Two weeks straight time off from work must be great! Hard Drive column » No rumble, just a student crush on TriMet By Joseph Rose, The Oregonian October 04, 2009, 7:40PMJoseph Rose/The OregonianCleveland High School student pack themselves onto the No. 9 last Thursday morning. Standing at Southeast Powell and Milwaukie with 18 teenagers on Thursday morning, I saw something that reminded me of a street-gang faceoff in S.E. Hinton’s “The Outsiders” - a book I read in high school.
Autumn’s chill breathed through our jackets as we huddled under a TriMet shelter, waiting for the next No. 9 bus headed to Cleveland High School.
“Great,” muttered a girl with blue hair topped with a black bow. “Here they come.”
Across the street, a No. 70 had stopped. Like water gushing from a hydrant, a couple of dozen high schoolers poured out and waited for the walk signal at the other side of the crosswalk.
5 things to know about your commute ...TriMet Bus Line 66-Marquam Hill/HollywoodFor Cleveland High School students having a tough time getting on the crowded No. 9 buses in the morning, consider Line 66 as an alternative. It’s an express route that just might get you there faster and without as much jostling.
Rock blasting on Oregon 217Crews widening and giving 217 a face-lift will be blasting away Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday between 11 p.m. and midnight. Expect a series of blasts milliseconds apart south of the Wilshire Street overpass. To protect motorists, traffic will be stopped on northbound 217 from Walker Road and at the southbound on-ramps from U.S. 26 for at least 20 minutes each night.
Springwater Corridor Trail, between mileposts 1.5 and 2Last week, we got a little grumpy about the huge bumps being caused by overgrown tree roots that were creating hazardous conditions for bicycle commuters. Well, the city responded by tearing up the asphalt, cutting out the roots and patching things up. Thanks.
National walk or bike to school dayBack in 1969, 41 percent of children walked and biked to school. Today, that number has shrunk to about 13 percent nationally, and the obesity rate isn’t pretty. On Wednesday, we encourage parents and students to get out of the car and do what the event says — bike or walk to school. It’s supposed to be good for you.
Brickwork returns to Southwest Broadway, downtown PortlandNot again. The left lane (including the bike lane) on Broadway will be closed all week at the Morrison and Yamhill intersections for brick repair. Alternative southbound routes include Southwest 11th and Third avenues. Oh, and Naito Parkway.
Through the blur and buzz of morning traffic on Powell, one throng of teens nervously sized up the other.
It wasn’t a Ponyboy moment. A rumble wasn’t in the air. They all seemed like good kids - laughing through tin grins, listening to iPods, talking “Twilight,” cramming for quizzes.
No, the students congregating around the corner near the Aladdin Theater worried that the last bus headed to Cleveland before the morning bell wouldn’t have enough room for everyone.
With Portland Public Schools giving free TriMet passes to all high school students this year, it’s the same scene almost every day, said Cleveland senior Pansey Wilcox-Frigley.
“Sometimes, the bus is so crowded that it goes by without stopping,” she said. “Other times, depending on the driver, we manage to squeeze everybody on.”
The upside to the free passes: They ease morning traffic and help the environment.
The down: Many buses are too jammed to board, some parents say, forcing students to catch later buses and arrive tardy to school.“This is not how you build confidence in the next generation of transit riders,” said Lael Pinney, whose daughter has given up on trying to catch the No. 10 to Cleveland. “How could they not see this coming? Why didn’t they add buses right away?”
Reasonable questions.
The closest thing to an answer that I’ve seen is a letter that Tom Mills, a service planning and scheduling manager, sent to a frustrated parent. TriMet, he wrote, wasn’t “able to accurately gauge what the increase in ridership would be” before the school year.
“Once the school year began,” he wrote, “we started experiencing overloads on bus lines serving several high schools.”
Well, obviously.
At least TriMet hasn’t let the problem fester. In the past 10 days, it has added two “tripper” buses to the Line 44 route serving Wilson High and one to the Line 51 for Lincoln. The agency has also added buses to Line 10 for Cleveland and to Line 73, the Northeast 33rd Avenue route serving Grant High.
As for the eastbound No. 9 going to Cleveland, changes arrive this morning with an extra bus. Buses will now arrive at the busy Powell and Milwaukie stop at 7:53 a.m. and 7:56 a.m.
Last Thursday, there was only the 7:56.
Some kids had their strategies. Part of the group that transferred from the No. 70 broke away and started walking west, hoping to board one step ahead of the big crowd.
“It at least guarantees they’ll get on,” Wilcox-Frigley said.
Sitting in the shelter, Angelina Cardinalli said it wasn’t fair. “We were waiting here first,” she said.
