies and the need for Government involvement in said affairs. NOT cool.
I’m also an advocate of using general budget or any other funds to build out bicycle, transit, or other modes to more evenly displace less efficient modes of transport (i.e. cars, etc) in urban environments. Automobiles have had general budget funds dumped into roadways, often dedicated auto only roadways for decades – almost a century, with barely a few percentage points going to any other mode at all.
I’m for laws that hold motorists accountable for actions committed in automobiles as I support laws that do the same for usage of guns, knives, pools, etc. I name those because combined, they kill fewer children per year than automobiles, yet we have almost no laws governing the irresponsible and excessive use of the automobile on rural, suburban, and especially urban roads.
I’m for realistic zoning laws that encourage development based around not bikes, transit, or other modes, but around people. Only zone based on bikes, transit, etc once the necessity for easy human movement between development is fulfilled. The last thing to be considered should be the intrusive automobile. Portland is a great case of well designed (mostly private sector) zoning, human scales, and above all market based human interactions versus Government sponsored walls of Interstate Concrete and mass scale planning (even though some SOWA type environments allude to the continued attempts at Central Planning).
If I had my way 100% though, I’d not have a single cent of subsidy in any transportation industry though; cycling, auto, transit, passenger rail, airline, or otherwise. Subsidies do nothing but unbalance the entire flow and demand, allow society of over utilize and underutilize intelligent lifestyles. It’s really a mess and should be remedied. The solution, more manipulation of the population however is an unfortunate characteristic of what the last 50+ years of politics has left us with.

Is all of this stuff logical? Not always. But it doesn’t matter, point is, I’d go pretty far to create a more bicycle AND transit friendly HUMAN based environment versus the auto centric dehumanized environment most of this country has oriented itself around. I moved 2400+ miles (as mentioned before for regular readers) back out here to Portland from other parts of the US. There was a reason I did this, and it wasn’t because ODOT & WADOT want to build a $4.2 Billion dollar bridge across the Columbia River. It’s for all the exact opposite of those reasons.

So hopefully that lays out this blog’s vantage point and it isn’t mistaken for an anti-bike blog. Bicyclists by their mere efforts. I generally won’t be commenting about bicycling much, but hope some of you keep reading and add to the transit discussions that often takes place here. Thanks!

…and now, back to our normally scheduled topics on transit.

Light Rail Advantages

adron.nospam@nospam.adronbhall.com (Adron) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:22:00 -0700

Recently I wrote a blog entry regarding the advantages of streetcars (pictures added since I published the first entry on streetcars) over other modes of transit, in many ways in regards to buses. In this entry I'm covering why light rail, the larger than streetcar, more interurban, self powered mode. Light rail, since it has similar or lower costs to construct than streetcars has a ton of advantages and they are truly legitimate. With that, here I go…

Legitimate Reason #1

Light rail carries far more people with a mere two car train than either a streetcar or an extended 70' bus. Even a single car LRV can often carry a dozen or more people than a single 70' bus. This mere fact alone creates an efficient solution between needing buses for a corridor, bumping up the throughput, and the next step which would be the major leap to high capacity commuter rail or a subway type system.

Legitimate Reason #2

Over the long term, light rail is easily cheaper than buses to carry passengers in any major transportation corridor. If the ridership on a bus line is peaking out at 10,000-15,000 per day, the move to light rail to handle greater than 15,000 per day.

Legitimate Reason #3

Yes, light rail, like a streetcar system is consistent and thus provides many of the same development bonuses. Transit oriented development built around the stops create a great living, working, shopping, and learning incentive for people to travel along those points without the need for a car or other less advantageous mode of transport.

Legitimate Reason #4

Light rail is easier to maintain at a high quality ride level than comparable modes like buses, BRT, or otherwise. This is especially true with buses that share roads with automobiles & trucking. Trucking does so much damage to roads that buses often equate to horrible ride quality within just a few years of operating in conjunction with trucks on major corridors. Light rail, simply does not have this issue since it is a dedicated right of way, and even in rare instance of shared right of way it sits upon tracks, not the always deteriorating roadway. The tracks do deteriorate, but at a much slower rate than roadways. Some of this could be remedied for buses by better road construction, but that isn't going to happen anytime soon, especially in the United States.

