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  #2161  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2008, 2:32 AM
JoshYent JoshYent is offline
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Originally Posted by alexjon View Post
We need a by-pass is all.

205 is inadequate in this regard. Give the by-pass limited access points and just let people use it to get around the city


i agree with you

there are so many available areas/options and if they did it right they could establish a few key areas that are needed on the outskirts of the metro area....theres alot of land, and if they did it right and controlled the development kind of like a ring highway either east or most likely west near forest grove then up over the mountains into st helens and over the river which would really help our coastal region develop as well.
and then back up into washington

or maybe along the columbia through longview then alight back up with I-5

this would really increase development between vancouver and longview and st.helens, this would open up all sorts of areas along the river, especially the island, and they could slowly raise the level above 100 or even 500 year flood levels.....and create an entire new area/development, this would maybe open up more ferry travel, max or an express lines could be pushed to the outlying areas and concentrate everything inside of that ring permanently.... sort of like a two state urban growth boundary...

this would allow the cities to grow together and form kind of a competition on either side of the river for both states....they could create so many jobs in close proximity to the major transportation corridors, and allow the area to compete with the seattle area...
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  #2162  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2008, 2:51 AM
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sort of like someone took a mini locomotive and smashed it onto the front of a standard MAX train. I was never a fan of the look of the Colorado DMUs, but as long as it does its job and gets lots of ridership, then all is good.
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  #2163  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2008, 3:28 AM
PacificNW PacificNW is offline
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zaphod: I took the liberty of capturing the photo from their web site. I hope you don't mind.




Courtesy of: http://www.trainweb.org/mccann/wes.htm

Last edited by PacificNW; Jun 14, 2008 at 3:49 AM.
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  #2164  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2008, 3:32 AM
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aint mine lol...I just didn't know since it was someone's personal site.
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  #2165  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2008, 4:40 AM
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It's about time that the Portland Metro had a Commuter Train. I'm still not sure about the route though. However if this succeeds then we're bound to get routes into Downtown from the burbs.
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  #2166  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2008, 5:46 AM
deasine deasine is offline
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Originally Posted by JordanL View Post
Yeah, biking is an improvement of about 5 minutes over the bus, but is way more refreshing.

Unfortunately we have something like 220 rainy days a year...
See that's the problem. Everyone uses rain as an excuse, which really isn't the best one. The one I would accept is... that there isn't enough (or any at all) biking infrastructure.

If someone can throw me a few bike stats in Portland, that would be nice =P

Vancouver has the same climate as Portland, yet Vancouver has at least 5% of all trips made within the city made by bikers. This number significantly drops to 1-2% within the Metro Vancouver however. And the main reason for that is the lack of biking infrastructure.

There are many European cities that are just as rainy as Portland and Vancouver, yet they achieve a substantial number of bikers:

1) Netherlands - 27% of all trips made by bike
2) Denmark - 18% of all trips made by bike
3) Finland - 11% of all trips made by bike

(These statistics are based on a powerpoint presentation by John Pucher, a professor of urban design and development)

Mind you, these stastics are a few years old, so these numbers have increased significantly by today.

And why were they able to achieve such high numbers? It's because they made so many new biking developments. Back in 1970s, European cities were exactly like North American cities today. There were many lanes on a road just for cars. Because of the congestion, they decided to take a smarter approach. They began creating bike-only lanes and continued from there.

Now, I can tell you that bikers have priorities over cars. Many intersections have bike boxes, similar to the ones in Portland, just triple the size. Then there are bike signals, that give the green light to the bikers before cars. And the most impressive thing is that they have sensors that calculate the speed of the bikes giving bikers a "green wave" to bikes.

I believe Denmark has taken a bigger step: there is a smartcar equipped with sensors that detect potential pot holes.

Now, of course I'm not saying we need all of that and we shouldn't expect bikes to be roaming our cities overnight. But why shouldn't we start today? Portland has already introduced bike boxes and has a few bike lanes running around the city.

First, we need more bike lanes of course. But then that's also not enough. Often, bike lanes on the road still deter many from biking: it's still not very safe. Alright then, how about raised bike lanes?


My Image

Here's one that is being constructed in Vancouver right now. We only have one, but in Europe: holy cow. Many.

We want to make biking easy for everyone, not just for extreme bikers. Raised bike lanes are a crucial step. Just think of it this way: bike lanes should be an extension of the sidewalk, not an expansion of a road.

