[Grovenet] The city will be planning forthe futureof ourtransportation system

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

But MAX does not do "less stops" unless you're normally transferring to a
bus. Then you have the transfer time plus the slow bus ride again. That's
how it's done in the outlying areas with the transit centers where the
trains and busses both converge.

In downtown Portland, the train stops every two blocks, just like a bus. 

More doors is a help, I suppose, but it doesn't seem to me that busses take
significantly more time at a stop than the MAX train, and busses can miss
stops where no one wants on or off: MAX stops regardless. 

I just have to ask, *where* would anyone want to go at Hillsboro airport,
except the terminal itself if they're a business flyer? Most people balk at
a walk of one or two miles from a bus or train stop to their destination,
and even Intel Jones Farm or Hawthorne Farm are a mile from the Hillsboro
airport terminal. 

People often talk about express trains or trains with fewer stops. That
works if, and only if, everyone is going to and from the *same place*.
Otherwise, trains traveling 75 mph, like the BART trains do in the San
Francisco area, don't help at all. Even crawling along the SF Bay area
highways at 10 mph or less, cars are still faster than BART for most people
because they have to take a slow bus to the widely separated BART stations
then sometimes take a bus from the BART station to their office. BART works
fairly well for one group of people: those who live in the affluent suburbs
and who work in the downtown financial district along Market Street in San
Francisco. Even so, BART has not been able to build big enough parking
garages for all of those commuters, so it's not uncommon to drive from
Walnut Creek, 30 miles from downtown San Francisco, all the way into the
city on one's car, stopping to check at each BART station and not finding
any parking places. 

Now, why would someone do that, turning a 1 hour commute into a 2+ hour
commute? Because it can cost you $20 or more to park your car in San
Francisco *every day* if you end up driving that far looking for a parking
place. That rules out all but the wealthiest commuters in to the city. The
result is that cars are spread out for as much as a mile or more around many
outlying BART stations, parked on city streets and in shopping center
parking lots (where the drivers hope they won't be noticed) and the drivers
have to walk that distance to the BART train and back as part of their
commute.  

The bottom line for Americans is that we are *not* free to do as we like.
How we're different from some other countries, like many EU countries, is
that our choices are not limited by legislation, such as Holland (and
others) rules about where one can reside, but our choices are limited just
as severely by what we can pay for. 

Philosophically, we win a point for "freedom", I suppose, but the bottom
line is that we still can't live where we want to and we can't count on
getting to work in any reasonable time unless we carefully select where we
work and what we do for a living. It might surprise some people, but many of
us do just that. 

Ron D'Eau Claire 


-----Original Message-----
From: grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com [mailto:grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com] On
Behalf Of Valerie Warren
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2006 10:59 PM
To: Forest Grove local interests list
Subject: Re: [Grovenet] The city will be planning forthe futureof
ourtransportation system


I presume MAX would be faster because of:
    -- less stops
    -- no waiting for traffic lights
    -- more doors to let all passengers on vs. waiting for each person to 
board via the one door of a bus
    -- not having to wait a few seconds each time a bus merges back into 
traffic
The less stops is a big time factor.  The one day I traveled via bus from 
the Hillsboro Transit Center to FG, the bus stopped at 22 of the marked 
stops, and there were several it didn't need to stop at (no passengers to 
enter/exit).  *IF* light rail extended to FG, I'm taking a WAG there would 
be, at the least, 6 stops between Hillsboro and FG
    1.    WinCo shopping center area
    2.    A stop between WinCo and Fred Meyer
    3.    Fred Meyer
    4.    Grande Foods/downtown Cornelius
    5.    (proposed) Wal Mart
    6.    Bi-Mart/McMenamins
    7.    Downtown FG

A single small bus run directly from FG to the Hillsboro airport would 
indeed be faster, but not necessarily more efficient in the eyes of metro 
because metro would need a minimum number of passengers for each run to 
justify the cost.  Would metro be able to get that minimum number while 
providing pick-up times amenable to those wanting to utilize the service? 
It's a good idea that would be good to pass on to metro.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steven" <NoSpam03 at comcast.net>
To: "Forest Grove local interests list" <grovenet at rdrop.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2006 9:54 PM
Subject: Re: [Grovenet] The city will be planning for the futureof 
ourtransportation system


> What makes you think the Max would be faster? wouldn't it be more
> efficient to run a small bus directly from FG to the hillsboro airport?
> I'm sure there are more than just one person that wants to go from FG to 
> that area.
>


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