Transportation Operations
March 25, 2009
TriMet Updates Service Cut Proposals
TriMet has a new press release out today outlining changes to the service cut proposal. They received over 1,500 comments.
Check out the press release for details.
In summary: Fewer cuts than originaly proposed to buses (5 lines cut instead of 12, but the "spared" 7 face other changes/consolidations.) MAX cuts stay basically the same as originally proposed, including on the yet-to-open Green Line. Further cuts will be proposed agency-wide due to reduced revenue projections, but won't affect service in this round. If future service cuts are to be proposed, there will be another round of public involvement.
Posted by Bob Richardson at 12:46 PM | Comments (18) | Permalink
March 6, 2009
TriMet Schedules Public Hearings for Service Cuts and Fareless Square
TriMet will be holding a series of three public hearings in rapid-succession. The hearings will cover the dual (and somewhat intertwined) topics of service cuts due to reduced revenue, and the future of Fareless Square.
From:
http://trimet.org/meetings/publichearings.htm
Monday, April 6, 2009, 4-7 p.m.
Wilson High School Auditorium
1151 SW Vermont
Portland, OR 97219
Tuesday, April 7, 2009, 4-7 p.m.
Portland Building Auditorium, Second Floor
1120 SW 5th Avenue
Portland, OR 97204
Wednesday, April 8, 2009, 4-7 p.m.
Clackamas County Sheriff's Office
Public Safety Training Center
12700 SE 82nd Avenue
Portland, OR 97015
Posted by Bob Richardson at 3:34 PM | Comments (12) | Permalink
August 9, 2007
Keep Portland Moving - Bridge Pedal Edition
From Multnomah County:
Traffic plan set for Providence Bridge Pedal The 12th annual Providence Bridge Pedal on Sunday morning, August 12, will involve ten Willamette River bridges in Portland. The event includes three different cycle routes and one for walkers. As usual, the event will require some changes in how motorists get around the city, especially when crossing the Willamette River. Several bridges – including the Broadway, Morrison and St. Johns -- will remain open to vehicular traffic in both directions, despite the presence of cyclists and walkers. Here is the traffic plan for Bridge Pedal, starting with bridges from south to north:Bridge Pedal will also require traffic changes on several state highways and Portland streets Sunday morning, including:
- The Sellwood Bridge will be closed westbound from 6:45 am to 9:15 am.
- The Ross Island Bridge will be closed westbound at 4:00 am and will reopen by noon.
- The Marquam Bridge/Interstate 5 will be closed northbound (upper deck) at 4:00 am and will reopen by noon.
- The Hawthorne Bridge will be closed eastbound from 6:30 am to 10:30 am, with TriMet bus service operating in both directions. The outside eastbound lane will be closed beginning Saturday at 6:00 pm.
- The Morrison Bridge will be open in both directions. The outer two eastbound lanes will be closed from 6:30 am to 8:30 am.
- The Burnside Bridge will be closed from 6:30 am to 11:00 am. (The bridge will be closed for lift span repairs starting at 8:00 pm on August 9 and is not expected to reopen until after Bridge Pedal.)
- The Steel Bridge will be closed in both directions from 6:45 am until 11:30 am. TriMet bus and MAX service will operate in both directions.
- The Broadway Bridge will be open in both directions. The outermost westbound lane will be closed from 7:30 am to 12:30 pm.
- The Fremont Bridge/Interstate 405 will be closed southbound (upper deck) at 4:00 am and will reopen by 12:15 pm.
- The St. Johns Bridge will have one lane open in both directions (the other two lanes will be closed) from 6:00 am to noon.
