Friday, August 8, 2008

train broken, look for finger

Portland, supposed Mecca of green living and universal mass transit (unless you start looking at surrounding communities, the rug under which Portland sweeps its dirt, but never mind about that), has shut down Light Rail into downtown for pretty much the entire month of August. Now, I understand that they're doing something invisible, yet incredibly important on one of the bridges, and I certainly understand that Tri-Met, the local transit organization, faces the same woeful budgetary restrictions that all local transit organizations constantly wail and gnash their teeth about. What I don't understand is how Tri-Met, along with really the rest of Portland, can be so damn obliviously hostile to pedestrians.

To me, there's a hierarchy in people on the move, with pedestrians, who are getting from place to place emitting only flatulence and having the potential to kill or maim pretty much nobody on that trip, at the Tip Top. Next, bicyclists, who have sacrificed some personal safety, convenience and environmental impact in exchange for speed. Next, mass transit, which generally relies on volumetric measurements to come out ahead on safety and environmental impact, and is scarcely faster that biking or walking, but at least you don't have to break a sweat. At the low end of the scale, of course, would be anyone in or on a motorized vehicle. They essentially don't care about the impact of their transportation (relative to the other options) in terms of environment, cost, or safety, so long as they don't have to come within a foot of another human being on their way in to work.

With all that in mind (and providing the caveat that this hierarchy changes considerably in a city without robust public transportation, biking, and walking infrastructure), I can not for the life of me understand why this project with the train is not designed to encourage people to walk across the river. In fact, aside from having shuttle buses take people from train-to-train, I don't think the project was designed at all. They just did what they did, and figured fuck 'em if they're getting off the train and going across some other way. They've closed sidewalks without reason. They've routed paths through intersections with walk signals that take as long as it takes me to walk half of the distance from my office to the train. They neglected to mark the walkway across the river appropriately for a multi-use path, resulting in dangerous conditions from a-hole bicyclists speeding past pedestrians.

My question is, why? Why, in a country with an obesity problem, are we making it easier to take a shuttle than to walk? If someone can walk, why not reward them for doing so by thinking about the incredibly low-cost measures that could be taken to make it pleasant and easy? Move the barrier around the construction equipment five feet back so the sidewalk can stay open, for example. There isn't even anything taking up those five feet behind the barrier. Instead they "invested" in an employee to stand at the crosswalk telling people not to go that way. Or maybe time the trains according to when there's a dropoff at the start of the walking route, then add a reasonable trip time before departure. I'm the fastest walker on the bridge, and there's always a train leaving about 3 minutes before I can get to the stop. It's probably full of people who have been waiting since they got there after the last train, 15 minutes earler. My solution has been to keep walking, which is great in terms of fitness, but still irks me in terms of being treated as a third-class transit customer.

Screw all that. I'd walk all the way home if it wasn't 12 miles one way.

2 comments:

Al M said...

hehe...

I like your point of view, so much I am linking my blog to it!

Adron said...

Walk slower, you'll have less wait time. :p hehee.

j/k

But seriously, you got a serious point there. The bus bridge has basically given me reason to NOT take the MAX during this time. I'm glad it is working again, but they (TriMet) actually pushed me back into my car twice because of this, and I can't even estimate how many dollars businesses along the route missed out on because of it.