Max is part of my commute routine more often than not. I don't mind the train. Max and the light rail stations are not nearly as bad as the media makes them out to be. The same crap that is happening at Max stations is happening in the parking lots of people's neighborhood stores; or for those of you in the burbs, drive by your local elementary school parking lot some friday or saturday night between 9:00pm and say 2:00am-there's some pretty colorful stuff happening. As someone who walks a lot, I can tell you that first thing in the morning, in even nice local neighborhoods, you find syringes on the ground on a regular basis. Fred Meyer parking lots, such as the Fisher's Landing or Chaklov stores in Vancouver, there's drug deals happening just about every single day of the week in them.
One reason crime near a light rail stop gets so much attention in the media is that it is in fact unusual compared to your local neighborhood strip malls. The other reason is that the media loves to freak people out and dumping on public transportation is always a good safe bet for the media.
_______________________________________
The second part of my rant....
I can appreciate that Tri Met likes to put up light rail lines. What I do have a problem with is that they seem to like to build light rail lines to the detriment of fixed-route buses!! This is my biggest fear about extending light rail into Clark County, not crime. I could see C-Tran, since they will be responsible for Max on the Washington side of the Columbia, working with Tri Met to figure out how to extend a light rail line say, out SR-500 towards Van Mall. You see some red flags in the 20-year plan. They would be replacing the current 4-Fourth Plain bus with High Capacity Transit. Nothing wrong with HCT but when it comes to actual service stops along a given street/highway, it amounts to Max on wheels. I don't know about you but if I live along Fourth Plain, I don't think it's right that I would have to walk 12+ blocks to get to a bus stop. As it stands today, the HTC that is in the 20-year plan (that will be part of the funding package for Max that will face Vancouver voters in 2011) the new and improved 4 route will NOT go the the VA medical center campus!!!!
Max trains can be good, but they generally should not be favored over fixed-route bus service. MOST people do NOT live within 1-2 miles of a light rail line, no matter how many directions you send light rail lines out!!! It doesn't matter how many times Tri Met is told this or that people who actually use the system explain it to them, they still don't get it.
The back bone of any transit system isn't light rail trains, it is those fixed-routes that tie a community together. Those fixed-routes are out there in the neighborhoods, the smaller communities. You can get so obsessed with putting in light rail lines everywhere that you start to lose sight of the forest for the trees.
It is irresponsible of Tri Met to keep pushing on this Milwaukee light rail line so hard when they have a rapidly aging fleet of buses, when they are asking the union members to sacrifice benefits and pay, and MOST importantly when they are having severe financial issues that have caused them to completely eliminate routes and cut service hours even on busy routes.
Readers of this blog know that I frequently take issue with some of the actions of the ATU but really, insisting on putting up this Milwaukee light rail when you want to cut work hours, benefits, etc. to your employees? If Tri Met is typical of most companies, they probably gave the operators the nice benefits packages over the years, in lieu of actual cash raises on their paychecks.
This Milwaukee light rail line, I know public transportation users who live out there and they just don't see the line being used as much as the existing lines.
Clark County, watch this closely, there's a very good chance this could be your future!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment