Portland Transit | TriMet/Mass Transit News

[kmlorenz]

They will have free WiFi!! How cool is that? Why can't they get their act together and get it on MAX???

[JordanL]

Do you buy a zone ticket to ride this, or do you buy a commuter ticket, then another ticket when you transfer?

Multiple tickets is a HUGE barrier to adoption by commuters.

[Sekkle]

^ From trimet's WES page...

To ride WES, you’ll need a TriMet All-Zone fare.

[NJD]

Light rail goes green
Hennebery Eddy Architects worked with TriMet to try new technologies on the Jackson South Terminus project for MAX light rail in Clackamas County

DJC POSTED: 04:00 AM PDT Monday, October 6, 2008
BY SAM BENNETT

When Hennebery Eddy Architects first began working on the Jackson South Terminus light-rail station in 2006, designers knew they wanted a project packed with green features. But they weren’t certain that the technology would be ready in time for construction.

“We realized we had an opportunity to make this a substantial project, and TriMet was on board,” said Hennebery Eddy designer David Byrne. “We wanted to see how we could make this even bigger.”

The project, which begins construction next month, will include 22 wind turbines mounted on top of the light-rail catenary poles. The turbines will provide 275 watts of power.

At the time Hennebery Eddy Architects was looking into the turbines, the manufacturer, Oregon Wind, was still testing the technology and had only a beta model. Two years later, Byrne said the vertical axis turbines are ready for use and will add a “nice sculptural quality” to the project.

The Jackson South Terminus will be on Southwest Jackson Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, near Interstate 405.

The terminus will open in September 2009, in time for the opening of TriMet’s MAX light-rail line to Clackamas County, known as the Green Line. The line will run the length of the Portland Mall, connecting Portland State University with Union Station. It will also be the terminus for the Yellow Line, which runs to the Expo Center.

The Jackson South Terminus is a pilot project for TriMet, according to Mary Fetsch, communications director. The project will generate more than 50 kilowatts of power through solar energy. A 44-foot-tall solar array will generate enough power to run the LED lighting on the site, exterior lights for buildings on the site and the buildings themselves.

“There are so many things that are exciting about this project,” said Byrne. “The goal is to have the site provide more energy than it consumes.”

Hennebery Eddy Architects also worked with Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services to create a street storm-water runoff system. Storm water will be treated through bio-filtration planters along Southwest Jackson Street and as a result the project will not be connected to the city’s storm-water system.

Plantings and landscaping will treat all the on-site storm water, Byrne said. In addition, he said that the project will use salvaged materials from the Portland Mall project, including granite pavers, crushed concrete, rock and mulched tree materials.

The site will have a signal and communications building and a substation building, and the solar array will provide an “elegant wrapper” for those buildings, Byrne said.

While the project is a new sustainability model for TriMet, Byrne said he doesn’t think it could be LEED certified because there’s not a LEED category for this type of project.

Still, Fetsch said the project could lead to other sustainable projects for TriMet. “Sustainability is very important to TriMet and to PGE,” she said. “This is a demonstration project, and it’s really exciting to see how it might point to future opportunities.”

She said lessons learned from the Jackson South Terminus could be repeated along future MAX lines.

“The terminus is the culmination of a lot of efforts,” Byrne said. “We pushed a little further to make it a hallmark project on the mall.”

[zilfondel]

will provide 275 watts of power.

Is it just me, or can my microwave use 1200 watts of power.

I don't really get why these wind turbines are so low capacity? Maybe that number is for each one?
But it is certainly going to be a visually striking endpoint for the MAX line. I saw the full rendering at the AIA exposition at the Pioneer Place Mall.

[edgepdx]

Yes, probably for all of them, vertical axis wind turbines are not very efficient. That's why the design isn't used in either residential or utility scale projects.

These are just for PR and aesthetics. One solar panel can generate almost that much electricity. As for comparing to your microwave, do you use your microwave 24 hours/day? That's why you have to measure power in Kw/hrs.

Now the 55 Kw solar array is something else entirely. That's about 10x the power consumed by a normal house.

[IanofCascadia]

Originally Posted by edgepdx

Yes, probably for all of them, vertical axis wind turbines are not very efficient. That's why the design isn't used in either residential or utility scale projects.

These are just for PR and aesthetics. One solar panel can generate almost that much electricity. As for comparing to your microwave, do you use your microwave 24 hours/day? That's why you have to measure power in Kw/hrs.