The other way is making side streets great for bikers, which is actually Vancouver's approach. We don't usually see bike lanes on arterial streets, but instead, made bike priorities on side streets near arterials. Traffic calming measures such as traffic circles, "false dead ends", and narrower streets help.

Example of a "false dead end":
Edit: I couldn't find a good example of one. But basically the road "ends" at an intersection but bikes can continue through.

Example of a Narrower Street:

Source: Flickr

Notice only one vehicle can get through the street without entering other lanes? But bikers don't have this problem.

Well hmm, alright we got our bike lanes but where are we going to park them? Simple. Have bike lockers or bike racks. You can even take away one parking space and be able to fit 10 bikes.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JordanL View Post
I seem to be missing something that other people know though. How does getting rid of freeways/purposely making it less convenient to own a motorized vehicle make it any less trouble to use alternate transit options? I think the freeway's are ugly, noisy and intrusive, but I don't see the alternatives people are referring to.
I'm only naming a few solutions. But if you don't outline basic infrastruture for biking, how can you make it an attractive option? It's the same formula for public transportation, if you don't have the infrastructure for public transportation, there is no way you can would achieve high commuting numbers.

It's a little harder in the Unities States because people are just so used to their cars. This is why we need to try even more to get people out of their cars, and get them into buses, trains, and bikes.

Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkDaMan View Post
I think Portland should really be pushing TODs. Create community centers along the line so the billions invested in creating MAX create the density needed to fully utilize the system.
Yes, yes, and yes! Hong Kong's MTR is incredibly sucessful because of this. The MTRC really played in the real estate, and they would sell land or build apartments and offices right on top of the MTR station or areas around it.

TransLink (Vancouver) is finally doing such a thing. They realized they own a lot of land that can be sold for developers.

Please note: I'm still learning about all of this, and I haven't been in enough places so I can only use Vancouver as an example. But I know Vancouver too has a lot to learn. If you ever got a chance, go look at John Pucher's presentations: http://policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/pucher/. I learned a lot when I attended his presentation and the Vancouver regional bike strategy plan.
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  #2167  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2008, 6:59 AM
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westsider westsider is offline
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Originally Posted by JoshYent View Post
i agree with you

there are so many available areas/options and if they did it right they could establish a few key areas that are needed on the outskirts of the metro area....theres alot of land, and if they did it right and controlled the development kind of like a ring highway either east or most likely west near forest grove then up over the mountains into st helens and over the river which would really help our coastal region develop as well.
and then back up into washington

or maybe along the columbia through longview then alight back up with I-5

this would really increase development between vancouver and longview and st.helens, this would open up all sorts of areas along the river, especially the island, and they could slowly raise the level above 100 or even 500 year flood levels.....and create an entire new area/development, this would maybe open up more ferry travel, max or an express lines could be pushed to the outlying areas and concentrate everything inside of that ring permanently.... sort of like a two state urban growth boundary...

this would allow the cities to grow together and form kind of a competition on either side of the river for both states....they could create so many jobs in close proximity to the major transportation corridors, and allow the area to compete with the seattle area...


If this is not tongue in cheek, its the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Sorry to sound harsh, but read that over again and try to see how your idea could do anything but destroy the west side and columbia county.
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  #2168  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2008, 5:45 PM
RED_PDXer RED_PDXer is offline
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Originally Posted by JordanL View Post
I seem to be missing something that other people know though. How does getting rid of freeways/purposely making it less convenient to own a motorized vehicle make it any less trouble to use alternate transit options? I think the freeway's are ugly, noisy and intrusive, but I don't see the alternatives people are referring to.
Limiting sprawl makes taking transit much easier. That's a no-brainer. Instead of riding Line 4 from the equivalent of Mt. Hood, you're riding it from Mt. Tabor (a 60+ mile commute is not unusual in LA or other sprawled places). It takes you 30-40 minutes to get to work as opposed to 2 hours like it would in LA. A local bus is always going to be slow, but only taking it 3 miles as opposed to 60 miles makes it tolerable. Taking transit to/from downtown is feasible for just about everywhere in this region on regional transit. It takes about 1 hour at most from Gresham or Hillsboro to downtown Portland if taking MAX. On the other hand, if there were freeways on every corridor, neighborhoods would be disconnected from their main streets, small businesses would be less likely to thrive from local consumers, walking to your destination or to transit would be more cumbersome, biking would probably be considered far too unsafe for 99.9% of the population, and vast parking lots would be the most dominate image of our region. I won't even go into the environmental effects of those actions.

