Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Odd Line 96 deadhead

-----Original Message-----
From: Jason McHuff [mailto:jm@jasonmchuff.net]
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 1:53 PM
To: 'collinsj@trimet.org'
Subject: Odd Line 96 deadhead


The Line 96 bus that deadheads in the middle of rush hour which I mentioned
at this morning's board meeting is train 9601. It gets to 95th & Commerce
Circle at 7:25 AM and then deadheads all the way almost to the southern end
of downtown on the way to Center Garage. It could be combined with 9603,
which dies the opposite and leaves Commerce at 7:30 AM.

In addition, service could be added by having 9609 go in service back to
Portland after it gets to Commerce at 9:09 AM. And I think there may also
be some afternoon 96 trips that could be combined. I don't know if the
planners at this evening's meeting would know about these so I thought give
the details to you.

I noticed these when trying to set up the following pictures of both a
TriMet and Salem Cherriots bus at 95th & Commerce Circle. I had to figure
out when there would be a TriMet bus laying over there while a Salem bus
passed. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmchuff/3186606211/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmchuff/3186606525/

My other annoyance about Line 96 deadheads is that between 6:38 and 8:28 PM
all the northbound buses from 95th & Commerce do so. This means that if you
get there on SMART Route 5 at 6:43 PM or 7:13 PM or SMART Route 2X at 7:00
PM you have to wait a LONG time for the 96 and then spend time meandering
through Tualatin. Allowing those people to ride the deadheads to 1st &
Arthur (which is on the deadhead route and has good connections) would
result in substantially better service to them at virtually zero cost.
http://www.ridesmart.com/Index.aspx?page=120
http://www.ridesmart.com/Index.aspx?page=116

Also, do you know if they have the testing the Type 4 on the mall that was
going to occur on Sunday rescheduled? (See
http://twitter.com/pdxcommute/status/1232855804 ) And I should have asked
you to see about assigning the first trip of bus 2901 to Al's 67 or 89 as a
surprise.

Lastly, if you're interested, you can check out the TriMet diagrams I've
made at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmchuff/sets/72157613789234327/ or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Transportation_in_Portland,_Oregon and
my other TriMet photos at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmchuff/collections/72157605312794015/

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