Micro-routes

Detailed route map of 15-Belmont/NW 23rd, prior to service cut.  Courtesy of TriMet.

By now, Portland readers have probably heard quite a bit about the controversy surrounding TriMet's sudden decision to eliminate the NW Thurman branch of the 15-Belmont/NW 23rd line, due to stated safety concerns.  Residents along the affected stretch of Thurman are understandably upset about no more bus service (for some, the cancellation means a 3/4 mile hike to the nearest bus); and some have suggested that this is little more than a PR move, not a legit safety issue--as busses have been running this route for a long time without any major incidents.

I have serious questions about the lack of notice given to the public--it wasn't cool.  If this was done on advice of TriMet counsel, they should definitively say so. (On the other hand, I wondered over at portlandtransport.com if this might be a stealth service cut designed to save money; as TriMet appears to be simply routing all 15s on the Montgomery Park branch instead, it appears this is not the case--service hours are not being reduced).  TriMet appears to have gotten the message, and has announced plans to re-open the line starting Monday.  (If it isn't obvious, this post has been in the works for a few days...)

But this post isn't about the Terrible Thurman Truncation of '10.  It's about a possible solution to this problem, and to other problems, such as discussed in this post.

A possible solution:  A "micro-route"

Over in the same portlandtransport.com thread, I made the following suggestion:

My proposal would be to create a new line, which starts at PGE Park (where one can transfer to MAX or one of several other bus lines), takes 18th/19th to Thurman, and then heads up into the hills to the turnaround. And operate it with the paratransit vehicles. This line would be a short enough line that you don't need a full 40' bus, and the smaller vehicles, I would think, would alleviate the safety concerns. And add service to 18th/19th.

The details of the proposal don't matter much here--the 18th/19th routing and the PGE Park connection are features designed to provide service on a currently un-served street, and a connection to MAX; on further reflection a route down Everett/Glisan to Union Station might work better, simply because that routing provides a place where busses and drivers can take breaks.  (There's no room around PGE Park to park a bus for a spell).

30' busses (courtesy Wikipedia)

By "paratransit vehicles", I mean vehicles smaller than the standard 40' models used for the bulk of TriMet routes.  The agency has about 50 30'  busses, such as those shown to your right, and over 240 minibusses used for the LIFT paratransit service.  (Reportedly, there exists a 2400 series of busses are smaller than 30', though these don't appear to be in service any more).  Use of such rolling stock on the 15--a widely used frequent service route--would be inappropriate, but for a very short route, it's likely that a smaller vehicle will have more than sufficient capacity--and be able to execute the turnaround on Thurman safely and legally.

Hence the micro-route,

What is a micro-route?

A micro-route is a route which is shorter than standard routes.   Micro-routes will often have the following attributes:

1. Short overall length, with a round trip time of an hour or less (and often a fraction of an hour).  A practical limit on standard bus service is no more than two hours or so from one end of the line to the other, with layovers at either end.  With longer routes, reliability suffers, and you start running interfering with the driver's breaks.  One-hour-each-way routes with a branch or loop (or both) at one end, such as the 15, are also common--the 15 lays over at Gateway TC but not at Montgomery Park.  With a micro-route, on the other hand, the route is run multiple times between breaks.  A bus running a Thurman/Union Station route could probably run the entire route 4-5 times in a two-hour span.
2. Difficult geography which makes the use of full-size busses impractical.  This can be narrow roads, steep hills, tight turns--or politically-powerful NIMBYs terrified that a 40' bus rolling past their driveway is going to bring about Armageddon.  (Don't laugh).
3. Connection to a transit center, both to provide a layover point, and due to attribute 1, it is expected that many riders of the micro-route will transfer.  Scratch that--it is expected that most of the micro-route riders will transfer; many micro-routes function as de-facto shuttle services.
4. A reasonably predictable and continuous load pattern, so that passenger capacity isn't an issue (or if it is, can be dealt with by modest increases in frequency).  This is especially important for minibuses, which may not be configured to permit standing room.

Examples of such systems

Green public light bus (Wikipedia)

Hong Kong is an example of a city where such arrangements are commonplace.  In Hong Kong, in addition to the regular bus service, one encounters minibusses known as public light busses.  These busses come in two colors, green and red.  The red public light busses operate like jitneys or share taxis, and aren't relevant to this post, but the green ones operate fixed schedules just like regular bus service, simply with smaller vehicles.  Hong Kong bus operators also operate some of the "franchised" (full service) lines with two different vehicle sizes, with double-decker busses serving the busier routes, and 40' single-level busses serving he smaller and shorter ones. 

In both cases, these smaller types of busses serve generally short routes, connecting (for example) a transit center or marketplace (these things generally come together) with a housing estate (a common term for a large apartment building or other residential complex) or a small village communtity, both of which are abundant in the rural parts of the region.  The service that they often run is shuttle-like in nature, in that there are two distinct clusters of stops (often a single stop) on either end of the route, without much in between.  The primary franchised bus lines generally serve provide bidirectional service along a linear corridor, just like the vast majority of the bus lines in Portland do.