Of course it'd be nice to travel more quickly on transit than riding a bus in mixed traffic, but that requires more density and more transit ridership to justify that level of investment. We're investing in more MAX lines on certain corridors where the right of way and opportunity for TODs are more conducive to regional transit, but we're never gonna have regional transit lines on every corridor.

It seems like you're gripe is with the adequacy of our transit system, which is totally justified from where you are on Division near Mt. Tabor. I think there's a huge demand for transit connections between the whole of SE Portland and N/NE Portland and there's currently no easy way to serve that demand. For one thing, there are few streets that directly provide that type of trip. Transferring once or twice is necessary for most "suburb to suburb" trips at this point, but it doesn't haven't be in the future. We can invest in better transit, and use it more frequently.

In summary, there are two things going on here.. personal decisions and level of investment in non-auto infrastructure. If you really want a quick trip into downtown for work or otherwise, you could live close to a MAX station (like I purposely did) or close-in on a bus line. If you want a quick trip to work in general, you could move closer to work (for some people that's Wilsonville, Hillsboro or wherever those human factories are located). Most people have a choice and until recently, the decision to reduce the commute distance or locate near transit hasn't even registered for the majority of the population. Secondly, there needs to be more investment in "other" ways for people to get around to reduce the harmful side effects of "too much" driving and automobile dependence. This means better bike facilities, more intelligent transportation systems for transit (traffic signal coordination with buses), bus-only lanes, more MAX lines, more buses, etc. However, to justify spending more on transit and other modes, we need more people making personal decisions in support of these modes such as choosing to live in higher density housing near work/transit connections, commuting by bus, MAX or bike, walking to your neighborhood store instead of driving to a big box store 6 miles away, etc...

I can't spend all day speaking to the ill-effects of auto-dependence and sprawl, but hopefully this is step toward that understanding.
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  #2169  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2008, 5:58 PM
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  #2170  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2008, 6:59 PM
JordanL JordanL is offline
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Originally Posted by RED_PDXer View Post
Of course it'd be nice to travel more quickly on transit than riding a bus in mixed traffic, but that requires more density and more transit ridership to justify that level of investment. We're investing in more MAX lines on certain corridors where the right of way and opportunity for TODs are more conducive to regional transit, but we're never gonna have regional transit lines on every corridor.

It seems like you're gripe is with the adequacy of our transit system, which is totally justified from where you are on Division near Mt. Tabor. I think there's a huge demand for transit connections between the whole of SE Portland and N/NE Portland and there's currently no easy way to serve that demand. For one thing, there are few streets that directly provide that type of trip. Transferring once or twice is necessary for most "suburb to suburb" trips at this point, but it doesn't haven't be in the future. We can invest in better transit, and use it more frequently.

In summary, there are two things going on here.. personal decisions and level of investment in non-auto infrastructure. If you really want a quick trip into downtown for work or otherwise, you could live close to a MAX station (like I purposely did) or close-in on a bus line. If you want a quick trip to work in general, you could move closer to work (for some people that's Wilsonville, Hillsboro or wherever those human factories are located). Most people have a choice and until recently, the decision to reduce the commute distance or locate near transit hasn't even registered for the majority of the population. Secondly, there needs to be more investment in "other" ways for people to get around to reduce the harmful side effects of "too much" driving and automobile dependence. This means better bike facilities, more intelligent transportation systems for transit (traffic signal coordination with buses), bus-only lanes, more MAX lines, more buses, etc. However, to justify spending more on transit and other modes, we need more people making personal decisions in support of these modes such as choosing to live in higher density housing near work/transit connections, commuting by bus, MAX or bike, walking to your neighborhood store instead of driving to a big box store 6 miles away, etc...

I can't spend all day speaking to the ill-effects of auto-dependence and sprawl, but hopefully this is step toward that understanding.
I actually considered these things when I chose this location to live. Unfortunately this is as close to town as I could get where I could still afford more than a cardboard box.

I also couldn't have moved to the west side because most of the people I visit, including all of my family, are on the east side. From where I am it's already a 45 minute ride and two transfers to get to my sisters house at 102nd and Halsey.

It would have been at least three transfers and an hour and a half from the west side.

I suppose that chosing a more accessible location would be something that people could pay more attention to if the $/sq.ft. didn't get completely rediculous close to city center.

Thank you for the reply though, that actually did go in to a lot more detail on the things I was confused about.