Legitimate Reason #5

Light rail simply costs a TON of money less than comparable bus service over the lifespan of the vehicles. Over a period of 20 years, light rail operations often will save enough money over comparable bus service to exceed that of the original capital costs of the system! With the way our inflationary fractional reserve system works it often recoups the original capital cost in savings in an even shorter period of time around 10-15 years. The money saved after this initial time span grows to exceed 50%. In Portland the original Blue Line cars & original Blue Line, already provide this level of savings somewhere around 2x cheaper than what comparable bus service would have cost.

…and yes, to all those in disbelief, I’ll have the numbers up soon. I have a nifty spreadsheet I’ve been crunching numbers on and have been including a ton of data points.

Legitimate Reason #6

Ok, this is the reason I don't like because it is based on "feel" which generally isn't a good way to measure very many things. Light rail, compared to most modes of transport, is just COOL. Whatever other magic word you want to use could be applied; COOL, AWESOME, NIFTY, RAD, etc. When putting in something like this, that needs a ton of political support, it is vastly important to have the cool factor on your side, regardless of how patently absurd it is.

Legitimate Reason #7

Light rail, just like streetcars, use electrical systems instead of diesel engines (most at least) which create a vehicle with less moving parts, and thus easier to maintain. Over the long term this creates a lower cost of maintenance.

Legitimate Reason #8

Again, as with streetcars, light rail vehicles last a very long time. Often far longer than most types of buses or even streetcars. This in turn, again equates to savings over the long term. More money for operations, additional vehicles, etc.

As always, stay tuned, keep reading and I’ll have the final couple entries in this series of legitimate reasons for mode X up soon. The next in the series is passenger rail, and after that I will get to the oft misaligned work horse, the bus.

10:07pm Portland Night, Recollections of a Busy Day

adron.nospam@nospam.adronbhall.com (Adron) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:30:00 -0700

This was my day a few weeks back, just a quick reflection of a day's transit use. Just thought I’d timeline it to see how it panned out via transit.

Got up for work at 5:25am.
Arrived at South East Grind on Powell at 5:55am via #9 Bus.
Hour of work committed to the code base.
6:55am, Transit Tracker timed arrival, boarded #9 Bus after walking a block down and off to downtown.
Arrived downtown at 7:04am.
Departed for lunch on #9 at 11:42am.
Arrived via #9 for lunch at 11:55am.
Departed for work at 12:40pm, arrived at 1:08pm. It seemed, someone had ran into something and all of Powell was delayed.
Arrived at office and committed some code to the mother ship.
Departed office and jumped aboard #4 north bound. 5:42pm.
Arrived just north of Burnside, 5:45pm. Enjoyed a cup of joe at Backspace.
Departed and hopped to a few places with friends, departed at 9:05pm to the office for backpack pickup.
Headed into office, finalized a few last minute things, headed back out to catch the #9 south bound. Boarded at 10:07pm. Arrived home at 10:19pm.

It was a good day. That is all. Nice 17+ hour day.

NEWS FLASH - Colorado Railcar Lives!

adron.nospam@nospam.adronbhall.com (adron) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:03:19 -0700

via Al M at Rantings of a Trimet Bus Driver! Colorado Railcar Lives!

http://www.usrailcar.com/

To put it simply, US Railcar LLC of Columbus Ohio have acquired the Colorado Railcar DMU & will resume manufacturing. It looks like US DMU Manufacturing will stay local to the country, more American jobs. Now maybe Obama can work with the states, cities, etcetera and get some of these running on lines they should be running on!

…per the article,

“US Railcar to Resume Production of Former Colorado Railcar DMU

Private investors affiliated with Value Recovery Group, Inc. (VRG) of Columbus, OH, have acquired the Colorado Railcar DMU and will resume manufacturing this modern domestically produced passenger train in a new manufacturing facility to be established later this year pending state/local incentives and final round investments. Assets acquired by US Railcar include the former Colorado Railcar DMU proprietary rights and information, manufacturing documentation, inventory, and other equipment necessary for production.

According to VRG Chairman & CEO Barry H. Fromm, “US Railcar intends to reestablish passenger train production in the United States.” Currently, passenger trains purchased in the U.S. today are produced by European and Asian suppliers typically importing 40 of content from overseas. “We want to keep American jobs and U.S. public investment at home,” said Fromm. “There is a major commitment by the Obama Administration and the Congress to make investments in intercity and high-speed rail to promote economic growth and mobility, create jobs, conserve energy and address climate change. This opens a new era for passenger trains and railcar manufacturing in the United States.”

