[rootusrootus]

I'd much rather see a really robust network of buses than another light rail expansion. It's not convenient to get to the train, and it crawls through downtown at an average pace of 17 mph. I live all of 20 minutes from downtown (by car), and even then it would take me as long as 60 minutes during the day to catch the nearest bus, and then 30+ minutes to make it downtown (and that assumes the connections work flawlessly). It's not practical to use the bus here except for people who live and work in relatively close proximity, in certain areas of town.

I personally believe that part of the problem is Portland's style of government. There's a pretty good reason why it's the largest city in the US governed by committee. Though to be fair that may not really explain the whole problem. Just trying to design a replacement bridge across the Columbia cost 175 million without ever doing anything. Dysfunctional is an understatement for Oregon.

[stevenbedrick]

I have zero disagreement with you, there- I would personally much rather see a dramatically-expanded bus service than another light rail expansion, or at the very least increased service on the existing lines. In its current state, you are correct in that there are large parts of the metro area where it's just not a practical choice, and that's something that needs to change. I am lucky enough to live and work along one of the transit corridors where TriMet's bus service _does_ make sense, but it's definitely not viable in much of the metro area.

And yeah, "dysfunctional" only begins to describe the Columbia bridge debacle. But I will say, in defense of the project and its staff: that was a spectacularly challenging problem to solve. One of those fractal problems, where the more closely you look at it, the more complex it gets. The physical challenges were already going to be hard enough, and then the twelve-dimensional politics of the situation made it even more so. I don't pretend to know what the best solution would even be, but like everybody else in town I was disappointed to see it blow up after so much had been invested in it.

[selimthegrim]

Oracle hiring random college graduates with a pulse to manage devs for the state healthcare exchange was an eye opener

[stevenbedrick]

Agreed. I was genuinely shocked by that whole saga...

[selimthegrim]

I only found out because I actually met one in person on a date who insisted you didn't need any IT or coding experience to manage developers