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Transit Exploration
I intend to explore other cities at some point in the future also, but for now I’m hitting the most obvious choice Portland, Oregon. I was sitting at home not too long ago pondering, "where shall I go wonder about today?" It was a Sunday that I was thinking this on and I generally like to go wonder around and just see what’s going on out and about the city. Downtown there are dozens of easily found choices to hang out at. But I wanted something different, something that wasn’t directly in city center, something *gasp* that isn’t completely urban today. It was a strange notion, but I always wonder what the burbites are up to outside of the urban core of Portland, and the same for cities like Seattle, San Francisco, and other such places. What actually is going on these days in the suburbs.
Finding Portland Suburbs
The questions for the suburbs are boundless. Is there more defined culture these days? Have suburbanites further opened their minds? Do suburbanite coffee shops exist? Do suburbanites actually get together and do things that city folk do, like; readings, thought groups/think tanks, open source software, geek meets, etc? Now not to put the surbanites off in the land of dummies, the city folk could be asked the same questions as I’m posing. The difference is, in most of the country, where I garner most of my knowledge of suburbanites and suburban lifestyle, is that the suburbs are full of complete and blatant idiots. People that don’t understand or know how to interact in a quick and efficient way with other people. People with social circles the size of a thimble. People who generally, one wouldn’t consider to be "getting out" with much regularity. People in suburbs that are smart, intelligent, sociable, scientifically aware, technologically strong, or competent in progressing mankind are rare on the scale of platinum. These individuals do exist, trust me, but rarely can one find them. Usually, the place to find them is *gasp* downtown in a more urban environment.
But these places, where these individuals could meet, where people hang out and discuss notions and thoughts. That’s what I want to find outside of the core of downtown Portland. In the coming weeks I’ll be figuring out how to get to some of the places I find and of course, I’ll be getting there by transit.
The Plan, Erik’s #12 Theory
The first path I looked at to check out is based on a route a fellow transit grognard often complains about, the #12 Barbur Route. After just a few minutes of searching I realized the #12 doesn’t really have any of these coffee shops, wireless hangouts, or anything else of that nature. At least, not that a simple 5 minutes search on Google Maps could find. So with a little wider search umbrellas I found I’d need to check out the #44 maybe. So I started searching in that area. Immediately along Capitol Highway where numerous locations that where much more what I was looking for.
At this point I just said screw it and decided I’d go in person, jump on the #12 and see for myself what was out that way. According to the schedule I had plenty of time, with the last departing Portland bound bus leaving Tigard Transit Center at 11:55pm. As long as I could get back downtown I could always walk home if need be.
The Adventure Starts
2:54pm with only about 1hr and 27 minutes left on my 3 hr laptop battery, I set out for the #12 to blog about what I’d find. This is that tale.
I boarded at the Oak & Stark Stop. There where 2 other passengers at that point, and another TriMet Operator also boarded. By the time we left downtown Portland there where approximately 18 people on board. At PSU we boarded 2 more people and lost the last person of the original 2 that where on the bus when I boarded. So technically, no #12 Sandy riders where continuing on the #12 Barbur Route. All total the bus had 17 people aboard when we pulled across the Interstate Overpass and onto Barbur Blvd. Mind you, this was Sunday, in the afternoon, and a cold afternoon at that so a low rider count was to be expected.
The Un-Exiting Pit Bull
Before we pulled onto Barbur Blvd though one of the passengers, a man in his young 40s probably, spoke to a younger man in his mid or late 20s with a black hoodie and army camaflauge coat. The man asked this guy if his dog, which was either a pit bull or pit bull mixed with something else, was licensed as a service dog. The young man responded that his Grandmother was certified and had certified the dog as a service dog. This made me think immediately several things;
- bullshit.
- self certification, that is most likely illegal.
- the kid is deceitful
- the dog could be dangerous.
Across from the kid sat two children and a mother. The mother had a newborn in one of those carriers that held the small baby to her chest. One of the kids was being a little annoying, as he was unhappy about going to "Steven’s", while the other young child sat and looked at a book. Which, surprising for his age, he seemed to be reading.