Now the 55 Kw solar array is something else entirely. That's about 10x the power consumed by a normal house.

Actually, a watt is a rate (Joule per second). When you say Kw/hrs. I think that you actually mean kWh - there's a big difference between the two. By definition a kW/h (what you said) would be a rate of acceleration where as a kWh (correct) is actually just a unit of energy [ 1 kWh = ( 1 (J/s) x 3600 (s/h) x 1(h) x 1000) = 3,600,000 Joules]. It is effectively the same idea as with a light year (which is actually a unit of distance, not speed). Average power consumption/production is usually written with a small "a". For example an average power production of 4MW would be written as 4 aMW. Don't mean to bore anyone with the details... this is just a very commonly made mistake.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by alexjon

4 months. FOUR FREAKIN MONTHS.

Tell me again why this sort of system is better than LRT?

It's far cheaper to implement, that's why.

The Wes Commuter Rail Line shares the same tracks as the Freight trains. Whereas TriMet is replacing most of the rail because the existing rail is old, slow, and otherwise in poor shape. That added to the expense of implementing this project. Departing the freight ROW for a few blocks to reach Beaverton's Light Rail Station for cross platform transfers significantly added to the costs. If the Light Rail had been routed closer to the existing rail line initially, much of the costs for the WES line could have been eliminated. That may have been poor long range planning on TriMet's part. But it is possible that it might have been cheaper to build the commuter rail line through Beaveton to the light rail station than build the light rail tracks to the freight tracks. None-the-less, that last mile through Beaverton probable was half the construction costs for the almost 15 mile WES line.

Now, let's assume TriMet had placed light rail on this suburban route. Since TriMet already owns the ROW, most likely the light rail would have been placed in the ROW. At least one new track would have been required to completely separate the light rail trains from the heavy rail freight trains. Since there are freight sidings on both sides of the ROW, an occassional bridge or tunnel (at $10 to $15 million each) would have to be built to go over or under the freight tracks to maintain freight service to various industries. That one track would have to be electrified, with expensive power rectfiers every few miles and catenary poles the entire route increasing the costs. After spending significant sums for the electric infrastructure, the little relative additional costs to double track the entire line would be difficult to not do.

TriMet would have spent at least $40 million per mile, at least a grand total of $600 million over WES's 15 miles as light rail. TriMet will only spend $117 million for the commuter rail line. That's a total savings of almost $500 million, with a project cost less than $10 million per mile. That $500 million savings is equivalent to 10 to 12 miles of new light rail lines in Portland. Money doesn't grow on trees. Additionally, TriMet is building a state-of-the-art commuter rail for WES. Both the Passenger and Freight locomotives on this line are getting Postive Train Control. Althought relatively cheaper than light rail, TriMet isn't building WES cheap.

The WES commuter rail line can also be extended cheaply to Salem in the near future as well, a light rail line would be much too expensive to build all the way to Salem.

Whereas I agree the Colorado Railcar DMU isn't as nice or efficient as European built DMU trains, they are effective on this line since it has to share the track with freight trains. The Colorado Railcar DMU is the only DMU choice that's FRA compliant.

[scleeb]

What is positive train control? Would it help prevent the kind of disaster that occurred in LA earlier this summer?

[WonderlandPark]

electricron, thx for the detailed explanation. I figured they went DMU because TriMet wants to be able to run commuter rail to Salem in the long run.

[RED_PDXer]

Originally Posted by scleeb

What is positive train control? Would it help prevent the kind of disaster that occurred in LA earlier this summer?

I don't know the terminology, but the control systems used on WES would indeed prevent the kind of disaster that occurred in LA. Both freight and DMU trains will participate in the control systems so that neither will be able to operate in the same segments at the same time.

[NJD]

Gas is less, but TriMet rides are up 8.8% over last year
Monday, October 20, 2008
The Oregonian

TriMet's light-rail and bus systems both showed strong growth in September, compared with the same month a year ago, even as gas prices fell from midsummer records.

The transit system had an average of 2.03 million rides a week, up 8.8 percent from September 2007. That was down from about 2.3 million rides a week recorded in July and appeared to follow the trend of gas prices: Oregon's average price for unleaded gas was $3.34 Tuesday, down from an average high of $4.30 on July 3, according to AAA Oregon/Idaho.

TriMet officials say it's more important to compare the same time period with a year ago to account for seasonal variations.

