Dave Knows Portland

Archives for March 2009

Portland Transit Tips

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Yesterday Portland Transport linked to a re:place Magazine article on becoming an expert transit rider. This got me thinking about some of the things I’ve learned as a TriMet trouper through the years

  • Don’t take the MAX to and from events at the Rose Garden or PGE Park if there is a bus option. The trains are ridiculously packed just before and just after games. The Rose Garden is surrounded by transit. Take a bus back downtown. They’re often faster, and almost always less crowded.
  • In a similar vein, if you’re heading up to NW Portland take the 17 and 15; they are faster than the street car.
  • If your bus goes by a high school or middle school, avoid riding when school is getting out. The kids are obnoxious and loud. I don’t mean this in a “you kids get off my lawn” sense. The kids really are obnoxious and loud and rude. Teenagers are, naturally, beginning to learn social etiquette and boundaries. They have a lot to learn. And your bus trip will be unpleasant if they are on the bus in large numbers.
  • Take advantage of routes that overlap or run parallel to other routes. If your regular 4 Fessenden isn’t coming for 10 minutes and you spot a 44, will that take you close enough to where you’re going? If you normally take the 14 to Hawthorne and 12th, it will serve you well to know the 10 Harold stops there too before branching off through Ladd’s Addition.  If you’re heading to close-in SE Portland on the 14 or 15, if one doesn’t come you might try taking the other; Belmont and Hawthorne are only separated by a few blocks.
  • Take advantage of the diagonal lines, such as the 12 Sandy and 14 Hawthorne/Foster, which can often get you to the same cross streets as other lines that stay on the normal grid.
  • Staying on one bus might take longer, but is often more pleasant and reliable than transfers. I used to travel from 65th and SE Woodstock to near 28th and East Burnside. I could have bused (or walked) to 39th to take the 75 down 39th, then transferred to the 20 (or walked) down Burnside, or I could take the 19 Woodstock downtown and stay on it as it became the 19 Glisan. The latter option was usually more pleasant, especially if the weather sucked
  • Use 238-RIDE and/or all the other Portland transit tools out there.

Anyone else have tips?

Nicolas Batum has a bloc-notes

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Allez Blazers!The best rookie Frenchman in Portland Trailblazer history has a blog (bloc-note? ) for French basketball website, Basket Session.com.

In a recent post Batum writes about All-Star weekend. He shares his experience doing color commentary for the Rookie Sophomore game on Canal+, partying with Steve Nash, setting world records, and more. But despite my best efforts learning French, I’m glad that Oregonlive.com’s Tim Brown has translated the post for us at the Blazer Blog.

Boston Globe: Moving to Portland to solve all of area woman’s problems

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You may recall a recent article in The Onion, Moving To New City To Solve All Of Area Man’s Problems.

“Moving to Portland is going to make all the difference in the world,” said Shepard, who, just by putting 2,500 miles distance between himself and years of destructive behavior, will suddenly turn his life around. “It won’t be anything like Chicago, or Boston, or San Francisco. This is exactly what I need right now.”

bostononionBoston Globe correspondent Jennifer Schwartz has re-written the article, but her version is not quite as funny nor succinct. Head down, looking for a smile is, however, full of those wonderful Portland cliches (editorial comments and Portland stereotypes and cliche emphasis mine):

My plane was heading to Portland, Ore., where I’d be visiting my best friend and other Boston expats who now live there. Kali and her boyfriend, Matt, share a spacious two-bedroom townhouse in the hipster-heavy Southeast section, and pay a grand total of $700 a month in rent.

Ordering a craft brew on tap costs less than a mass-produced light beer elsewhere [seriously? is that true?! Remind me never to leave Portland]. Strangers are actually friendly. Many people are in flux, and they’re openly OK with not running on the career treadmill. The music scene lives up to its reputation. Bars don’t play host to meat markets. (They also stay open past 2 a.m.) [um, another 30 minutes?] And, oh, those blissful bike lanes.

Anyway, you get the idea. Nothing, though, about the unicorns . . .