US Railcar, LLC will be led by Michael P. Pracht, its President & CEO, a rail industry veteran with extensive past experience at two of the world’s leading rail transportation companies, Siemens and Ansaldo. US Railcar will manufacture both single- and bi-level Diesel Multiple Units (DMUs) which are self-propelled railcars eliminating the need for more costly locomotive-hauled push/pull trains in lower density corridors. Both platforms are fully compliant with existing Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) safety standards for crashworthiness as established by Department of Transportation and approved for immediate use on the national rail system.

Unlike European & Asian DMUs, the US Railcar DMU can operate in all mixed-mode freight corridors throughout the country without waivers and/or temporal separation agreements currently required for non-compliant foreign platforms. “There are extraordinary growth opportunities for passenger rail development,” said US Railcar CEO Mike Pracht. “The US Railcar DMU will enable new cost-effective passenger rail service across a range of corridors and routes, all with a proven, existing equipment platform already in service.”

The US Railcar DMU was prototyped through a demonstration project in 2002 and is currently the only FRA-compliant DMU operating in revenue service in North America. Available in both regional and intercity configurations, the US Railcar DMU is uniquely suited for incremental corridor development at speeds from 79-to-90 mph. Platform enhancements currently anticipated include a diesel-electric upgrade, increasing speeds to 125 mph, making this American-made DMU the ideal solution for both mature and emerging passenger rail agencies around the country.

VRG is an asset recovery and management firm that specializes in asset management, advisory and asset recovery services for state and local governments, commercial banks, private investors and several federal agencies, including the FDIC. VRG also manages a brownfield remediation and redevelopment partnership and serves as consultant to advanced energy programs for state and federal agencies. More information about Value Recovery Group can be found atwww.valuerecovery.com.”

Should Bicyclists Pay a Road Tax? Measured and Tallied

adron.nospam@nospam.adronbhall.com (adron) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:26:00 -0700

I was bursting at the seems wanting to talk about this ahead of time, but one has to respect timing! The company I work for Webtrends, has produced an advertisement campaign to kick start a conversation that has often come up on Portland Transport, here, and other transit related blogs in the City of Portland. Webtrends will be providing analysis to this campaign across the web to show the power and strength of effective analytics. As Jascha Kaykas-Wolff our VP of Marketing has written,

“What we are really advertising is our strength; the power of our products. The ability to measure conversations whether they happen on your site (visit pdx.webtrends.com for more details) or off your site (social media) regardless of the topic.”

Web analytics has a way of expanding our knowledge about marketing, sales, and business related information, but it also has the ability to expand our knowledge about ourselves. It represents accuracy in our social existence beyond the simple interaction of business. So the question now is, how will citizens of Portland represent upon the blogs, Twitter, and the sundry of great website available throughout the city? I'll bet pretty well considering Portland's connectedness.

Personally I'm stoked to have a connection between one of my amateur fascinations and actual professional work. I look forward to the City's results, as measured by Webtrends. :) Now some of my regular readers might think – oh great, they'll do this study and the data will just disappear! Oh contraire, in will be collated and crunched and put together to properly correlate appropriate causations and be open and via the site available here: pdx.webtrends.com.

Hope you transit riders (and, walkers, drivers, boaters, flyers, ferry boat riders & cyclists) will join in and add your opinion to, "Should cyclists pay a road tax?".

ADDED CONTENT: IMHO, great link regarding road costs & fees/taxes.

Transit Beer… Becomes Transit Meetup.

adron.nospam@nospam.adronbhall.com (adron) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:09:44 -0700

Food, Grub, Tasties, Eatin’s, Discussion, Conversation. Flanged wheels, rubber on road, combustion based, electric induction, forced induction, passenger count, throughput, ROW/right of way, and more, we’ll discuss it all and get to the bottom of mysteries and ask all the right questions. First point of business, I’m gonna change the name of the Transit Beer meets to merely Transit Meetup. So newcomers will have the appropriate connotation that we discuss transit, eat some food, and then maybe drink a few beers. It’s all up to the attendees!

For anyone that wants to swing in, we have this meetup and there is no official meeting minutes, no beauracratic organization, this is just a get together and ramble on about transportation topics. So don’t be intimidated just come and meet some of your fellow transit riders & add your 2 cents to the conversation.

So make a note and put it on your schedule; July 18th is Transit Beer #5 (is that right, are we on #5?)

We’ll plan on a meetup at about the same time we usually do, kicking off around 7:00pm, and I’ll probably arrive at the destination an hour early.