The Broadway, Burnside, Morrison and Hawthorne drawbridges will not be able to open for river traffic between 6:00 am and noon. TriMet buses and MAX trains may experience delays up to 15 minutes in downtown during the event. Many downtown lines will have minor detours and lines 12-Sandy, 19-Glisan and 20-Burnside/Stark will cross the Morrison Bridge instead of the Burnside Bridge. The following bus lines will also have minor detours: 12-Barbur/Sandy, 14-Hawthorne, 15-Belmont/NW 23rd Ave., 17-Holgate/NW 21st Ave.-St. Helens Rd., 19-Glisan/Woodstock, 20-Burnside/Stark, 33-Fremont/McLoughlin, 35-Macadam, 43-Taylors Ferry Rd., 44-Mocks Crest, 70-12th Ave., 72-Killingsworth/82nd Ave., and 77-Broadway/Halsey. Signs will direct riders to nearby stops where buses are on detours. The Oregon Department of Transportation maintains the Fremont, Marquam, Ross Island and St. Johns bridges. Multnomah County maintains the Broadway, Burnside, Hawthorne, Morrison and Sellwood bridges. Union Pacific Railroad owns the Steel Bridge. Keep Portland Moving is a multi-agency effort to coordinate public works construction, manage traffic impacts and coordinate public information. Agencies include the City of Portland’s Transportation and Environmental Services bureaus, Multnomah County, Oregon Dept. of Transportation and TriMet. For more information, visit www.keepportlandmoving.org. For Bridge Pedal information, visit www.providence.org/oregon/events/bridge_pedal.
- I-5 and I-405: Motorists approaching the Marquam Bridge on northbound I-5 will be routed to northbound I-405 during the temporary Marquam Bridge closure (from 4:00 am to noon). All lanes of southbound I-5 will remain open at all times. All southbound lanes of I-405 will be closed between U.S. 30 and the Marquam Bridge. Motorists headed for southbound I-405/southbound I-5 will take northbound I-405 across the Fremont Bridge to southbound I-5.
- The right lane of eastbound U.S. 30 will be closed between NW Kittridge Ave. and the St. Johns Bridge from 6:00 am to noon.
- Motorists traveling eastbound on U.S. 26 (Sunset Highway) to southbound I-405 will be routed to northbound I-405, across the Fremont Bridge to southbound I-5. This detour will be in place from 4:00 am to noon.
- SW Macadam Ave./Highway 43: One northbound lane of Macadam/Highway 43 will be closed between the Sellwood Bridge and Ross Island Bridge, with some delays accessing areas east of SW Macadam Ave. from 6:00 am to noon.
- Highway 99E: One southbound lane of Highway 99E will be closed between SE Mill St. and the Milwaukie Ave. off-ramp. from 6:00 am to noon.
- Naito Parkway: Closed in both directions between SW Columbia and the Steel Bridge. NW Naito Parkway/NW Front Ave. will be closed southbound from NW Nicolai to the Steel Bridge. SW Naito will be closed northbound from SW Harrison to SW Columbia.
- N Willamette Blvd.: Closed eastbound between N Richmond Ave. and N Portland Blvd.
- N Greeley Ave.: Closed southbound from N Killingsworth St. to N Interstate Ave.
- N Ivanhoe St.: Closed between N Leavitt Ave. and N Philadelphia Ave.
- N Interstate Ave.: both directions closed between Larrabee and Mississippi, southbound only closed Fremont to Multnomah.
- SE Milwaukie Ave.: southbound only closed between Schiller and Ellis.
- N Russell St: closed both directions between Kerby and Mississippi.
- SE Clay St.: West of Martin Luther King Blvd., access for local traffic only to Water Ave. (OMSI access provided).
Posted by Chris Smith at 12:00 AM | Comments (6) | Permalink
July 26, 2007
Congestion: Average Travel Time vs. Reliability
I had the opportunity to attend a "Travel Time Reliability" workshop at Metro a few weeks ago (I never said I wasn't a wonk). The speaker was kind enough to forward the PowerPoint since I wanted to blog about a few of the slides.
My point here is that when most people think about congestion, they think in terms of capacity constraints. But the reality is that the pain has to do more with unreliability. Not that the two aren't related - more capacity does make you less sensitive to SOME of the factors that create reliability problems, but it's an expensive answer and there may be more cost effective approaches (with way fewer negative environmental effects than adding capacity).