Where might such service work?

Besides Thurman, where the motivating factor is a geographical limitation, where else might similar types of service work in the Portland area?

• Office park circulators.  One big issue with suburban office parks is that they are difficult to serve with traditional transit service.  They are often spread out over a large area, have tons of parking lots, and may contain streets that are difficult for large busses to maneuver on--and serving them adequately with mainline bus service often requires deviations which are annoying to the bulk of the riders, and inefficient to the agency.  The Cornell Oaks subdivision mentioned in this post (currently served by the 67 but not for long) is an extreme example of this, but many other examples abound.  Certain runs of the 43-Taylors Ferry, which nominally runs from downtown to Washington Square, venture west of the Square to run around the various industrial parks along SW Nimbus Avenue in south Beaverton, in a circulatory fashion.  This little jaunt has nothing to do with the primary corridor served by the line.  So, given that--why not disconnect it from the 47 and instead run a circulator service from the mall to the various office parks strip malls, and other commercial centers immediately surrounding it?  In addition to the high-tech businesses on Nimbus, it could also serve the strip malls and big-boxes on Cascade Avenue, the Tigard Medical Mall and Lincoln Center on Greenburg, and even venture over to the Tigard Triangle to hit Costco, Freddies, and the like.  (Many of these retail outlets employ low-wage workers who would benefit more from improved transit than would high-tech office workers along Nimbus).  
• Shuttle service.  Many shuttle service connecting transit corridors with off-corridor destinations already exist, albeit provided by folks other than TriMet.  The shuttle from PCC-Sylvania to Barbur TC is one example--you can take the 44, but the shuttle provides additional frequency.  (You have to be affiliated with PCC to use it, however).  But there are other examples of major destinations with inadequate transit service.  Meridian Park Hospital, for instance, is a major full-service hospital surrounded by the usual assortment of clinics, doctors offices, and other ancillary medical services--but other than two 76s per hour, doesn't get any transit service.  Kaiser Sunnyside Hospital is in a similar situation--although the Green Line terminates a short distance away, the pedestrian exprience in the area is unpleasant, and the nearby bus services (155, 156, and 157) are all astonishingly infrequent.  Most other major Portland hospitals (OHSU, Emanuel, Good Sam, St. Vincent, Adventist) have one or more frequent service lines passing by the front door.
• Other geographically difficult areas.  Portland is perhaps fortunate, compared to cities such as San Francisco and Seattle, in that early city planners didn't ignore topography when creating the street grid--Portland has no local equivalent to Lombard Street in SF or Broad Street in Seattle.  As a result, most of the area is reachable by bus, and the areas which aren't are in many cases not sufficiently inhabited to merit bus service.  But there are a few places which come in mind.  Were the Lake Oswego Streetcar project to be built, a line connecting it (in Riverdale) to Lewis and Clark College might be useful; but the most direct route up the hill is bus-unfriendly. 

A few other notes

I probably should add that the suggestions made above, are made as examples as much as anything--whether or not these would be productive lines (or be of sufficient importance to be funded in a limited-funding environment) is questionable.  TriMet has, I'm sure, considered many of these ideas.  Certainly, I wouldn't advocate cancelling any existing services in order to provide these.  But in the future, if gas were to become expensive and transit to become a first option for more resident, many of these routes might make sense. 

Just how SMART is Wilsonville, anyway?

TriMet, after two rounds already of budget cuts due to declining revenues caused by the recession (both in terms of tax receipts--higher unemployment means fewer payroll taxes to collect--and ridership--higher unemployment means fewer people riding the bus), is now looking at a third round.

And a few suburban governments, including the city of Wilsonville--which is not even IN the TriMet service district--are ticked about it.

A sharply-worded editorial in the Wilsonville Spokesman suggests that quite a bit of bad blood remains between TriMet and the city of Wilsonville, which withdrew from the TriMet service district in 19801988 to operate their own transit agency, SMART.   Wilsonville, apparently, is upset that TriMet is considering reductions in service to WES, the commuter rail boondoggleline which connect Wilsonville to Beaverton (where one can continue on to Portland or Hillsboro via MAX--without paying any additional fare).   The editorial also expresses dismay that the city of Tualatin, which is still part of TriMet, augments the WES service with a city-provided shuttle service--something which the writer thinks that TriMet ought to provide, instead.

Some critics of the agency have further noted that SMART has a pristine balance sheet, whereas TriMet is hemorrhaging red ink--suggesting that the latter is a victim of its own mismangement.

This is all very interesting.  While this does appear to indeed be a battle over turf--it's also a battle over something more fundamental (and one which has been going on for three decades):  Who gets the bigger piece of the service pie?