Now for the BIG BIG question. Where should we hold this Transit Meetup? We’ve been to downtown south west, downtown north west, and just on the east side in the north east. We’ve also hit the south east along Powell. So the options are wide open. Throw some suggestions in!

Pot Rider's Bus #9, Domestic Dispute Blue Line MAX…

adron.nospam@nospam.adronbhall.com (adron) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 22:19:34 -0700

…Smooth Riding #75, Melting Pot Americans, and Bumpin' Gresham. Read all about it! Read all about it!

I've been digging through tons of history on streetcars, specifically Portland's, light rail, ridership numbers, and more. To put some of this mess together I figured I would head out to my thinking place. If you've read my past entries, you know that is pretty much any transit vehicle to somewhere. Something about traveling and thinking, working and seeing, all this while the world goes by just makes things that much more.

#9, Yup, The Number Nine, Bus Number Nine That Is…

With that I was out the door and bound for some random adventures. First I jumped the #9 east bound. When I boarded the bus it was an intriguing smell of pot, lots and lots of pot heads on the bus. I honestly don't think I had seen such a concentration of pot heads on the bus ever. There must have been 14 people all in the rear of the bus, reeking of pot. Not that this bothered me, I find the smell much more pleasant than a rank nasty cigarette any day.

At 36th, or maybe it was 37th, the pot cloud floated off the bus, along with a few others. The entire slew of hot young ladies that happened to be on the bus then got off just past 39th. At that point the bus had gone from all seats filled and standing room only, to only about 15 people left on the bus. This however, is what usually happens on the #9 during non-commuting hours. Then around 82nd we bulked our rider count right back up to about 30+. This bus, needless to say, is a high rider count, efficient, timely, well scheduled, rocking bus route.

The #9 Melting Pot. If there was ever a bus route that really showed America at it's finest, the #9 is definitely that route. With Spanish, Mexicans, Portuguese, German, African Americans, Africans, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, French, and even some Indians and American Indians riding at any particular time one can really get a cross section view of this nation's people. For most white people its probably scary, since so many still don't know squat about the other 50% or so of our population, but I find it rather endearing. At any particular time I've seen someone from the nationalities or continents I mentioned, and I've talked to more than half of them. When it comes down to it, all of these immigrants are the only thing that keep this country together. In all honesty the 3rd and 4th generation Americans have really gone to crap for discipline, seeking opportunity, and other positive traits.

At 98th & Powell the ride ended, I had not checked and ended up on a bus that only went that far, my intention was to go all the way to Gresham. Oh well, I jumped off and took a good view in of the Powell Street Garage. A rather large place, with a pleasant enough and plain entrance. I walked out front to the bus stop, and checked the bus time. 9 minutes, I pulled the laptop out and finished up a paragraph and a unit test for the application I'm building.

The sun was blinding in the west, which was making it impossible to see down Powell for the approaching bus. With the laptop out I got a little paranoid I'd miss it, especially with a bus coming into Powell Garage ever minute or so. I stowed the laptop away again and prepared for the bus's imminent arrival.

Leg two of the trip started on a bus that was packed full. We had at least 2 standees already, however I immediately was able to catch a spot in the back of the bus. I plopped myself in that corner and started hacking away.

The driver was on the horn calling in a missing something another. She had a friendly repertoire with the lady missing the item and continued driving. As we rode past the skate park I couldn't help but notice about 50+ kids out riding, skating, and generally shredding the park. To me that's awesome, as I spent most of my youth and am again working toward riding some vert & at least street again. If you aren't aware of what vert or “street” is kit Google for some searches on BMX, Freestyle, and Bicycles. You'll be able to dig up some cool stuff. Same for Youtube, there are a ton of videos of people ripping it up with tricks and such.

We rolled through 122nd and there where still more people out on BMX & Freestyle bikes. I'm not talking about the piddly kids bikes you pick up at Wally World, I'm talking about reinforced, niche bikes that are built like tanks. Seriously, you could drive into one of these bikes long ways with a Hummer, and the Hummer would probably be the worse for it.

The driver made good time, as it is with the #9 this far out in the east side burbs'. We rolled through some of the apartment complexes and picked up a few dozen and dropped off a few dozen riders.