It does seem to be a self-feeding cycle. In that sense, investment in public transit would have to be the bitter pill that is horribly inefficient for a while. I certainly don't want Portland to be like LA, and I can sorta see why people went nuts when I asked abotu adding one lane at the Rose Garden.

I still think that needs to happen, but it should definitely be part of a larger effort to minimize the impact of highways. The tunnel concept seemed the best asthetically... but it also sounds really expensive. The east bank south of the Burnside bridge is just so ugly and noisy... it'd be nice if they could bury that all.

Anyway, thanks for the reply, it was certainly enlightening. (And despite my gripes with it, I have been planning on biking most places I go.)
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  #2171  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2008, 8:15 PM
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  #2172  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2008, 8:27 PM
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haha really?! Crashes!? this guy has been reading too much of the trib
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  #2173  
Old Posted Jun 14, 2008, 10:02 PM
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^ I think he's absolutely correct that public transit needs to pay for itself.
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  #2174  
Old Posted Jun 15, 2008, 1:18 AM
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Originally Posted by westsider View Post
^ I think he's absolutely correct that public transit needs to pay for itself.
you know, you're right. and while we're at it, let's make the military pay for itself (when was the last time it turned a profit? i mean directly, not counting halliburton's profits). maybe fire and police should pay for themselves too. why not emergency rooms in hospitals? broken leg? pay up, yourself, bub, it's not my problem. libraries, too. and parks, we need to charge an entrance fee at public parks. it would get the riff-raff out as well. shit, now that i think about it, there are all KINDS of things that we should demand a profit from!
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  #2175  
Old Posted Jun 15, 2008, 2:35 AM
JordanL JordanL is offline
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you know, you're right. and while we're at it, let's make the military pay for itself (when was the last time it turned a profit? i mean directly, not counting halliburton's profits). maybe fire and police should pay for themselves too. why not emergency rooms in hospitals? broken leg? pay up, yourself, bub, it's not my problem. libraries, too. and parks, we need to charge an entrance fee at public parks. it would get the riff-raff out as well. shit, now that i think about it, there are all KINDS of things that we should demand a profit from!
Before you do... what you just did, maybe it would have been more constructive to ask him why he thought so? Obviously rail has to be subsidized... perhaps his gripe is not necessarily that we spend money on rail, but the relative amount.

Or perhaps it's that he thinks if we spent a fraction of the money we spend on rail on education, we'd be better off.

Or maybe he thinks the money would be better spent on expanding bus lines.

Or maybe he was just hoping someone would respond and throw around dozens of generalized, exagerated statement, in which case I'm sure you made him happy.

You don't come to a consensus as a society by telling someone they're stupid for not sharing your opinion.
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  #2176  
Old Posted Jun 15, 2008, 2:49 AM
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The sarcasm is unnecessary. To respond to your post:

-A standing army is something all working citizens pay for, because it affects all equally.
-Same with police and fire service.
-If I broke my leg, I would pay for it out of pocket. Hospital emergency centers are departments of a for-profit or non-profit corperation. They may not demand payment up front before setting your bones, but you better believe you are getting a bill.
-Except for charitable donations, maybe libraries should be self-supporting.
-I wont get into the parks, no need to go even further off topic.

My opinion is that there is a moral hazard in paying for %20 of a service and putting the rest of the burden on your fellow citizens. Call me a non enlightened libertarian, but I deeply resent paying for non essential services I do not and never will use. There were profitable local bus and rail services all over the country before, and theres no reason that someone using the service and reaping the full benifit couldn't pay their own way.
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  #2177  
Old Posted Jun 15, 2008, 4:28 PM
RED_PDXer RED_PDXer is offline
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There were profitable local bus and rail services all over the country before, and theres no reason that someone using the service and reaping the full benifit couldn't pay their own way.
Most, if not all, the "profitable" bus and rail lines folded in the 1950s-1970s and those last few decades weren't easy for them. Government took over because the service was considered "essential" for economic activity and public equity. Everyone needs to travel to get to work, school, stores, doctor appts, etc. There are many people in every city that are unable to pay for it. Government, like any private company, determined that it would be most cost effective to get more people on public transit, and so has promoted it and upgraded it with light rail and streetcar to make it faster, more comfortable, higher capacity, etc. The side effect of more people taking public transit is that there is less air pollution (mostly for rail/streetcar riders), less congestion (the MAX carries more commuters than two lanes of autos and thus is a more efficient use of right-of-way), less land devoted to parking (which makes for more "walkable" urban areas and more compact/efficient land use patterns),

Now, a few things have changed since the private companies ran transit. UNIONS, MANDATORY DOOR-TO-DOOR TRANSIT SERVICE FOR DISABLED/ELDERLY, ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEWS, TRAFFIC/ENGINEERING STANDARDS for how rail/cars interact, PUBLIC PROCESSES, and more. Overall, I'd say the biggest difference is unions. Transit companies now pay living wages, so that operators and mechanics can afford to buy a home, take a vacation every now and then, get medical/vision/dental care, etc..

