car-free – Page 4 – Out & About

Wind eddies and leaves

On Tuesdays and Wednesdays I take two buses to far North Portland to volunteer at a Middle School. My bus stop is right next to “Big Pink” which is the tallest building in Portland. I think Big Pink messes with the air currents a bit, because today the wind was swirling all the leaves into a tidy pile.

Park(ing) Day.

What did you do on Park(ing) day? The students of John’s class transformed one of our parking spaces into a park complete with small pond, palm-ish tree, picnic table, grass, wood chips and a few chairs. The students enjoyed creating the temporary park and people walking by enjoyed looking at it.

Bus Tips: Vomit Wisely

I’m willing to bet that 87% of the vomit in public is the result of over consumption of alcohol. So most of you may be too drunk to make a better choice, but could you please pick a better place to throw up than exactly where I stand every morning to wait for the train? Two steps to your right or left would have had you puking either on the tracks, or over the railing.
The problem isn’t just that you have made the area where I stand a disgusting biohazard, it’s also that Trimet doesn’t come around to clean very often. I’m sure they do the best they can, but your stomach acids and bits of food sat there for several days soaking into the concrete and they have created a stain. I’ll be looking at that stain for a long time, thanks to your choice.

So next time please aim for the tracks or the street. Thanks.

I-5 Bridge North at Rush Hour.

I had a class to get to in Vancouver, so off I rode on my bike. There is a section of the bike path to the I-5 bridge where the path is surrounded by freeway and freeway on ramps.

On this Thursday night traffic was not moving.

Not on the freeway, not on the on ramps, no where.

I beat a lot of these cars over the bridge.

Though then I had a long ride up a gradual hill before I got to my class.

I don’t want a huge bridge to replace the current bridge, I think the people who choose to live in Vancouver and work in Portland have made their beds and need to lie in them. I would, however, be in favor of a bridge the same size with a rush hour tolling structure, and the extension of light rail across the Columbia into Vancouver. In the meantime, I’m glad I have no reason (nor car) to drive across the bridge during rush hour.

I can’t look away.

This photo doesn’t accurately capture the object of my fascination and for this you should thank me. This gentleman, who I sat behind on the train, clearly had trouble shaving all the hair from his head. The hair caught in the fat rolls was rather long, and you could see how the clippers and razor missed them. As he would turn his head, different hairy patches were exposed. I tried hard to concentrate on the newspaper, but I kept getting distracted.

Rain

Remember how I wrote about the new (lack of) Trimet shelter on the new transit mall? Well, it has started raining and the above sight is not unusual. For shame, Trimet, for shame.

We have a problem with the bus mall, er, I mean “transit mall”

The Portland Transit Mall is the new name for the Bus Mall. Before 2008, the major bus routes ran through downtown North/South along the Bus Mall, which took up SW 5th & SW 6th avenues. The Red, Yellow and Blue lines all ran East/West through the downtown area, so the buses and the trains crossed. The Bus Mall was easy to navigate. The city was divided into four regions, each designated by an icon, and each block had a stop for two regions. This was quite handy in two ways. First of all, you could access all the buses that ran though the bus mall in the length of two-blocks. Secondly, if you lived in an area that was served by more than one bus, as I did when I lived close-in on Barbur Boulevard, you could stand at the bus stop serving your area and grab the first bus that came by.

The transit mall has changed all that. Because the Yellow and Green Max lines now run on the former “bus mall”–as do cars, which I really hate, but that is another post–Trimet has changed the “area” plan. The icons are gone, instead replaced by letters. I can never remember what letter I’m supposed to stand at. The stops are much, much further apart and it is harder now to catch multiple buses that go to one place. But the biggest problem of the new Transit mall? Shelter.

If you have heard of Portland, you might know that it rains a lot here. Sometimes, in the dead of winter, I think of Forrest Gump talking about the many different kinds of rain in Vietnam. It’s a bit like that here, just minus the tropical setting. We have beautiful summers (July, August and September) but most of the year it’s raining very hard, raining a little, or looking like it is going to rain. So when waiting for our famous public transit, it is very good to be out of the rain.