Using that measure, MAX ridership set a record of 110,400 average boardings per weekday, a 7.7 percent increase compared with September 2007. Including weekends, MAX ridership also set a record, averaging 702,300 trips a week, a 7.9 percent increase.

Rush-hour trips continued to grow the fastest. The system had 114,200 rush-hour trips in September, a 12.4 percent increase over the same month in 2007.

Weekly bus trips increased 9.3 percent compared with September 2007, climbing to 1,328,900 rides.

TriMet has also seen record use of its Transit Tracker phone system, which provides real-time bus and train arrival information. The system has had more than 10 million calls so far, TriMet said.

-- Dylan Rivera

[NJD]

There has been a lot of talk of this lately:

Blumenauer pushes road, bridge, transit repair to help economy, quality of life
by Charles Pope, The Oregonian
Monday October 20, 2008, 2:45 PM


Faith Cathcart/ THE OREGONIAN

Earl Blumenauer is hoping federal funds can replicate the success of Portland's MAX Light Rail in other areas while stimulating the economy.

WASHINGTON -- Like a train that keeps chugging, Rep. Earl Blumenauer was stumping again Monday for public money to expand mass transit, repair the nation's crumbing roads and bridges and water treatment plants and assorted other public works projects.

He's been at it a long time, but now momentum for the idea is building thanks to an unlikely source - the economic meltdown.

``If we can find $1 trillion that we can commit with a very uncertain return it makes it much more likely that we can find $50 billion or $100 billion or $150 billion to do stuff that everybody agrees needs to happen and that will put people to work, strengthen the economy and protect the environment,'' Blumenauer said.

Opinions are shifting as lawmakers, local officials, presidential candidates and even once skeptical economists believe it should be done.

The idea makes sense on several levels, Blumenauer said in an interview after appearing before the American Planning Association's conference in Washington. Investing in public work projects would put people to work, he said. It would provide dollars for a sagging economy and hard hit families. It would help the environment by easing traffic congestion and giving people access to mass transit.

``The business community is totally in sync with organized labor and the major professional groups and state and local government. People are desperate for this stuff,'' Blumenauer said.

The benefits, he said, ``are absolutely verifiable; people can see it. It puts folks to work. This will create not just tens of thousands of jobs but potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs over the next 18 months.''

There are political payoffs too. Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has suggested spending on infrastructure to jump-start the economy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has also suggested adding public works programs in a stimulus bill Congress is expected to consider after the elections. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has mentioned it as well.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said last week that Obama's plan to rebuild the nation's crumbling roads and bridges is a crucial part of his plan to revive the economy. The Obama campaign projects that its public works plans would create 2 million new jobs.

After years of defeats and futility, Blumenauer is convinced the odds are increasing that Congress could approve this investing as much as $50 billion to improve infrastructure with more next year if Obama is elected.

``I've had personal conversations with Sen. Obama on several occasions. Infrastructure is part of his theme'' for reviving the economy, Blumenauer said Monday.

Blumenauer and his allies argue that the economic jolt would be quick because money would go to projects have been approved. There would also be longer term benefits as companies would save money shipping products on less congested roads and the environment would benefit from people using mass transit.

There isn't total agreement, however. President Bush and some leading economists aren't convinced spending on infrastructure would stimulate the economy. And Republican presidential candidate John McCain says cutting taxes is the best -- and fastest -- way to reboot the economy.

That's one reason Blumenauer isn't slowing down. After several meetings in Washington, he's headed to New Jersey and New York for meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday.

And after two years of work, he's still amazed that he's been unable to win the case.

The benefits, he said, ``are absolutely verifiable; people can see it. It puts folks to work. This will create not just tens of thousands of jobs but potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs over the next 18 months.''

``People don't just support it, they're desperate for it,'' he said.

[bvpcvm]

ugh. cutting taxes is the republican answer to everything.

what i don't get is how anyone can say that infrastructure shouldn't be a priority? has anyone driven on 23rd lately? or burnside? it's incredible to me that we've let our infrastructure rot as much as we have, thanks to "don't tax me" neglect. it would be interesting to compare the increased cost to me in car repairs caused by driving streets in such terrible shape vs the money i've saved in taxes that haven't been spent on infrastructure. we need more sidewalks, more transit, more bike lanes, and the roads we have should be in decent shape.

[MightyAlweg]

And yet for every major road or highway project that gets proposed, it has an uphill fight against environmental groups who object to spending money on roads.

