Human soup pots..with poor air condtioning and circulation..You can squeeze more miles out of a vehicle..through any manner of cosmetic and mechanical efforts..but a repainted and refurbished 1989 bus has a million miles of wear on the chasis..the windows don't open, it rattles and groans through town giving a harsh and noisy ride for riders and operators..

I would much rather bike in the rain than take the shame train.

Shows what you know from your parent-funded, inner-SE haven, Breslin.

When I interned in City Hall and when I worked in Lair Hill shortly after graduating, I lived with my folks in Tualatin, biked to 99W and took the 12 bus to downtown regularly. Part of the issue with your report? It was in the middle of the afternoon. Those buses are packed, diverse and very interesting during commuting hours.

There's also the 94x that runs that same route with fewer stops, which accounts for the lower ridership numbers for the 12.

Actually, i believe most residents ov Tigard/Sherwoood who work in Portland work in downtown or not far past. Tigard itself is only about 20 minutes from dt Portland. ONLY if they were going to work in Gresham might it take 4 hours for Tigard/Sherwood residents to get to & from work.

Otherwise, most ov what was said in this article is fairly spot-on. The 15 is my main bus now. But when i 1st moved to Portland, i lived on 157th & Division... yeah. Having to ride the 4 to most places wasn't very much fun, especially when i was sitting next to a tweaker who hadn't had a fix in awhile. The 72 sucks, hands down. Gresham might as well annex Outer-East Portland up to the 82nd parallel.

Smirk, you had me at "a stranger's scrotum ... resting like old pudding on the plastic seat."

Its easy to say we would rather ride the bike in the rain but I do not see most people out there when its raining,but the bus always seems crowded.

"...music I can only describe as the soldiers from the Nintendo game Contra shooting spreadfire at a burlap sack full of chipmunks." Classic.

OMG! I totes ride my fixie daily to my barista job!!! Eff the bus!!!!!!!!!

Light rail is the "backbone" and buses are the "workhorses"? What does that even mean? The analogy makes no sense.

I live in SW Portland, near Garden Home, and have to take the bus... what astonishes me is not only the sparseness of the bus schedule, but how supremely difficult it is to get anywhere else in SW Portland. It is more convenient for me to go to many places in SE, NE and N Portland than it is to go to the WinCo 2.5 miles away from where I live.

This article was neither informative (to those that have actually *ridden* a bus in the last 15 years) or entertaining. I see no value in it whatsoever.

Tri-met carried my ass around for almost 10 years, and almost never failed me. The two years I got full-pass stickers from a friend at the Wells Fargo building were my favorites - with a bicycle and a tri-met pass, you can go anywhere in the city so easily (I eman, yeah, you can with a bike, but when it's 39 and raining, getting from downtown to 42nd & Powell is a long, annoying climb). I didnt drive for 8 years. It was bliss I tells ya.
Now I'm stuck with the MTA. Sure, it works, but they don't let you put bikes on the busses, and the subways more or less tootle around under the city, and kinda happen to pick up passengers almost as an afterthought. I've spent hours stalled under midtown Manhattan, wondering if the F train will ever move again, being assured of nothing by the automated announcements.

I found this article to be racist, elitist, and completely void of any useful information. Basically, I found out the buses get crowded, it can sometimes be messy, and that a diverse group of people ride them - thankfully the writers conveyed this in a particularly snarky tone as though they are somehow above riding the bus on a normal day. Fuck both of you, really. I sold my car after moving to Portland when I found out how all-emcompassing and useful the bus system is. Aside from the occassional annoyances of dealing with the public in general (ever been on a busy sidewalk? Or the mall during the holiday season??) the bus system here is incredible and reaches to just about every corner of the Portland metro area. It gets crowded during commuting hours - NO SHIT! It gets dirty sometimes- NO SHIT! It rains a lot here and people track whatever is on the street in with them. The overall tone of the article ("The Horror! The Horror!" REALLY??) conveyed that the bus is a melting pot full of disease, noise, time delays, and minorities. It's no wonder that a copy of the Mercury lay languishing on the floor of bus line #12 - it's full of shitty articles with no journalistic value that insult services and programs that are intensely valuable for Portlanders from all walks of life.

A list of things I've seen on the bus (mostly the 4):
A dildo rolling around the front, finally resting at the feet of an unsuspecting elderly woman. Teenagers snicker, thinking its hers (its not, the dildo was there before she got on the bus).
Feces smeared on the wall.
Lice climbing the wall.
Blood smeared all over the seat (they had to call a hazmat team and kicked us all off).
A mouse running around the front, and up the pant leg of a teenager. He was quite surprised.
Of course, there's been several drunk people wetting their pants or vomiting, but one time I was "lucky" enough to see someone do both at once.
Oh, there was also the time I saw a woman pick up another woman and throw her over two seats in the back. Yeah...the driver kicked both off without even calling the cops.

My bus rides are way more pedestrian. The most interesting experience I've had was on the MAX, by Skidmore fountain. A young guy standing no more than 3 feet from the train, facing us, with his cock out. Then he breaks into a big smile and starts urinating. This was around 9 am.

"A list of things I've seen on the bus (mostly the 4):
A dildo rolling around the front, finally resting at the feet of an unsuspecting elderly woman. Teenagers snicker, thinking its hers (its not, the dildo was there before she got on the bus).
Feces smeared on the wall.
Lice climbing the wall.
Blood smeared all over the seat (they had to call a hazmat team and kicked us all off).
A mouse running around the front, and up the pant leg of a teenager. He was quite surprised.
Of course, there's been several drunk people wetting their pants or vomiting, but one time I was "lucky" enough to see someone do both at once.
Oh, there was also the time I saw a woman pick up another woman and throw her over two seats in the back. Yeah...the driver kicked both off without even calling the cops."

Jesus Edwartica, when the HEll did YOU ride that bus?! I rode the 4 for nearly two years & i never saw ANY of that!

DamosA

Well, late at night (especially on a Saturday) seem to be the times when I see the peeing and puking. The rest usually happen late afternoon, early evening for some odd reason - and only seem to happen once (save for the poo and the lice - ick). I kind of wish the dildo, and even the mouse would happen again. That was pretty darned entertaining.

Nice article!

Johana,

Not everyone rides the bus, just like not everyone should be a journalist -- especially those who call people racist and elitist without anything to back it up.

I take the max everyday 'cause its faster than the bus from nw 23rd to Hillsboro.
And the max is not any less glamorous as the bus.
I've seen old man clipping his toe nails to ADD children blocking the autistic man trying to exit the train.

The article is a very interesting read, thank you.

Slightly off-topic...
... but i find it annoying that most employers would classify "reliable transportation" as having a car, considering personal vehicles are hardly MORE reliable than public transit.
Say what you will, but the buses DO make their mark most times. MAX is very efficient. Cars break down, get flats. Bikes are awesome.

I think the best thing is if people used multiple modes of getting around.