Here's the psychology, and the problem with the way we usually measure now. |
More after the break.
Managing the system DOES improve performance. In this famous experience in Minnesota, ramp meters were turned off for a period (the 'before' segment in the slide). The result was longer after travel time AND less reliability. 
I think this is the critical concept out of the discussion. The pain of congestion is not the difference between the free-flowing travel time (11 min in this slide) and the average travel time (+4 min). The pain is the extra 7 minutes of buffer you have to add to make sure you're not late more than once in every 20 trips (95% case = 1 day in 20). I suspect we'd have to put $Billions in to work on the 4 minutes, but we can probably spend $Millions and work on the 7 minutes! |
Posted by Chris Smith at 7:14 AM | Comments (6) | Permalink
June 22, 2007
The Good Kind of Holes in the Street
The Daily Journal of Commerce reports on a pilot of porous street paving treatments in Salem.
I wonder if we spent the price of the Big Pipe on this, if we would have needed the pipe?
Posted by Chris Smith at 7:00 AM | Comments (6) | Permalink
June 13, 2007
Who Ya Gonna Call?
Well, if you're stuck in construction traffic in downtown Portland, you can call a new hotline: 503-865-MOVE (865-6683).
Downtown Traffic Hotline to Ease Travel Hassle
(PORTLAND, OR) - Do you have a problem with traffic in downtown Portland? The Portland Office of Transportation is listening. Operators are standing by to take your call to the Downtown Traffic Hotline, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Call 503-865-MOVE (865-6683). Use the hotline to get information about what streets are open or closed, to report problems with downtown traffic or signals, or to report any other downtown travel hassle. Call 503-865-MOVE (865-6683) or visit KeepPortlandMoving.org.
Word from an insider is that the operators aren't very busy...
Posted by Chris Smith at 7:10 AM | Comments (1) | Permalink
For All You ITS Junkies
Portland State University
Center for Transportation Studies
Spring 2007 Transportation Seminar Series
Speakers: Jon Makler, Dean Deeter,
Galen McGill
Topic: News from the ITS America Annual Meeting
When: Friday, June 15, 2007, 12:00-1:30 pm
Where: 204 Urban Center
Posted by Chris Smith at 12:00 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink
June 11, 2007
Operations in Operation
Thursday morning, I was very fortunate to be traveling southbound on I-5 on my way to Wilsonville. I only had a brief delay as we rubbernecked at the tractor-trailer splayed across all the northbound lanes.
Folks heading north were being detoured off of I-5 at 217 based on a predetermined ODOT contingency plan. The fact that such a plan exists is part of an increasing focus on operations and ITS (Intelligent Transportation Systems) as a way to deal with non-recurring congestion.
Why 217? That logic is outlined in Friday's Oregonian article by Jim Mayer and Steve Beaven.
Posted by Chris Smith at 12:00 AM | Comments (10) | Permalink
April 4, 2007
Real Time Traffic Mapping
Do you suppose this is a Google Maps mashup?
Portland State University
Center for Transportation Studies
Spring 2007 Transportation Seminar Series
Speaker: Fred Liang, P.E., City of Bellevue, Washington
Topic: Development of the Bellevue Real Time Arterial Traffic Flow Map
When: Friday, April 6, 2007, 12:00-1:30 pm
Where: 204 Urban Center
Posted by Chris Smith at 12:00 AM | Comments (2) | Permalink
April 2, 2007
Kulongoski Getting REAL About Driver's Licenses?
The Oregonian speculates about whether the Governor will get support from the Legislature to fulfill his campaign promise to bring Oregon in line with the federal id standards.
But the legislature is concerned about the impact on migrant labor and the big brother implications.
If they don't get on board will we not be able to board commercial airlines without a passport for id?
Posted by Chris Smith at 6:53 AM | Comments (12) | Permalink
