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  Transit Sleuth

Chapter 1

Making Lemonade from Lemons?

On Friday the 19th I headed in to work as if it where any other day of the week, which it was.  It had snowed a few inches so far, but nothing that seemed excessive.  In Portland though, any snow can seem excessive, but a few inches doesn’t even stop a Dallas, Texas, let alone a city like Portland.  These where the thoughts that Friday brought.  Sure there was snow, but I never imagined what was to come.

After a solid days worth of work, and some good accomplishments to boot, I headed for my rendezvous with Joleen (Jo for short) at Union Station in downtown Portland.  It was now 4:58pm and the north bound Amtrak Cascades departure time is 6:15pm.  This is more than enough time to arrive in time and board, from experience I know this.  I walked down to the bus mall area to catch a bus heading toward Union Station.  Almost all of the buses traveling the mall turn off right before or head right in front of Union Station, so it usually saves me a few minutes.

I had called Jo a few minutes before my departure and she was waiting for the #9 bus.  Transit Tracker even reported that the bus was en route and would be there within minutes.  Mind you, it was 4:58pm on Friday.  She said she had seen one bus go by already but it was heading toward the bus garage.  I assumed, as did she that this was normal since the garage is a mere few blocks down the street and on Friday, the returning rush hour buses would be headed that direction.

At 5:06pm I managed to catch the #33 north toward the station.  After wiggling through traffic, we stopped cold with no announcement or any idea of what was going on at 5:09pm.  Without a word from the driver, after sitting for a moment as if waiting for customers, the bus shifts in the rear and he gets off and goes outside.  I step forward and off and notice there is someone fixing something on the tire, probably the chain I assume.  So I sit back down.

After some confusion as if the delay will be long, and the bus driver telling us he had no idea, as if it might be long, I started walking.  That was at 5:12pm.  Already, I should have just kept walking, I would have made better or at least the same time.

I receive a report from Jo that 3 buses have passed by with the route sign showing "Not In Service".  At this time I state that TriMet is trustworthy, it has only been 14 minutes, give em’ a little longer.  As if, mind you, during rush hour and nowhere to park at the station she could drive.  The only way to the station at this time, this close to departure.  So she hangs in there and tries to stay calm.

At 5:21pm I arrive finally at Union Station and retrieve tickets.  I had been texting Jo the entire time via my phone and at this time we call and talk.  She is stuck still, not having left 21st and Powell.  I think to myself without mentioning to her that this is "cutting it extremely close".  I however can’t blame her, TriMet still has no bus at this location and has driven by with 4 buses now.  None of them in service.  I told her to stay calm and just wait, we didn’t have much choice.  She at this point was pissed to the point of flailing vulgarities at TriMet.  I too was mad that TriMet was about to cost me a multiple hundred dollar weekend with my girlfriend because of some stupid middle tier mismanagement of buses.  I thought, wow, Dagny Taggart must have finally went on strike (Atlas Shrugged for those who know).  So far, she’d been waiting 23 minutes with no bus on a HIGH THROUGHPUT bus route!  In addition to her she mentioned to me, knowing I’d be counting and paying attention, that 8 other people where standing and waiting also.

The snow at this point was still NOT BAD yet, but unbeknownst to me things where already starting to completely fall apart.  I assumed that this was merely a very BAD screw up on part of TriMet.  So far, that’s exactly what it was.

I glanced at my phone again and it read 5:24pm.  Anything after 5:38pm for Jo would mean we’d basically miss the train.  Mind you, I’m getting insanely pissed at this point.  I had never missed a train in my life.  NEVER.  I took that as a point of pride.  I don’t screw things up like that.  I am flawless in my logistics, always have been, always intend to be.  So here I am, about to encroach upon my first failure to meet a train because of TriMet’s incapability to run its own bus system?  I couldn’t believe it.  TriMet, one of the systems I actually trusted to some degree, was about to lose its rank as a reliable system.

At 5:32pm I’m about to just say screw it and call it an attempt that failed.  Jo calls and tells me that there is still no bus.  I tell her at 5:38pm if there is no bus I’ll come home and we’ll drive all the way to Centralia.  Just for spite I’ll poke a hole in the exhaust so we can consume more carbon into the atmosphere (I was mad, I say silly things when I’m mad - but dammit, we where going to drive if need be).

Then it happened.  This is when things started to make sense.  Not for TriMet, but for the coming days.  The strange thing is, what happened next isn’t because of the snow either, it’s because of bad management and a large gap in funding necessities.

Amtrak Fails, Again

Amtrak has old equipment, most of it they don’t take care of appropriately because of those fat cat idiots in Washington DC.  Not because of the CEO (because really, Amtrak’s CEO gets paid crap compared to even the lowest CEO average, he gets paid crap compared to some non-CEO exec jobs out there), but plain and simple because of incompetence at the political level, both Democrat and Republican equally to blame.  So with that context, one can derive that Amtrak has equipment reliability issues on a fairly regular basis.  As I write this, several weeks after these events, Amtrak Cascades have been using BNSF Switcher power as their head end power on the Cascades Trains.  This means the trains are currently traveling back and forth at a top speed of about 60mph consuming 2-3x more diesel and spewing an equal multiple of carbon pollution into the air.  Good job Washington and Oregon on keeping this small investment going that carries over 600,000 trips per year!  With a small few extra hundred grand (a couple dollars per passenger) these engines could most likely be kept in good shape, but instead they continuously fail because of a lack of maintenance.

So when I state what happens next, you won’t see this as some surprise.  Amtrak announced at exactly 5:33pm that the north bound Amtrak Cascades that departs, usually, at 6:15pm  is being canceled and passengers will be provided tour buses to ride to their destinations on.

At this point a long string of vulgarities flew from my mouth as I stepped away from the hundreds of people in the main waiting room of Union Station.  With tickets in hand I grabbed my phone and called Joleen back.  As she answered I said, "Do not get on a bus, I’m heading home on the next bus, or taxi."  So I put my tickets in my backpack and headed toward the doors.  I was so furious that Joleen had been standing for 40 minutes in the snow, without a single one of the 4+ buses that where scheduled to show up showing up, and not a single one of the 4+ buses that went by not in service being dynamically rerouted to handle the brewing and unknown emergency.  Since TriMet was obviously in the middle of becoming completely disoriented I decided it best I just get a Taxi, since a half dozen where waiting anyway.

The Taxi Ride and New Plans

I got a Taxi in short order and headed for the apartment.  Joleen was waiting when I arrived and visibly upset, as was I.  We where seething in anger at this incompetence.  Like I had mentioned, at this juncture this incompetence was NOT because of the storm.  It rests solely at the heels of politicians and management.  I was MAD!  Joleen was MAD!  I was out several hundred dollars over these people completely botching up the entire weekend we had planned.  Whatever, who is John Galt - blagh.

So we sat around a bit and tried to figure things out.  I pondered whether if I canceled the hotel and train tickets we might get the money back and be able to use it on another outing.  However, we wanted the outing NOW because we had planned for weeks.  It’s been a LONG last couple months and we both wanted out of downtown and free of such thoughts.  We where traveling without computers and where going to have a weekend of reading, eating good grub, and just being free from constraints and sitting, discussing, and reading some more.

I proffered that we go to another McMenamin’s near Portland, but far enough out that we would be away from the temptations of the computers and downtown itself.  We came to the conclusion to go to Forest Grove and check in at the McMenamin’s Grand Lodge.  I made some calls, we planned our logistics via TriMet (hopefully a bus WOULD come today sometime), and we prepared for our second attempt at departing Portland.  Hopefully we’d be more successful this time around.

To Be Continued…

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