The MAX itself is cost effective to operate, the cost per ride is about $1.40, while frequent service buses cost about $2.15 per ride and all buses in general cost about $2.70 to operate. These numbers don't reflect the higher gas prices, which will certainly increase the costs per ride for buses. They also don't reflect that some people need to take two-three buses to get where their going, so while a ticket may be only $2, the average operating cost is closer to $5-6. The mandatory LIFT service TriMet provides costs about $26/ride, which is ridiculous. It's basically public taxis. LIFT service has had to expand by about 6% per year over the past few years, thanks to the ADA. This service has eaten up most, if not all, of TriMet's ability to expand bus service. I think the LIFT service has the most opportunity for improvement in terms of cost effectiveness, whereas buses and rail are pretty lean already.

Then there's bikes, which are the ultimate in terms of cost effectiveness. Far more cost effective than any other form of transportation except walking.
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  #2178  
Old Posted Jun 15, 2008, 9:16 PM
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Originally Posted by westsider View Post
The sarcasm is unnecessary. To respond to your post:

-A standing army is something all working citizens pay for, because it affects all equally.
-Same with police and fire service.
-If I broke my leg, I would pay for it out of pocket. Hospital emergency centers are departments of a for-profit or non-profit corperation. They may not demand payment up front before setting your bones, but you better believe you are getting a bill.
-Except for charitable donations, maybe libraries should be self-supporting.
-I wont get into the parks, no need to go even further off topic.

My opinion is that there is a moral hazard in paying for %20 of a service and putting the rest of the burden on your fellow citizens. Call me a non enlightened libertarian, but I deeply resent paying for non essential services I do not and never will use. There were profitable local bus and rail services all over the country before, and theres no reason that someone using the service and reaping the full benifit couldn't pay their own way.
Well, I'm sorry, but I think the sarcasm is entirely appropriate; unless you're new to the internet, you'll have seen these arguments go around and around for years on end with no resolution whatsoever.

And what do you mean, you don't want to get into the issue of parks? It seems to me that that extending the libertarian argument to parks in fact does a wonderful job of exposing its absurdity.

Regarding your opinion, there are two ways to look at it: as you appear to, that a given person pays just a little bit of their own way and pawns the rest off on society, i.e., "actively" undermining society by not doing his/her share. The other way of looking at the problem is that society is the one playing the active part and specifically choosing to subsidize certain activities as a way to achieve ends considered valuable to everyone. You may not want to pay for someone else's service that "you'll never use" but you do profit from it, however indirectly, by means of less traffic to share the road with on your commute, less pollution for you and your children to breathe, a more democratic, egalitarian, less-stratified society which is fairer to everyone. The libertarian "alternative" reeks, to me, of feudal aristocracy and even a hidden, arrogant agenda of eugenics.

That said, all of these arguments, yours and mine, have been repeated ad nauseum since the first days of usenet. If you, through, some miracle, can finally break through all the noise and show me the light, let's hear it. But until you do, I consider it a philosophy for over-eager adolescents. No offense to any teenagers here on the forum.
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  #2179  
Old Posted Jun 16, 2008, 1:01 PM
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Trimet ridership stats are derived from the passenger counters in the stairwells of each bus. The counts are accumulated during a run, and downloaded when the operator turns in his pouch. Manual audits are a thing of the past. However, the system has a well known error factor of at least 3 percent. It is not uncommon for an empty bus to return to the yard with 20 passengers aboard after a full days run. "More on's than off's" used to be a common maintenance issue. Now it's only addressed if no passenger count data is accumulated during the day because no fix was found for the accumulated errors. The technology is just not there to be 100 percent accurate.

And privacy issues drive the anonymity factor for now. If a smart card could be tracked without linking to an individual, then it would be accepted and the data brought into the system. We could follow a particle in the tube without knowing who they are. If people get the hint that a card identifies them, the technology would not be used.
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  #2180  
Old Posted Jun 16, 2008, 1:03 PM
Bill_G Bill_G is offline
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P&W did signal testing over the weekend. The project is getting closer to completion.
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