Ya wanna save some cash TriMet? Stop hitting pedestrians! Will lighten up the $ you have to pay out in settlements. Just yesterday I had a bus do something very dumb near me. Really happy I was alert and my spidey-sense was tingling else that fawker would have hit me with his bus.
One of the most short-sighted changes is that they're doing away with (most? all?) the 1.30am buses home from downtown, Friday and Saturday nights, on the few routes that still have one. So the last bus will be 12.30 instead. Result? More drink driving. So more accidents, more net cost to the city, more injuries and deaths. All to 'save' a few dollars. Typical short-term thinking from Fred Hansen, the most useless authority figure in Portland. And considering the competition for that title, he's pretty bad...
For a city that is trying to get people out of their cars and create a more sustainable, environmentally friendly place, they are sure trying hard to force people back into their cars, or buy one! Public transport doesn't work at all for anyone working off hours, and if you're trying to get somewhere on time, forget it, unless you don't mind showing up 45 minutes early.
I'd just like to add that a year ago the 12 was generally on time, I don't know if it is related to some sort of budget cut but these days your guess is as good as mine as to when it will show up and the other day when I got off at 9:30 or so at night another 12 passed by before I had even walked a block, no wonder the first one seemed very late...
What a way to increase ridership: make your service less convenient. Less people going to work means there are less in need of a bus; when the economy picks up they will need them again. Why not fire their union employees with plastic surgery in their contracts?
His retirement can't come soon enough.