What an adventure my short 40 minute bicycle ride became after I got home from work today.  Just about 6:30"ish" I up and decided to do some bicycle riding to get back in the swing of things.  I had been riding almost everyday since I bought my current two wheels, but the last 4 days I've been lethargic.  So off I went, cruising down Lovejoy and turning onto 11th to follow the Streetcar tracks.  At the first stop I saw a streetcar with the ticker display reading, "disabled".  I rode a little past that streetcar and saw at the next stop another streetcar was stopped with emergency blinkers displayed.  I cut to the center of the street and went between it and some cars.  I saw up ahead another streetcar at the next stop and the one beyond up by Powell's Books.  Beyond that stop another car was stopped at the four way crossing Burnside.

As I approached Burnside I could see across the street that the tracks where blocked by some moron, yeah MORON, who blocked up the tracks with his transport truck.  At the north side of Burnside I asked the streetcar drive what the deal was, if they had a tow truck coming or anything.  He said, "I think so, and the twisted thing is the keys are in the truck!"   So let me see, just after the bulk of rush hour, when the streetcars are still full beyond seating capacity and well into standing only room, some idiot has 4 streetcars stopped.  That means at least an average of 45 people, MINIMUM where in each of those streetcars.  That gives us an easy 180 people diverted, delayed, stopped, or put off of their streetcars while moron boy (or girl) leaves the system backed up.  I contemplate as I cross the street if I should just jump in the truck and move it up and off the tracks.  I talk to the city official standing there to judge what he would do if I just up and moved the blasted truck.  He said they had a tow truck no more than 5 minutes out, I asked if he was assured of that, he said, "yeah".  So with that information I held off from my almost crazy idea and rode on, knowing that guy would be stuck with a massive tow bill and ticket.

As I rode uphill toward the library I cut over and headed down Yamhill parallel the MAX tracks.  As I approached Pioneer Square I realized that each stop had a sitting MAX train, empty.  I knew immediately something else was going on.  I rode on and saw an official Tri-met switchman, so I stopped for a moment and asked what was going on.  I had just turned onto 2nd and was under the Morrison Bridge at that crossing.  He said, "I'm throwing switches because we have an overturned truck up the way near China Town Old Town Stop.  I couldn't help but chuckle at this rather inconvenient turn of events.  They had to be kidding me, the streetcar AND the MAX system where stopped because of two rather moronic individuals.  Don't anybody comment some stupid comment about sometimes it is the trains fault.  Always, ALWAYS watch out and STOP for the train.  I don't care who's fault it is.  Just watch out, and this kind of idiotic stupidity doesn't have to occur.  Beyond that, it is highly unlikely that it was the MAX operators fault, it rarely ever is their fault.

So I pedaled on toward the incident and sure enough saw news crews and such filming at the intersection of Couch and 2nd where an empty MAX train was stopped, on the tracks, no visible damage, but an overturned delivery truck, approximately 27 feet in length was laid out in the way.  The track had been knocked over, probably after not paying attention and pulling into the path (how do you NOT see tracks?!?!?!?) of the MAX train.  I inquired and found out 5 had been taken for medical care, which hopefully will turn out all peachy.

With that I headed up couch and back toward home.  I'd been amazed that easily, with MAX delays across the entire system, streetcars stopped, at least 10-20 thousand people had most likely been delayed in some way or another because of two idiots.  I think the only other way to cause this type of havoc is for some tractor trailer to do the jack knife on I-5 and clog up traffic for 4 hours.  That affected at least 20-30 thousand people, for far longer a period of time.  So don't any of you anti-transit persons write about how only rail gets delayed by incidents like this, every mode of transportation gets delayed by this nonsense for those .05% of inattentive persons (or possibly less).

As I finish up this gigantic write up for my afternoon adventure I hear the flange wheels of the streetcar rolling again, and know for sure the MAX System is up and running (the HUGE tow truck to move the mess was pulling up as I rode away).  In the back of my head I was just infinitely thankful that I live downtown and that I had already gotten home before this huge back up.

Smile [:)]

So to all you transit and auto travelers out there, good luck and I hope you weren't too affected by this absurd inconvenience!