Transit Sleuth

Transit Only Weekend Part II - Arrival at Ikea

...the continuation and the Ikea

After that we walked across the street and grabbed a ride on the #6 north bound up Grand Ave. to catch the Red Line to Ikea.  Upon arriving at Ikea we spent the next few minutes being amazed while walking to the store.  There literally where hundreds of people walking into the store and several thousand cars parked in the parking lot, the field that was the overflow parking, and beyond that in one of the overflow airport parking lots.  It really showed how horribly inefficient auto oriented design is.  The majority (At least several thousand) people where walking 2x as far to the store, through grass and dust, than the people that where taking the MAX.  If they had organized, designed, and built the store with more of a transit oriented design they could have got the same amount of people in and out of the store without the problems, or the extra half dozen or so security, police, and other traffic organizers.  Just by utilizing the MAX, with an extra train or two for frequency, they probably could have gotten MORE people through the store than the obscene parking lot design.

I digress though, I'm actually glad it is in Portland.  I'm glad that I'll be able to take the Red Line out to the Ikea.  I'm glad because otherwise, I wouldn't even waste my time and would have prospectively spent a whole bunch more cash than I needed to! 

After the Ikea Jo and I jumped the Red Line to the airport and got some Coffee People treats.  After chilling out at the airport watching the planes for a few minutes we returned to the Red Line for our trip home.  At the Rose Quarter Transit Center they where running a bus "bridge" between that stop and the Galleria stop because they where putting in place a crossover for the new Transit Mall Construction downtown.  I noticed it rather expensive to use a bus bridge to supplant the temporary MAX service that was not currently available.  9 busses in my count, one not visible because it was probably in transit, where being used to supplant a mere two line MAX service.  4 MAX Cars, 10 Busses.  Not good ratio.  The MAXs cost a percentage more to run per hour than a single bus, but not as much as 2 busses, and at this time they had to use 10, that's way more than 2x as many busses.  In addition that's 10 drivers instead of 4!  I can easily see where that math ends up in the favor of light rail real fast when there is

Saturday - streetcar - stumptown - #20 Bewa - closed - walked to Side Door - Caught #6 to redline to Ikea - shopped Ikea - bags 5 cents or 59 cents - 10 dollars of shipping - awesome prices - 30-40% below comparable products - returned on redline - caught bus MAX express - 9 busses minimum in service to provide the thorughput of a measly single MAX train.

...at this point I stop this entry.

...this is the last blurb of an blog entry for the Transit Slueth.

...as of this entry, I'm officially burned out on the transit/auto debate debacle in this country.  The faux historical implications that we (USA) where always a weakly neutered socialist nation that somehow had our transportation infrastructure of the past built by the Government is also disheartening and the idea that the Government should fix all our transit woes is just a recipe for revolution and dissolution.  I invite such ridiculousness with open arms.  With that I leave this blog for historical reference on the super dooper internet.