With the price of gas and rate of unemployment, you'd think more people would take the bus (except for service cuts) or trains (except for inconveniently routing for a lot of riders).

WES ridership is down 37 percent since opening!

Gosh, maybe there weren't that many Wilsonville-Beaverton commuters after all ...

You've got that right, Jack!

WES is bleeding $1/2 million per month from the TriMet budget.

It's a complete flop. As was thoroughly predited by critics.

Yet we are in an era of such stupidity, incompetence and official malfeascence
that nothing can be done about it and we have elected officials advocating expanding it instead of mothballing it.

There is now no limit to dysfunction and dishonesty.

All of the politicians who pushed for WES and other misappropriations are all sitting pretty in their current seats and are busy pushing similar policies.
Marvelous.

I honestly think this is a gas/oil issue. When gas prices start to rise significantly again (and they will) you'll begin to see Tri-Met ridership increase.

Who in the world thought the WES was a good idea? I went to one of the first invited riding-alongs and while I definitely liked the train, interior, on-board wifi... a link from Wilsonville to Beaverton?! Yeah, no one is going to ride that.

"WES ridership is down 37 percent since opening!"

Odds of TriMet shutting it down to refocus those resources on more productive transit: Zero.

Think if all the money used on trains and streetcars had instead been used to convert the bus fleet to run on electricity, or biofuel, or unicorn farts, or whatever.

I swear that bureaucrats in this region have double the book-learnin' and half the common sense.

Hmm. Perhaps this could be our second in-depth investigative feature story on our new show, after the stadium scam of course....

I can walk faster than that lame streetcar. Even when its raining I wont ride that thing.

If TriMet actually provided good bus service more people would be riding. People are not riding because of the recession but because they have given up on TriMet. My buses are packed, standing room only and yet I can be downtown waiting for 1/2 hour or more for a bus and watch trains going by every 5 minutes with fewer people than would fit on one bus! Maybe if TriMet reallocated their resources to buses rather than trains they would be able to hold on to their customers.

I rode the bus to work today because my car is in the shop. I waited for 25 minutes (starting at 8:25 a.m. on Barbur Blvd) to catch a number 12 and I was standing in front of an Enterprise Rental location the whole time, wishing I could just rent a car. Sadly, I didn't want to spend $50 bucks for a 5 hour rental.

The recession should increase ridership: I would love to give up my $180/month parking spot and save on gas and insurance. I don't do so, because Tri-met infrequent and inconvenient service doesn't meet my needs, especially if I need to venture beyond the downtown core during the day. The bus service on the old bus mall was more convenient and frequent, it is now less so due to increasing operating subsidies for trains, couplet and transit mall redevelopment, and Chicago style hiring and contracting practices.

Tri-Met is a slow bus full of FAIL.

TriMet is in a death spiral that can't be reversed, so get ready for more bus cuts and another increase in the payroll tax. They lose vast amounts of money on every transaction, so they can't make it up in volume. The cost of fringe benefits is now about 122% of payroll (and growing), so that can't be sustained. The unfunded pension liability is about 180% of annual payroll. And the cost of all these rail projects is astronomical.

The situation with WES is so bad it's almost comical. TriMet’s estimates of opening-day ridership ranged from 2,400 to 3,000, depending on when the estimate was made; actual boardings since opening have been about 1,140 per day, or 570 actual riders.

In public pronouncements, TriMet predicted that half of WES riders would be new to transit. But a TriMet forecasting document published in December 2003 had a more realistic prediction: “Commuter rail service is expected to displace 246,256 annual TriMet bus boardings when customers switch from bus to the new WES service.” If that estimate proves accurate, only about 18% of WES riders this year will be new transit customers -- for which TriMet lost more than $588,00 for NOvember in operations cost (biggest monthly deficit of the year).

We'd be better off just sending WES commuters a check each month and pulling the plug on the train. At least then people living near WES wouldn't have to listen to the hundreds (or is it thousands?) of clanging bells and sirens each day.

John Charles

I have been a regular Tri-Met commuter now for 10 years. At first I remember thinking how nice public transportation would be without the public but I am older now, have lost my sense of smell, and I am never in a hurry so it works for me.

