Poofy Goof Rant-O-Matic

my definition for the success of public transportation is pretty straight-forward. public transportation will succeed when I can get to work via public transportation in less time than it takes to drive there in my own vehicle. this means I need to be able to get between Tigard from SE Portland (~11.5 miles) in ~30min.

before Kris got her fancy WRX, we shared a single car. while she was doing dressage in sherwood a couple times a week, I either stayed at work late, or took the bus home. the most direct trip was the #12 from tigard transit station to downtown, then the #15 and later #14 to my home. this trip always took ~1hr, or twice the time of driving. even that time doesn't account for walking to/from the bus stops. trimet's own trip planner backs me up on this, showing a 66 minute trip time, not including walking to/from the stops.

30 minutes vs 1 hour, driving vs public transportation. using the metric of time, public transportation fails me horribly. getting to the PDX airport from my house is 47 minutes on tri-met vs 20 minutes by car. going downtown times get a little closer, with 19 minutes on tri-met vs 10 minutes by car, but depending on the time of day or day of week, I could easily spend another ten minutes looking for parking. there, public transportation wins.

I live in inner SE portland. I have two bus lines within a three block radius from my front door, and two more a few blocks from that. the two main streets near my home qualify for high-density housing permits according to metro because of the bus lines. yet tri-met fails me in three common transportation cases. because of that, tri-met usually remains a tertiary (behind walking and driving) form of transportation for me.

there's a lot of anti- and pro- transit rhetoric from various groups, like http://www.debunkingportland.com/, http://ti.org/ and http://www.saveportland.com/, vs http://www.lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_lrt_por.htm and papers like http://www.railvolution.com/rv2005_pdfs/rv2005_202b.pdf . interesting reading.

I only drive to work a couple times a week, so even $4/gallon gas prices hardly hurt enough for me to consider riding the bus for economic reasons.