From PortlandAfoot

Ideas for improving public transit in Portland, some of them shared in Portland Afoot's Ideas Issue in February 2012, are a frequent subject of discussion among riders. This page gathers some of the most common and most interesting, and arbitrarily rates each by cost and zaniness using a nonlinear scale of 1 to 5 for each category.

Feel free to add your own by clicking "edit" on the right or just commenting below!

Contents 1 Ideas discussed in February 2012 "Ideas Issue" 1.1 License and insure private group taxis to serve the busiest stretches of TriMet routes 1.2 Luggage racks on the Red Line 1.3 Anti-microbial copper in buses, MAX and stations 1.4 Conversation priority areas on MAX 1.5 Commuter rail from downtown Vancouver to Union Station. 1.6 Buses use Square mobile phone readers to take credit cards 1.7 Bury I-5 through the central east side 1.8 Heaters at rail shelters that radiate for 2 minutes at the push of a button 1.9 Able-bodied seniors only get fare discounts if they're poor 2 Further ideas 2.1 Turnstiles at MAX stops 2.2 Self-driving MAX trains 2.3 Airline tickets as valid MAX fare 2.4 Devote larger hotel-motel tax to transit 2.5 A prepaid transit/bikesharing/bike parking/auto parking/retail discount card 2.6 Free transit

[edit] Ideas discussed in February 2012 "Ideas Issue"

[edit] License and insure private group taxis to serve the busiest stretches of TriMet routes

• Why: Makes long-haul buses faster and short-hop service more frequent while shifting risk to private operators.
• Why not: Vans get in the way of buses, slowing them. Hard to integrate fare collection.
• Cost: 2
• Zaniness: 4
• Credit: Brian Riley.

[edit] Luggage racks on the Red Line

• Why: No more squeezing your roller into the seat behind the cab.
• Why not: "Has this bag been outside of your control since you packed it?"
• Cost: 1
• Zaniness: 1
• Credit: Oregonian reader Phyllis M.

[edit] Anti-microbial copper in buses, MAX and stations

• Why: Germs can survive for weeks on stainless steel or, worse, plastic, but copper kills 99.9% of microbes in 2 hours. Santiago, Chile, began adding copper to its subway station railings in summer 2011.
• Why not: Wears and tarnishes easily if you fall behind on maintenance.
• Cost: 2
• Zaniness: 4
• More information: Wikipedia.
• Credit: Nick Welch.

[edit] Conversation priority areas on MAX

• Why: Just as MAX has a designated area for people with disabilities, each car could have one for people who enjoy talking to strangers. It'd be a rolling carnival of interesting characters ... or, if you prefer, flypaper for the crazies.
• Why not: Conversations "already happen organically" on MAX, TriMet notes.
• Cost: free-ish
• Zaniness: 5
• More information: I Just Wanted to Say.
• Credit: John Beaston.

[edit] Commuter rail from downtown Vancouver to Union Station.

• Why: Avoid freight congestion on Hayden Island with a new rail bridge and bypass that'd also carry the planned high-speed rail line to Seattle. Amtrak or a new partnership would run trains mostly on existing track through Northwest Portland. Travel time: 12 minutes.
• Why not: Complicated politics. BNSF's fees to run on its track might require ticket prices in the $5 to $8 range per ride.
• Cost: 4
• Zaniness: 3
• More information: Common Sense Alternative.
• Credit: Jim Howell of AORTA.

[edit] Buses use Square mobile phone readers to take credit cards

• Why: The free credit card readers, which plug into smartphone audio jacks, now dominate craft shows, food carts and taxicabs. Why not buy an old iPhone for every bus, get thousands of the little readers, pay Square's cheap 2.75% transaction fee and make fares far easier to pay? Sure, 660 data plans would cost $650,000 a year, but the old farebox system depreciates faster than that, and every bus would get a GPS and phone line on board.
• Why not: Square's plastic readers aren't exactly durable. Also, a startup that still loses money on every transaction might not be the best long-term partner.
• Cost: 2
• Zaniness: 5
• More information: SquareUp.com

[edit] Bury I-5 through the central east side

• Why: A new Marquam Bridge would slope down into a tunnel that would free up 43 acres of precious riverside real estate for more productive uses while solving existing problems in the Rose Quarter. It's a long-term vision that would take 10-15 years to execute.
• Why not: Cost might be $1 to $2 billion "if you're really sharp with your pencil," estimates supporter Ron Buel, the Willamette Week founder who cut his teeth helping lead PDX's 1970s freeway revolt.
• Cost: 5
• Zaniness: 3
• More information: Riverfront for People.
• Credit: Ron Buel.

