more passengers -> more frequent service.

riding the (trimet) bus at a young age -> more likely to ride the bus at an older age

…

i don’t see how the good doesn’t outweigh the bad here.

As a high school student, this is a godsend for me.
While I do agree that there is a certain group of students prone to preschooler-like behavior on transit, I don’t think this is the case for the majority of students, at least the lines I often ride immediately before and after school (#9, #4, #10) remain pretty quiet even with some 30-40 students aboard.

I hugely appreciate that the passes are good all week. A huge number of extracurricular activities include Saturday events (I myself participate in competition robotics and speech and debate and I’m president of a club with occasional saturday events), and sports teams often have sunday games. School extracurriculars continue well through the weekend.

TriMet handles school overcrowding pretty well in my experience (I can’t speak for the MAX since I attend school in inner SE at Cleveland). They send two #9 inbounds at the same time right about 3:15 (one of which is always just about completely empty, so I think it starts just before Cleveland) when the bulk of students are waiting, and two #9 outbounds come within a few minutes of eachother. The #10 also runs more frequently immediately after school. Students do completely fill the busses (particularly the 9) but a huge portion of students get off pretty quickly to transfer to other lines, so the bus is only completely full for 5-8 minutes. I see overcrowding being more an issue at places where school opening and closing coincides more with business commuters, but I expect TriMet will put similar frequency increases in place to handle that.

Overall I think this is a huge benefit to all students, since PPS provides virtually no transportation services to high schools (there are no PPS busses to and from schools, and they’re extremely expensive and hard to get for field trips and activities, so most use TriMet anyway). Schools like Cleveland with special programs attract students from all over the city, and bus fare can really add up for poor high school students, particularly as fare continues to increase (and the closing of school programs has more and more students like me commuting to other schools or to PCC campuses for classes and facilities PPS doesn’t offer).

@Allan - yeah, that does make sense. While I agree somewhat about the “riding the (trimet) bus at a young age -> more likely to ride the bus at an older age” comment, I can’t agree fully with it; I don’t think the majority of riders (maybe a minority of them) had this kind of situation.

@Jesse - thanks for the comment! I do tend to… over-report… the annoyance of high school-aged passengers. Apologies for lumping you in that group. Thanks

The kids on the Yellow Line (toward City Center) in the morning are well behaved. I can’t think of any instance where they were being annoying or anything other than nice kids. The afternoons are a little more crazy, but still, the only badly behaved people are the transients (most likely) hitching a free ride.

I think that Sam and the City Council made a good choice. These kids are the future of this town and encouraging mass transit as their primary mode of transportation is a good thing, all around.

Personally I don’t agree with the decision as it will bring even more bad behavior to the MAX. At times I’ve seen one end of a train with seven or so young people, all of whom have their feet on the seats. Some toss their trash, many shout and yell to their friends halfway across the train. Why should I subsidize such bad behavior?

TriMet ends a program that is working: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/08/_dave_miller_arrives_at.html

The person in this article even notes the bad behavior from young people that he often encounters. So instead of keeping up a program that is working TriMet opens the door even wider to more bad behavior. No doubt yet another fare increase will come soon.

@Kevin It’s definitely a bad thing that the official Trimet advocates are on the way out, but there are volunteers that ride on trains who are riders’ advocates. They’re somewhat unofficial, but they are there, I’ve seen them and spoken with them. They’re a church group that originally formed in Los Angeles, CA and now they’re here for us.

And it’s true, some kids put their feet up and others might be louder than a few would like, but it’s PUBLIC transit, not a library or exclusive club. They don’t have cars or aren’t even old enough to drive and the district doesn’t even provide them with school buses. Do you have a car or someone to share a ride to work with? I bet a lot of these kids have activities they’d like to do but no way to get to and from. “Sorry, Mom/Dad has to work late tonight….” I’ve seen tons of kids, all school year long, on the bus or MAX in full sports gear or with a giant bag full of equipment.

I find it saddening that so many adults are being immature about this. Think outside of your comfort zone and support our next generation.

It doesn’t make a difference being public transit. Those young people are still breaking the rules if have their feet on the seats, are smoking at stops, are yelling halfway across cars. There is no sign saying “our rules such as not putting feet on seats or smoking at stops don’t apply to young people”. In essence that’s what your asking for — a free pass for teens on TriMet.

I am both homeschooled and composed on the bus (in other words, not a preschooler on the bus)and bus is an important part of my business, so If I had free bus passes for the trips I take, It would be like a miracle! I think this is mostly good, but I don’t know too many teenagers who make a pleasant ride for others (I can only think of one- me.) So, I can see where concern is involved.

I believe the generalization of teens as degenerates is completely ageist! just because SOME teens break rules doesn’t mean all teens do. is it fair to say that all white people are racist because SOME of them are? I see adults “putting their feet on the seats”, “tossing their trash” and “shouting and yelling” all the time, some more than us. yet nobody days anything about them. just the other day I saw a group of adults (clearly middle aged) smoking weed on the 82nd MAX platform. is this the “example” us “misbehaving whippersnappers” are supposed to follow? yet we have stereotypes of us talked about all the time. what kind of hypocrisy is this?

@Jesse - I’m sorry. I’m sure there are riders in your age group that do ride responsibility. But, as I wrote in the post (”..but more often than not..”), this is what I experience whenever I ride the MAX.

That being said, I’m not singling out high school riders; believe me, I think individuals from all age groups can definitely better their public transportation etiquette.