Another fiscal year, another round of bus / MAX cuts (plus bonus fare increase)

TriMet is proposing, yet again, for another round of budget cuts for this fiscal year. Here are the proposed service cuts / line discontinuations / frequency reductions and fare increase. Here’s the short version:

Fare Increase

There will be an overall fare increase of $0.05 to “help keep pace with inflation.”

Bus Service Cuts

These are the changes TriMet is proposing for bus routes:

• Discontinuing lines – 27, 65, 154 and 157
• Discontinuing Saturday and / or Sunday service – 32, 45 and 80
• Discontinuing portions of routes – 33, 43, 53 and 67
• Weekday time between buses increased by 2-3 minutes during mid-day and by 2-10 minutes in the evenings – 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 14, 15, 17, 20, 33, 57, 70 and 71
• Weekday time between buses increased by 2-10 minutes throughout the day – 16, 24, 32, 43, 44, 52, 58, 62, 68, 73 and 77
• Weekend time between buses increased by up to 6 minutes – 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 14, 15, 20, 33, 54, 56, 57, 71 and 75
• Specific trips eliminated because of low ridership during certain times – 1, 51, 85, 92, 94 and 99
• Begin service one trip later in the morning and/or stop service one trip earlier in the evening – 8, 9, 24, 28, 32, 45, 48, 51, 55, 70, 73, 65, 87, 88 and 155

MAX Service Cuts

The start and end times of MAX service and rush hour service will remain the same. The time between trains will be increased from 15 minutes to 17 minutes on all lines during midday, evening and weekend trips. In the early morning and late evening, the time between trains will be increased by up to 4 minutes.

Personal Thoughts

As a predominately bus rider, the service cuts to the bus system seem a bit more drastic than the last round. Some of the lines I typically ride (15, 19, 20) are directly affected with these proposed cuts. As someone who also boards on the SE side of the Willamette river during rush hour times, the proposed cut to the 20-Burnside bus will make an already under-serviced route even more so. Most of the time, I have to wait… and wait… and wait just because the bus is too packed to even board. With the proposed cut to frequency, this will make this line even worse. This is comparison to the 19-Glisan bus, which usually has two buses literally two minutes apart around 5:20pm with the first still having room and the second bus having two riders on it. Why are there no cuts for the 19-Glisan route?

The 12-Sandy bus traveling East is also an extremely crowded line that will only be seeing worse conditions with these cuts… not to mention the 14 and 15.

As much as I wouldn’t like to include this as a possible scenario, but I wonder how much of a budget cut (if at all) TriMet would need to make it the WES was never conceived? Just a thought.

In any case, I encourage all of you to voice your opinions by contacting TriMet (as I will be doing). Feedback needs to be received by April 23rd. Here is how you may do so:

Web: Feedback form
Comment line: 503-962-5806
Fax: 503-962-6469
Mail: TriMet-MK2, 4012 SE 17th Ave., Portland, OR 97202
TTY: 503-238-5811 (7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. weekdays)

Is it just me?

Or have there been more and more system outages for MAX trains as of late? I seem to get an email ping about once every couple of days about a Green / Yellow line disruption or, more recently (as in today), Blue / Red lines being down and needing to have shuttles to shuttle passengers between PGE Park and the Rose Quarter. Anyone else notice an increase of outages in 2010?