Portland, Oregon: and the Tri-Met System

Recently, I had the privilage of visting the city of Portland, Oregon, in the pacific northwest. Portland has been known for its excellent public transportation system, and this is completely true. An interesting feature of the Tri-Met public transit system is a fareless zone in downtown, where ALL trips are free. This means that within the downtown area, one can use busses or light rail to get around without paying a fare. Another great feature is that all the busses have bike racks in the front, making the whole city traversable by bicycle, due to the fact that whenver you get on a bus, you can take the bike with you! Also, the MAX light rail lines are extremely clean and frequent (at least every 15 minutes), and have a very accurate timing system. Every station will have digital boards displaying how many more minutes remain until the next train arrives. Also, the "Red Line," connects to Portland's International Airport, making a completely car free vacation extremely possible.

I have taken many pictures of the Tri-Met system: other cities and towns should model after this! (Also, google has created a transit map interface on which one can plan out trips on the Portland Tri-Met system).



(Above: Yellow Line MAX at Pioneer Square in downtown Portland, within the fareless square)



(Above - The Washington Park MAX station - the deepest station in the world - 260 feet underground)

Public Transportation - An intro

Hey everybody!

Thank you for visiting my blog! This blog is concerned primarily with public transportation, and promoting its use. Ultimately, the goal is to provide accurate, useful, and fun information regarding public transportation, and to catalyze the bringing about of public transportation to all communities.

Today, we are overly car dependent, and that is costing everyone exorbitant amounts of gas, long and stressful commutes, as well as an increasingly polluted environment. Furthermore, in the case that one does not want to drive, there is often no alternative! Many suburban/semi-urban communities are trapped in this situation, where there has been a recent boom in population growth, yet no public transportation services to accomodate it.

Evidently, public transportation is useful, convinient, and as New Jersey Transit puts it, "the way to go!"

Through this blog, I hope to make people more aware of the public transportation services around them, and also to realize that far more public transportation is needed than what currently exists! This is a call to action to all those who should be able to walk to a bus stop within 5 minutes, BUT CANNOT BECAUSE ONE DOESN'T EXIST! With that being said, if anyone has pictures of public transportation etc. that they would like to share, please let me know.

Once again, thank you and I hope that next time you step into that car, you will remember to take a relaxing train or bus ride instead - and if the bus or train doesn't come near your home - fight for it! We need more public transportation!!!

~ vivekamabob