A bit of history

TriMet was formed in 1969 when the previously private bus operators in Portland went out of business.  Originally, TriMet's service district included much of southern and eastern Clackamas County, but four cities located wholly or partially within the county later chose to withdraw from TriMet and operate their own intra-city transit agencies:  Canby, Molalla, Sandy, and Wilsonville.  The first three are exurbs which are (and remain) separated from the Portland metro area both geographically and culturally--Molalla, if anything, is more in the orbit of Salem than Portland.  Their withdrawl didn't affect TriMet's finances materially; all of them have economies based on local agriculture or tourism.
Wilsonville was a different matter.  A third-ring suburb of Portland, Wilsonville is only fifteen miles from  downtown, and part of the contiguous (sub)urban area.  It's also a major employment area within the metro area--Xerox, Mentor Graphics, and numerous other high-tech employers are either headquartered there, or have a major presence.  At one point, Wilsonville had the distinction of having more jobs than residents within the city limits; though with many new residential neighborhoods this is no longer true.

What's fair?

Switching gears for a moment--let us consider the question:  The TriMet service district has a population of about 1.5 million, and includes pretty much all of the Portland metro area located within Oregon--except Wilsonville.  The city of Portland itself has a population of about 500 thousand--thus for every Portlander, there are two suburb-dwellers in Oregon.  Many consider the regional nature of TriMet's service district to be a good thing--cities with Balkanized transit service (one agency serving the city center, others serving the outlying communities) often suffer for it, especially if the agencies involved battle over turf or otherwise decline to integrate their operations for the benefit of passengers.

Now take a look at TriMet's frequent service map,  and its overall  system map.  What do you notice?  The highest concentration of services is in Portland, not in the burbs--and much of the suburban service is designed to get you to and from downtown.  There are exceptions, of course, but the bulk of the service is Portland-focused.

Is this state of affairs fair?  Many transit pros will answer yes--Portland is generally where the density is, and TriMet can provide operations within Portland efficiently.  Transit service to suburban sprawl is generally always going to be an inefficient proposition, as a) people are too spread out to serve effectively, and b) most of 'em drive anyway.

This analysis doesn't consider, however, who pays the bills.

Follow the money

TriMet has two main funding sources for its operations:  Fares, and a payroll tax levied within the service district.  Being a payroll tax, the tax is based on where a given employee works--someone who lives in Salem and works in Portland contributes to TriMet's revenue stream; someone who does the reverse, does not.   If someone lives in Beaverton and works in Tualatin, their contribution to TriMet is "booked" as coming from Tualatin.

Were one to compare the percentage of payroll tax revenues coming from a particular jurisdiction, with the level of service provided to that jurisdiction--one could determine whether a given jurisdiction is a net donor or beneficiary to TriMet.  Many of the 'burbs which are bedroom communities are net beneficiaries, according to the accounting--TriMet spends more money on service there than it receives in tax revenues.  But some communities, mainly on the west side of town (where the high tech industry is centered), are net donors--their employment centers subsidize, to some extent, TriMet's operations.  Much of Washington County is in this boat.

And prior to its withdrawl in 1980, so was Wilsonville.  In 1980That year, the city of Wilsonville was a mixture of high-tech campuses, farmland, a mental hospital, and a truck stop on I-5.  It had a very small residential population, and tons of high-tech, high-paying jobs.  It provided a significant part of TriMet's tax revenue, for which it received a handful of lines heading downtown.  In 1980, Wilsonville decided to take the money and run.   To its credit, it launched its own transit service--SMART, which provides circulator service within the city.  SMART also provides connecting service to TriMet in Tualatin and Tigard, and a line into the city of Salem.  Most SMART services are free, and as mentioned above, SMART has a nice, clean balance sheet.

How the pie is really sliced

Which brings us to the political realities of TriMet's service allocations.  It needs to provide a minimum level of service to all parts of its service district, in order to keep the tax revenues funding--there are quite a few lines whose primary justification is preserving the service footprint.  And those suburban communities which are net donors to TriMet, have leverage to insist upon a higher level of service than their land use and development patterns might otherwise merit.  And leaders there are quite happy to let TriMet (and Metro) know this.

It's widely believed that the reason TriMet went ahead with WES, despite quite a bit of institutional doubt about the project (doubts which were proven to be valid), is that Washington County was threatening, behind closed doors, to pull a Wilsonville if it didn't get a bigger piece of the service pie.

If there's a good thing about WES--it's that its existence will likely keep Washington County from any secession threats in the future.  After all, were the county to separate from TriMet, WES would then be their problem.  WES is, in many ways, like an underwater mortgage that keeps a squabbling couple from getting that divorce that might just make one (or both) of them happier.

As a resident of the metro area who is concerned about good transit service for the entire region, it's a shame that things have to end up this way.  As a resident of Washington County, it's a shame that county leaders blew their wad in way that backfired so spectacularly.  But as a resident of the TriMet service district, and as a taxpayer and user of the service, I have little sympathy for residents and leaders of Wilsonville who are upset that WES might not run as frequently as they like.