[edit] Heaters at rail shelters that radiate for 2 minutes at the push of a button

• Why: Makes late nights and early mornings so much better.
• Why not: Even in Minneapolis (where the average nightly low in February is 13 degrees), the transit agency can only afford to install these at shelters near electrical utility boxes, said Metro Transit's John Siqveland. At $3,500 a pop, one at each MAX stop would cost $300,000 to install – not counting electricity.
• Cost: 3
• Zaniness: 1

[edit] Able-bodied seniors only get fare discounts if they're poor

• Why: In 1976, when the feds began requiring transit agencies to charge seniors half-fare, 15% of seniors lived in poverty. Today, only 8% of Portland seniors do, compared to 21% of Portlanders 18 to 24.
• Why not: TriMet gives us a bus discount after we turn 65 in part to deter us from using LIFT, the van service for people with disabilities that costs the agency $28 per ride.
• Cost: 3 (to seniors)
• Zaniness: 2
• Credit: John Charles of the Cascade Policy Institute.

[edit] Further ideas

[edit] Turnstiles at MAX stops

• Why: Prevent fare evasion. Definitely TriMet's most suggested change ever.
• Why not: Supervising stations is expensive, and many MAX stations don't see enough fare-jumping to pay for the staff required to prevent it. Walling off stations would tear up streetscapes.
• Cost: 3
• Zaniness: 2
• More information: Wikipedia.

[edit] Self-driving MAX trains

• Why: Most of the cost of putting a new transit vehicle on the street is labor. Take away the labor, as on Vancouver BC's Skytrain, and suddenly frequency makes a lot more sense.
• Why not: Requires grade separation with current technology, or it'd hit bikes, pedestrians and cars.
• Cost: 4
• Zaniness: 2
• Credit: Joshua Force.

[edit] Airline tickets as valid MAX fare

• Why: Airplane passenger tickets are already helping pay for the Red Line, thanks to a $3 "passenger utility charge" that TriMet persuaded the FAA to approve, giving the agency $28 million for rail construction. Why not welcome visitors to town with a free ride on their train?
• Why not: MAX is so convenient at Portland International Airport that many visitors take it already. Anyway, airplane passengers can afford another few bucks.
• Cost: 2
• Zaniness: 2
• Credit: Evan Manvel on Blue Oregon.

[edit] Devote larger hotel-motel tax to transit

• Why: The TriMet system is a huge boon to both Portland tourism and to tourists themselves as they travel the city. But unlike most other residents, tourists don't help subsidize the system with their employers' payroll taxes. Higher fees on tourists would offset this and preserve the system's quality to keep tourists coming.
• Why not: As of late 2011, Multnomah County's existing hotel-motel tax was 11.5%, compared to 10.2% plus a $2 per night flat fee in Vancouver, Wash. Chad Solomon estimated that it'd take a 3% hike to raise $13 million. That rate would likely be large enough to drive away some tourists on the margin.
• Cost: 1 (reduced local tourism by price-sensitive visitors)
• Zaniness: 1
• More information: Three ways TriMet could close a budget gap without bus cuts, on Portland Afoot's blog.
• Credit: Chad Solomon.

[edit] A prepaid transit/bikesharing/bike parking/auto parking/retail discount card

• Why: As cards replace cash, consumers get lost in a thicket of separate payment systems just for a simple trip downtown. A single universal card would save everyone time and make it easy to use all of the available services seamlessly.
• Why not: Hard to coordinate among many agencies and vendors.
• Cost: 3
• Zaniness: 2
• More information: TriMet's 2011 whitepaper on electronic fare collection.
• Credit: Al Margulies.

[edit] Free transit

• Why: Only about 20% of TriMet's operating revenue comes from fares, and so do plenty of its expenses. Why not go whole hog and make TriMet free everywhere? Wilsonville's SMART is already free, as is CAT in Canby. Making it easier for everyone to get to work -- but especially poor people -- could speed economic growth while reducing crime and other side-effects of extreme poverty.
• Why not: If tens of thousands of riders can afford to pay for service and are willing to, to make transit free is to give up money the system can put to good use. Might also lead to more riding by homeless people, criminals and other poor people, which would deter ridership in general.
• Cost: 3
• Zaniness: 3
• More information: A Center for Urban Transportation Research paper on free transit, and FreePublicTransit.org.
• Credit: Craig Harlow.