I grew up here, and have been riding Tri-Met for most of my life. Never has it been in such a state. Every day I witness at least one bus running a red light. The drivers are now often rude, tired and just plain pissed off. My wife's family used to remark how pleasant, and considerate the drivers here were when they would visit. In the '90s Tri-Met was winning awards, now.... Service has become so overcrowded, so unpredictable (no longer do they schedule timestops), so wholly unpleasant that were there not a recession, ridership would plummet. Fake green city with discouragement of actual mass transit (can we just buy them some wooden trains?), a poisonous river (mixing still legal), excrement and trash in every park left by "campers" (I dare you to walk under a bridge). Yay!

Portland Police could make a fortune issuing tickets to TriMet buses blowing thru the red light at SE Belmont and Chavez.

I wonder what percentage of the bus decline is accounted for by the numerous recent service cuts?

Hard to ride that bus if it ain't there...

As a Tualatin homeowner, I testified against the WES BOONDOGLE five years ago and had a list of 30 homeowners in both Tualatin and Wilsonville who also opposed this train wreck. It was clear to me at the time, from the gimlet eyes of the TriMet, ODOT and Metro people holding the so-called "public hearings" that it didn't matter at all what I and many others told them. They already had their minds made up and this POS project was going to happen no matter what anyone said. After that experience, I lost any sense of respect for these so-called public hearings. They are all nothing more than window dressing to make the rubes believe they value their opinions.
Later on, even the US DOT people had major doubts about the "projected ridership" numbers for this project. If WES isn't a clear example of government expenditures without any fiscal accountability I don't know what is. And of course, the TARDS that run TriMet and it's Board are too stupid or pigheaded to admit they made a huge mistake and pull the plug on this financial black hole.

I recently began riding Tri-Met again as part of a regular commute downtown. I was shocked to learn that the 1 Vermont line has had its hours slashed. It doesn't run during the middle of the day and the last bus heads to SW by 7 PM. Ridiculous.

I've been riding mass transit in Portland since the days of Rose City Transit.

I was, at one time, a devoted user, with Tri-Met as my preferred mode of transportation for long distances.

Then, they dumped beaucoup bux into additions which even the voters had declined.

The quality of bus transit seemed to decline with each new addition of yet another specialty transport...streetcars, trains, light rail.

The typical denizens during the day weren't bad, but when my hours changed to late night, the 'edgy' clientele became more sharply defined, as well as more of an assault against my working class sensibilities.

And, the poor quality of the service became ever so clear. Bus drivers who could not and would not meet the published schedules so that riders could make timely transfers. Total lack of useful communications between users and the system employees, and between employees of the system, during a time when the entire core of the system was torn up, displaced and restructured.

For a late night rider, making transfer connections were important...standing around in downtown during near freezing weather at dark for extended periods to time causes the rider to really reflect on whether the cost savings (quickly disappearing) is really worth the transit time being three times as long as driving, freezing one's ass off because an uncaring driver can't stay on schedule, and then exposing oneself to insensitive drivers who don't care about transferring riders if it gets in the way of their being at the end of the line in time to have a cigarette. And drivers who chat on the cell phone while negotiating narrow arterials like Hawthorne and Division (which is probably why they are blowing through the Belmont and Chavez intersection...I've seen it at Division and Chavez.)

I did the calculation and determined that the forty minutes I saved at both ends of the trip to work, every day, was worth the $6 I paid to park.

Plus, I now have the comfort of temperatures to my liking, smells to my liking, no mental health crises en route, and no exposures to the readily circulating viral and bacterial infections so common amongst the denizens of Tri-Met.

Then I had to deal with the bureaucracy at Tri-Met to lodge complaints. Anyone who does this will discover that they just don't care. I complained about a driver leaving behind a scheduled layover point at four minutes early on a rainy, cold winter night. I shouted from my seat at the back of the bus that they were probably abandoning riders who were trying to make the transfer and for my efforts to intervene, I was thrown off the bus. It took a Tri-Met 'supervisor' seven months to get back to me and tell me that I was right, the GPS had confirmed that my reporting of the bus being a long way from where it was supposed to be...but I was told I should never tell a driver they were doing something wrong.

I say F**K THAT NOISE.

Service has degraded.

Drivers are neither helpful or even diligent.

Drivers are unsafe.

The schedules are lies...pretty lies that they cannot fulfill.

And the prices go up....

Is it any wonder people are bailing? If they can, they will.