Look at the I-5 bridge project, it's a perfect example of this. That's a vital need - replacing an outdated and inadequate highway bridge that is an integral link in a national highway from Seattle to San Diego - that included ample plans for light rail and bike lanes and green building codes, and it immediately got bogged down in a quagmire of environmentalists who opposed the project immediately. Although the proposal would create new access for light rail, bikes and pedestrians, in addition to reducing the amount of pollution from idling cars by dramatically increasing the efficiency of that stretch of highway, the fact that it also included plans for six lanes of highway to carry cars and trucks doomed it.

It seems as though if there is even a chance that a vehicle that uses an internal combustion engine for motive power might use the infrastructure or facility, there is no way the powerful environmental groups will allow the project to move forward with tax dollars. And even private tollways are opposed vehemently, simply because their purpose is to carry cars.

Using the I-5 bridge project as an example, can you imagine if today's vocal environmentalists were around in the Great Depression?

All of Roosevelt's New Deal dams and highways and bridges and airports and seaports would never have made it off the drawing boards. The New Deal's vast infrastructure projects would have been reduced to only painting murals in post offices as a way to "make work".

[electricron]

Federal Railway Administration on Positive Train Control
http://www.fra.dot.gov/us/content/1265
Positive Train Control (PTC) refers to technology that is capable of preventing train-to-train collisions, over-speed derailments, and casualties or injuries to roadway workers (e.g., maintenance-of-way workers, bridge workers, signal maintainers) operating within their limits of authority.

And Wikipedia on Positive Train Control
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Train_Control

The main concept in PTC is that the train receives information about its location and where it is allowed to safely travel. Equipment on board the train then enforces this, preventing unsafe movement. Contrast this with conventional railway signaling in which equipment located along the track provides the information, and the engineer (driver) supplies the enforcement.

There's much more information about how it basically works at the Wikipedia web site.

Again, America's regulators are way behind the times, and state-of-the-art when it comes to railroad safety. PTC-like systems have been the rule on most European railroads for decades, e.g. the Automatic Warning System in Great Britain, Punktförmige Zugbeeinflussung and Linienzugbeeinflussung systems in Germany, and Le Crocodile in France.

In Sept 2008, the US Congress passed a new rail safety law that sets a deadline of 2015 for implementation of positive train control (PTC) technology across most of the U.S. rail network.

Long past the time we should have implemented PTC. Just a few RR tracks/lines in the USA have it now.

[JordanL]

There's plenty of people that are all about public works projects that are viscerally against things like improving I-5 or Burnside because they don't think people should be driving cars at ALL.

[NJD]

^ other than environmental, sprawl and auto-dependency issues that make headlines, the I-5 bridge project has been mainly criticized by Oregon politicians as being too expensive for the region and would leave the Oregon side of the metro area high and dry for funding for all of its infrastructure projects. The Sunrise Corridor highway, the 99W/ I-5 Connector highway, the Newburg bypass highway, the I-84/ US 26 connector highway, and the Ore. 217 highway widening and interchange project would be shut out of any funding possibility for years and years if the CRC is built (by the way, all of those projects combined would cost about the same as the CRC, and would help out roughly 5 times the commuters and freight traffic).

With that said, a federal backed infrastructure program created to stimulate the economy would hopefully be large enough for all of Oregon and Washington's funding needs for not only these highway projects, but the numerous urban transit, intercity rail, wind farm and tidal generator projects approved and awaiting funding also.

[bvpcvm]

Originally Posted by NJD

^ other than environmental, sprawl and auto-dependency issues that make headlines, the I-5 bridge project has been mainly criticized by Oregon politicians as being too expensive for the region and would leave the Oregon side of the metro area high and dry for funding for all of its infrastructure projects. The Sunrise Corridor highway, the 99W/ I-5 Connector highway, the Newburg bypass highway, the I-84/ US 26 connector highway, and the Ore. 217 highway widening and interchange project would be shut out of any funding possibility for years and years if the CRC is built (by the way, all of those projects combined would cost about the same as the CRC, and would help out roughly 5 times the commuters and freight traffic).

I'd say that's an excellent argument in favor of the CRC!

I don't really think we should be widening highways, but we *definitely* shouldn't be building orbital highways out in the suburbs or our sprawl will REALLY become uncontrollable.

[JordanL]

NJD: I did not mean that to be taken as a statement that there are no valid arguments against the I-5 bridge.

Though I would say that many times when a street in the city falls into disrepair many anti-auto's toot the "let it crumble" horn....