Last week for the 17
They've been talking about it for years, but this time they're actually doing it. Tri-Met, Portland's crumbling mass transit service, is killing the 17 Broadway bus line as currently configured. After Saturday, for the first time in 116 years, there will be no north-south transit service on Northeast 24th Avenue through Irvington and Alameda.
Originally there was a streetcar that ran north on 24th, and south on 22nd, between Broadway and Mason Street, the latter being up on Alameda Ridge. (The streetcar climbed the ridge along Regents Drive, thus avoiding "Dead Man's Hill.") In 1948, the trolley was replaced by a bus that ran both ways on 24th, for many years designated the no. 9. It eventually became the 17, the change having to do with what the bus did after it reached downtown. It's still running today.
But beginning next Sunday, that bus will be no more. North-south service up onto the ridge will be limited to the Crazy 8 on 15th and whatever number they're planning to call it, I think it's going to be 17, on 33rd. The distance between those two lines is about a mile.
It's not that working people and shoppers don't live along 24th any more. It's that they don't go downtown, which is where the 17 takes you. And even if they are headed that way, a lot of Portlanders don't feel comfortable on the bus or the train, like they used to. There are too many crazies running around any more, and for your occasional downtown run there's this thing in your pocket called Uber or Lyft.
I rode the 17, and the 9 before it, countless times over the years, but never lately. Its impending disappearance, a sign of our strange times, won't affect me other than making the neighborhood a little less noisy. And I can't imagine too many other folks will be upset, either. Daytime ridership on the 17 has been way down from historical levels, and most of the nighttime 17's in recent years have been literally empty.
There are lots of other transit cuts going into effect at the end of the week, too. The system, it seems, is broke, and broken.
As blasphemous as it sounds, it might be time to rethink Tri-Met entirely. It's extremely expensive, worsening the city's awful tax climate, and it's not delivering for the average person the way it once did. The current structure is 57 years old. The Jackson 5, a contemporary of Tri-Met, broke up quite a while ago.
Downtown died recently. That kinda screws up all of Tri-Met’s long time service objectives of providing downtown with public transit.
ReplyDeleteYah, but socialists wanna socialize and cram people into one-size-fits-all stuff, from itty-bitty "social" housing to buses full of fellow citizens nodding off. PBOT, totally socialized, now runs stuff on Instagram, cheering for their newest bike lanes--when ridership is down. It never ends: cram 'em and jam 'em, legislated by socialists who live in posh houses with burning back yards...
ReplyDelete"Yah, but socialists wanna socialize and cram people into one-size-fits-all stuff..."
DeleteMy former English teacher, Mrs Irish, would have handed this comment back, splattered with red ink, along with a Thesaurus. It's a pity your English teacher didn't give you the same courtesy.
And when they cut the regular transit routes, they're also cutting the service area for paratransit (for people with disabilities, y'all).
ReplyDeleteThey're only required to provide it along the areas where there's fixed-route buses, so when they cut the regular routes, folks with mobility issues are really stuck.
TriMet has always whined about how expensive paratransit is & they cut services every chance they get (the 'short-bus' drivers are awesome & do their best to work-around it).
TriMet has been a mismanaged disaster for years, thanks for bringing attention to it.
(*But when in Portland, please use Radio Cab, not Uber/Lyft! They're employee-owned, they're all veterans, safe, clean & reliable. https://www.radiocab.net/)
I guess I'm an elitist. I last rode the bus when I was in high school, almost 60 years ago.
ReplyDeleteI think Tri Met's treatment of the paratransit users is shameful and should be exposed very publicly. The agency pisses away ourtageous piles of dollars unwanted Max extensions. Paratransit services should be available throughout the Tri Met service area, not just on formal routes.
Many of us complained and saved the Glisan 19 on the East side, largely because of Providence hospital. If they had ditched that route, you would have had to walk (if you could) from Burnside or Halsey. I'll take small victories these days.
ReplyDeleteThe shutdown of the 17 met with resistance when it was first proposed a few years ago. But eventually it came to pass. Despite its major tax suction, Tri-Met's going down and is getting desperate.
DeleteTri-met agreeing to pay healthcare 100% forever turned out to be a really bad bet. Add in the financed boondoggles and they're basically pinned in with no way out.
DeleteTriMet works great if you are going downtown. It doesn't work for almost anyone else. Downtown Portland had less than 10 percent of the region's jobs before the pandemic; probably less than 5 percent today. About 30 percent of downtown workers take transit to work. Less than 5 percent of workers in the rest of the region commute by transit. Taxpayers are spending well over half a billion dollars a year subsidizing a transportation system that doesn't work for more than 90 percent of residents.
ReplyDeleteTriMet could be redesigned to serve more people. But why should it bother when politicians give it all the money it wants to run a system that carries hardly any riders. Funding should depend on ridership; no riders, no subsidies.