Here is this rather lovely family sitting there and this dog, bread (don’t even argue it, they ARE bread for this) to kill other dogs and and inherently animals. Humans are animals to a dog, a dog sees or is incited to threat, especially a pitbull, will kill other animals. Unlike us people, the pit bull will NOT discern between a human child and another dog. The jaws will lock onto a childs body, oh wait I’m sorry, their NECK and will not release until the dog is incapacitated. When I say incapacitated I mean KILLED. Rarely do these dogs let go once they’ve perceived danger. Rarely do they let go once they’ve killed their opponent, in this case probably the child. These dogs purpose of existence is to kill. More so than a gun. YES, more than a gun is intended to kill. I digress though, as in most cases, just like with the ghetto thugs that board illegally armed (i.e. they carry without permit) which I am against, the dog and master also got off without any problems occurring. The thought however, since I’ve seen a pit bull kill before, will not leave my mind.
Barbur Boulevard, The First Koffee Discovery
We traveled down Barbur smoothly a quickly. Barbur is a rather straight and unwinding, uneventful road. Most of the road is standard cookie cutter America. Nothing unique, nor interesting for the majority of the boulevard. A Fred Meyers and a Safeway stand out slightly. Both have a unique, yet somewhat aged architecture. There are fast food joints and a few XXX establishments mixed in between the plethora of gas stations, oil change garages, car amenity stores, and a couple storage facilities for junk.
Koffee Shop, the first place I noticed that looked somewhat interesting was just before SW Alice and SW Barbur. It was a run down looking coffee shop which left me motivated to stay seated on the bus. Within a few minutes we arrived at the Barbur Transit Center. On this particular Sunday it was a very desolate looking place. With only one, rather beautiful young Indian Girl waiting to board. She boarded and one person got off the bus. At this juncture I counted again, as we sat and waited, a total of 11 riders. I imagine the transit center here is probably bustling during commuter hours.
As we pulled back out I noticed the sign pointing toward Capitol Highway, which is probably the road I should have taken according to Google Maps, but I stayed aboard the #12, dedicated to my adventure.
Just after passing over I-5 there is a Starbucks. This of course, being the spoiled (at my own doing) coffee brat that I am, decided this also wasn’t acceptable. Immediately after that the boulevard tumbled downward into what could be described as rural. It was almost strange, but pleasant and relaxing. As we cut around through this downward decline into more entrenched suburbia, more storage, the massive Intersate, and the blight of sprawl was obvious. In a way beautiful and a way distasteful and ignorant. The Interstate only the beginning of bad design, architecture, poor planning, a lack of market dynamics, and oddities people call houses that looked like puked up duplications of communist housing plans - IF the communists had ever had any individualistic housing plans. At the center here though the #12 started to enter what was probably the original, transit oriented town center of Tigard. It had an air of originality, yet sprawling tinge of viral infection from the surrounding area. A Fred Meyer again showed on the right hand side on the approach, except this one had no unique architecture and was your standard massive big box store with a huge, often unnecessary waste of space called a parking lot.
We passed another Starbucks, which looked as though it had inherited an old Taco Bell. At least they reuse old buildings that have been left to die of agedness. We passed over the Interstate again and now entered a slight run down area, but also finally pulled into the honest downtown core of Tigard. I’m not sure one would call this the downtown core, but it was obvious this was the original downtown area for Tigard. The most tell tell sign is the railroad tracks, newly upgraded and double tracked with the WES alignment additions, that run through the center of this core area.
Once we arrived I decided I was done looking for stuff along the #12 route. If anyone knows about anything cool along this route, please leave a comment or three with info.
Barbur to Tigard Cool Scale Judgement
On a scale of 1 to 10, Tigard is about a 6. It is cooler than most small towns in America, and that could be contributed directly to being part of a larger metropolitan area. However Tigard could do a lot better. I’d hope that the WES can add some vitality to downtown Tigard too, a good solid hang out for open minded, free thinking hippies needs to be downtown. The other thing though, even more important, is that there needs to be some establishments that cater to that morning commuter concentration of passengers in the morning.
The #12 Route between downtown and Tigard I’d rate a 3 or 4 out of 10. At least a 3 or 4 based on the inherent human value on a social scale of the area around the route. There is a movie theater and joints to eat at, but beyond that there is nowhere to gather and trade ideas and thoughts, plans and future projects, to expand on human knowledge or anything of high caliber standards of living. It’s basically desolate sprawl. II may one day take a trip further past to see what Sherwood might hold, but after this trip I’m no encouraged to expand my #12 route horizons.
At some point in the near future I’ll expand on my rating system and maybe get somem other people to put in their own ratings of routes.