Fortunately, the driver showed mercy. TriMet buses are supposed to hold only 64 riders. There had to be more than that on the last No. 9 to Cleveland. -- Joseph Rose, Twitter: pdxcommute
Autumn’s chill breathed through our jackets as we huddled under a TriMet shelter, waiting for the next No. 9 bus headed to Cleveland High School.
“Great,” muttered a girl with blue hair topped with a black bow. “Here they come.”
Across the street, a No. 70 had stopped. Like water gushing from a hydrant, a couple of dozen high schoolers poured out and waited for the walk signal at the other side of the crosswalk.
5 things to know about your commute ...TriMet Bus Line 66-Marquam Hill/HollywoodFor Cleveland High School students having a tough time getting on the crowded No. 9 buses in the morning, consider Line 66 as an alternative. It’s an express route that just might get you there faster and without as much jostling.
Rock blasting on Oregon 217Crews widening and giving 217 a face-lift will be blasting away Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday between 11 p.m. and midnight. Expect a series of blasts milliseconds apart south of the Wilshire Street overpass. To protect motorists, traffic will be stopped on northbound 217 from Walker Road and at the southbound on-ramps from U.S. 26 for at least 20 minutes each night.
Springwater Corridor Trail, between mileposts 1.5 and 2Last week, we got a little grumpy about the huge bumps being caused by overgrown tree roots that were creating hazardous conditions for bicycle commuters. Well, the city responded by tearing up the asphalt, cutting out the roots and patching things up. Thanks.
National walk or bike to school dayBack in 1969, 41 percent of children walked and biked to school. Today, that number has shrunk to about 13 percent nationally, and the obesity rate isn’t pretty. On Wednesday, we encourage parents and students to get out of the car and do what the event says — bike or walk to school. It’s supposed to be good for you.
Brickwork returns to Southwest Broadway, downtown PortlandNot again. The left lane (including the bike lane) on Broadway will be closed all week at the Morrison and Yamhill intersections for brick repair. Alternative southbound routes include Southwest 11th and Third avenues. Oh, and Naito Parkway.
Through the blur and buzz of morning traffic on Powell, one throng of teens nervously sized up the other.
It wasn’t a Ponyboy moment. A rumble wasn’t in the air. They all seemed like good kids - laughing through tin grins, listening to iPods, talking “Twilight,” cramming for quizzes.
No, the students congregating around the corner near the Aladdin Theater worried that the last bus headed to Cleveland before the morning bell wouldn’t have enough room for everyone.
With Portland Public Schools giving free TriMet passes to all high school students this year, it’s the same scene almost every day, said Cleveland senior Pansey Wilcox-Frigley.
“Sometimes, the bus is so crowded that it goes by without stopping,” she said. “Other times, depending on the driver, we manage to squeeze everybody on.”
The upside to the free passes: They ease morning traffic and help the environment.
The down: Many buses are too jammed to board, some parents say, forcing students to catch later buses and arrive tardy to school.“This is not how you build confidence in the next generation of transit riders,” said Lael Pinney, whose daughter has given up on trying to catch the No. 10 to Cleveland. “How could they not see this coming? Why didn’t they add buses right away?”
Reasonable questions.
The closest thing to an answer that I’ve seen is a letter that Tom Mills, a service planning and scheduling manager, sent to a frustrated parent. TriMet, he wrote, wasn’t “able to accurately gauge what the increase in ridership would be” before the school year.
“Once the school year began,” he wrote, “we started experiencing overloads on bus lines serving several high schools.”
Well, obviously.
At least TriMet hasn’t let the problem fester. In the past 10 days, it has added two “tripper” buses to the Line 44 route serving Wilson High and one to the Line 51 for Lincoln. The agency has also added buses to Line 10 for Cleveland and to Line 73, the Northeast 33rd Avenue route serving Grant High.
As for the eastbound No. 9 going to Cleveland, changes arrive this morning with an extra bus. Buses will now arrive at the busy Powell and Milwaukie stop at 7:53 a.m. and 7:56 a.m.
Last Thursday, there was only the 7:56.
Some kids had their strategies. Part of the group that transferred from the No. 70 broke away and started walking west, hoping to board one step ahead of the big crowd.
“It at least guarantees they’ll get on,” Wilcox-Frigley said.
Sitting in the shelter, Angelina Cardinalli said it wasn’t fair. “We were waiting here first,” she said.
Fortunately, the driver showed mercy. TriMet buses are supposed to hold only 64 riders. There had to be more than that on the last No. 9 to Cleveland. -- Joseph Rose, Twitter: pdxcommute
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