There are good drivers but an increasing number are much worse than they used to be. Attitude is abrupt and often rude. I've watched drivers yell at and deride customers who ask questions about schedules. I've been told that printed schedules aren't available on the buses because they can't afford to print them. I've ridden in buses so badly driven that my stomach is upset and my belongings jolted off the seat (when I can get a seat) at each stop. Nobody calls disruptive, foul-mouthed riders on their loud trash talking and on some routes you don't want to sit down before looking, smelling and feeling of the seats.

Today I got on a bus after standing in the wind and rain for half an hour. My umbrella had turned inside out and my hands were full as I struggled to get the money I had ready out of my coat pocket. The driver powered ahead as I stuffed the bills in the box and staggered to the nearest pole. I had to wait several minutes before I could fold up my umbrella and lurch to a seat. I nearly fell.

On other occasions I was passed by buses who (after I complained to Tri-Met) claimed that I wasn't right at the curb and signaling them so that they could see I wanted to ride. WTH? I was standing at the stop next to the sign. This was in broad daylight.

The next time, I stepped off the curb and waved like mad, jumping back on the curb for the bus to arrive. This got me a chewing out for not remaining on the curb.

Bus came early? I was told that I should allow 15 minutes leeway in either direction. Bus came late? As much as an hour late? The bus driver knew nothing about the delay (with an attitude).

When Tri-Met changed its schedules, no updated times were posted at stops. No schedules available on the bus. The drivers said that riders were supposed to check out times online (what if a rider doesn't have access to the internet?).

Then there's the transfer time discrepency between transfers given on buses (anywhere from 1 hour to 4 hours) and transfers given on MAX and streetcar (1 hour only) and the laissez-faire attitude about checking fares on the streetcar. There's nothing that forces anybody to pay for a streetcar ticket before they board and I'd guess that 90% of the riders don't pay. I don't know if Tri-Met has any bright ideas about solving that problem before extending the streetcar lines but I certainly hope so.

WES - The tram with wheels.

The new streetcar line to Lake Oswego? Why don't we build one to Beverly Hills while we're at it?

My two cents (or two bucks for zone 3)

The majority of the drivers I have contact with are decent, hard-working pros. Yeah, some are over-stressed or losers, but not the majority. But all have unrealistic schedules assigned to them. (read the above comments and note the 50:50 mix of late and bypass complaints.) Add that their toilet breaks are now two minutes. Can you do the job and be back on the bus in 120 seconds? Every spring I drop a line to TriMet suggesting that when it is over 100 degrees it is not safe for my driver to be in an un-air-conditioned bus. He/she has a wet towel around the neck and sweating like a pig. "Good luck keeping a grip on that wheel negotiating Garden Home!"

My #45 doesn't connect with most of the other lines any more; "Use the Max" they say. Great -- two transfers becomes three. The old mall had its problems, but transfers were painless compared to the new hodgepodge.

We are just an irritable unreliable source of money so the board members can play with their toy trains and give us worthless glass "shelters" on the new mall.

TriMet board executive summary about us:
We are not passengers; We're cargo.

After reading all these comments from enraged, discouraged former users of Trimet, I have to say it yet again.

I'd happily cruise the new Transit Mall on cold, rainy nights looking for potential customers willing to pay to ride in safety and comfort.

But no. I am forbidden to do this under threat of a fine numbering in the hundreds of dollars. Even if I am in the automobile lane, late at night, and there is no traffic.

It would seem that someone at Tri-Met anticipated this, and had a chat with their peers at the "Private for-hire Transportation Regulatory Program."

There isn't even an exception for the elderly and/or disabled written into the new statutes.

No loading or unloading of passengers at any point on the shiny new "Transit Mall" between Glisan and PSU.

Care to give an explanation for this, Mr. Dufay ?

The Blue view of WES

"Now if they could expand this line so it runs all the way to Salem, they'd be cooking"

http://www.blueoregon.com/2009/02/wes-commuter-railunderway.html

Is this San Jose Mercury article a prophesy of Portland's TriMet future?

Running on empty: Bay Area transit in crisis

http://www.mercurynews.com/search/ci_14142243

oh, nice censorship asshole. have fun at the next teabagger conference.

I need a bumpersticker that sez:

THIS CAR IS ON THE ROAD BECAUSE OF TRI-MET.