I can't help but feel the Bell Curve hitting hard in this part of Portland. Which of course is evident at every turn. Less educated, less income, simpler lives. No problem with that, just observing. It is an interesting phenomena among humanity that this curve, no matter what political system, no matter what period of history, no matter of slavery or barbarians, no matter of wealth redistribution or pure capitalistic behavior, nothing saves the poorer. They are always there, as timeless as humanity itself.

174th approached and the rider count dropped to 10 people. This last stretch is probably the least efficient, yet simplest part of the route. With what amounts to an almost straight shot down a 4 lane highway, the speed increases significantly. There are limited lights and limited turnouts along this part of the route, thoroughly planted in the middle of suburbia, and I suppose somewhere the Urban Growth Boundary.

Downtown Gresham

Downtown Gresham is completely different than most parts of the area. It's classy, Small Town America. It draws a stark contrast to the area surrounding. With quaint shops lining the main street through downtown, leading toward Gresham Transit Center. Immediately at Gresham Transit Center the town goes to crap. Then there is a fairly decent open air strip mall and a few other little parts, and then it falls right back into crap again. The City of Gresham, really is bipolar.

Bipolar-ness aside, the old town in Gresham is pretty sweet. There are numerous places to eat, have a beer, or stop for a coffee.

Upon arriving I actually dropped into the coffee joint, Cafe Delirium. My barista who kindly gave me permission to publish her photo I snagged (to the left), made me up a solid cappuccino. The shop closes at 9:00pm, and with only 12 minutes to go, I decided to move along. Even at 8:46pm on a Saturday they had about a half dozen people chilling at the shop. Probably could push those hours out to 10:00pm and still do decent business, but then again, I don't know Gresham so maybe not.

While walking through the strip of old town I walked by this shop called Gnomshop, which is a skater shop for kids. They had a half pipe inside the shop! Shredding the pipe was about 6 little kids, it was awesome! I was very envious I didn’t have something as cool to shred when I was young. We where lucky to have dirt hills to jump back in Mississippi, brutal that was.

A few other shots of Old Town Gresham for your viewing pleasure. Wildwood Cafe has a great menu & good prices, looks like a worthy return trip to grab a bite there sometime.

Gresham MAX

After my stroll through old town I boarded the MAX Blue Line at Gresham City Hall. Within 20 seconds there was the prospect of domestic violence between some immature, ignorant ghetto kid and a girl with her kid. It was simply, classic Gresham reputation. I couldn't have asked for that to happen for the stereotypes to come pouring into my brain. But whatever, adventure I was after and that was a slight dose of such. Of course, not really very entertaining, knowing if he got physical I'd probably… anyway, back to the journey.

The train made a clean run toward each stop, boarding people at each stop, quickly exceeding the rider count on the #9 on the way toward Portland. By 122nd Avenue we had at least 20+ people in this car, which probably gave us about 20ish in the trailing LRV.

the sun set in the western skyline, leaving a beautiful purple, red, orange ,and whitish blue sky for us passengers to watch as the train cruised progressively toward downtown. After the initial idiocy of an almost domestic disturbance, the MAX fell almost silent except for the hum of the traction motors and the headphones playing ever so slightly.

By the time we pulled into Gateway TC we almost had no sun on the horizon. I pondered transferring and making a run out to the airport, but decided against it as we pulled into the transit center. I went back to a bit of coding, giving a slight glance to do an estimate of ridership.

Hollywood

At Hollywood I jumped off and decided I would make a go at transferring to the next #75 south bound. I had checked via Transit Tracker on the IPhone and looked like I'd have a tolerable 2-3 minute transfer. I had thought I'd go downtown and hit up Backspace, but I was intent on getting a bit more code written, and for that I needed faster Internet access. For that, homeward bound I needed to head.

At Hollywood I grabbed a few shots, as shown here of the sun setting and of the light rail station stop. Kind of a ratty shot, but one can’t expect too much from an IPhone eh!

The #75 arrived precisely in that 2-3 minute GPS estimate I received via Transit Tracker. Without a skip the bus, with about a dozen of us TriMet Rider's we were off to the south on 39th Avenue. This part of my trip was over in what seemed to be the blink of an eye. I deboarded (is that a word?) at 39th and Powell and grabbed a few bits of grub for dinner at the Safeway. Back out to the street for the #9 for that final stretch home.

With Chicken Salad in hand, a Red Bull for a hacker boost (still got more code to write), I managed in to get aboard the next #9 rolling all within 9 minutes of stepping off the #75. Good transfer if you ask me. :)

Good run, interesting adventure, and as always a strange and realistic peak into the real America.