Ira Flowers is a local film producer and daily TriMet user. He hasn’t owned a car for the past 10 years and rides the bus twice a day to and from his office.
He recently got in touch to tell me a story about an experience his girlfriend had with a TriMet bus driver:
“Her bike was in the front holding device and the bus driver was moving way to fast up Multnomah after the Rose Garden Arena. He hit a bump very fast and my ladies bike released itself from the front carriage. The bus driver then ran over the bike. Stopping only after my girlfriend shrieked. He said nothing to her, did not offer to help, didn’t look at her in the eye, and when we contacted Trimet they said it was our own problem. That ticked me off.”
Calling this the “last straw”, he went home and created Trimet Watchdog, a new blog that he hopes will, “develop into an online forum where accountability can be monitored and tracked daily.” He wants Portlanders to log their experiences (both good and bad) and also hopes to get TriMet employees to join in.
TriMet is a huge part of our transportation ecosystem and I think it’s healthy to have a place online where experiences, grievances, and commendations can be documented. Hopefully Ira can maintain balance and a constructive dialogue on the site. It’s not an easy task, but if he succeeds in gaining momentum with his blog, it could have an impact on TriMet’s policies.
Now, if only Randy Albright would have had this site back on that fateful day back in January ’04…