Here is a picture of the shelters that used to be along the bus mall. Notice the huge, overhanging lip. That’s to keep the rain off. This is because the rain rarely falls straight down here, unless there is a downpour. Notice also the wooden bands around the outside and inside of the shelter. Those give someone something to lean on. When it is really rainy and the weather is blowing everywhere, there is also shelter inside. This inside shelter provided a place where you could stand, lean, and watch for your bus all at once. There were also a few seats to sit in, too. There were two of these per block, so everyone waiting for a bus had the option of shelter.

photo from: http://www.bobrichardson.com/transitmallfeedback.html

Here’s the block downtown in the new Transit Mall where I wait for my train. Do you see any shelter here? There actually is one, and you will see it a few photos from now, but it is so insubstantial as to not show up in this photo. The Max trains are one city block in length. In November 2009, Max had an average weekday boarding of 117,300 people. That’s a large city getting on the Max every day. This stop is one of six northbound stops for the yellow and green lines. It’s also right in between the east/west Red and Blue lines. A lot of people stand here waiting for a max train. Some of them are tired after a long day. Where are they supposed to sit? What can they lean against? Notice that gray building on the right? That’s Pioneer Courthouse. It is a working federal courthouse.
Here’s the sign on the fence around Pioneer Courthouse. The sign tells people not to sit on the historic stone wall. Yet this is also a place to wait for Max with little seating or places to lean. Guess what happens?
Here’s a view from halfway down the block. Due to the lack of seating or sheltered leaning space, someone has taken respite on the ground. You can barely see the shelter in the background.
So here’s what happens. That shelter–that would be the flat, glassed roofed thing on the left, has two seats and very few places to lean. So people sit on the stone wall.
A close up view of shelter. When the wind blows, where does the rain fly? Right into the “shelter.” Because there is only one of these per Max stop, an entire city block worth of people have to take shelter in this tiny space. This is ridiculous, and not workable on a commuting day when it is raining.

In addition, the two (TWO!) seats provided are at an odd height. When I sit in them, my feet don’t touch the ground unless I slump over as the woman in this picture is doing.
Many of the shelters have a vertical wall of glass on one side of them. But there is a gap between the top of the glass and the flat top of the roof. The rain and wind fly right in and there is nothing to lean against, except the glass itself. Who designed these? Did they have any knowledge of Portland weather patterns? Did they take into account any commuter preferences?

When the old shelters (one has been preserved and will be turned into a coffee shop) were pulled down to make way for the bus mall there was a lot of talk about the drug dealing that took place inside them. I’ve spent a lot of time waiting for buses in those shelters. I never once saw a drug deal. You know what I did have? A clear view of the bus, with places to sit and lean and protection from the rain. The current shelters say, “we have to give you something for protection from the weather, but we don’t want you to be comfortable. We don’t want to spend very much money on it, either.”

Thanks Transit Mall. So far I don’t like the “improvements” at all.

As the Max Turns.

Today is the last time my Max train turns to the left as it comes off of the Steel Bridge into downtown Portland. Beginning Monday, we will be traveling on those other tracks, instead.

Last days on first avenue.

Stopped at the Yahmill stop today my Yellow Line Max driver came on with this announcement, delivered in a bored, but gleeful tone: “Starting THIS SUNDAY the Yellow Line Max train will not stop at the Yamhill station. EVER. AGAIN. Instead, it will be on Fifth and Sixth Avenues.”

His delivery cracked me up, and I was not surprised to hear several conversations such as this: “The Max isn’t going downtown anymore? What?”

The challenge of the informed public taking advantage of the information available to them in several forms remains. Sigh.

Things I will miss when the Max switches streets:

Being first to get on the train. The stop you see below is the first stop for the North-bound Yellow line Max train. It’s also the stop nearest to the library and church. I know exactly where to stand to be the first on the train and the first to my favorite seat. Although I do let old or infirm people on first if they are around. My new stop will be the third on the North-bound line and my favorite seat will not be guaranteed. It’s also a further walk, not that that ever hurt me.

Here is my preferred seat. Right behind the driver, is a single seat. Sitting here I don’t have to worry about sharing with someone and I am away from the general hubbub of the train, usually. On cold days, the second seat back on either side nearest the windows usually is quite warm due to heater placement. So in the winter, sometimes my favorite seat is variable.