Neil McFarlane is TriMet’s General Manager.

Dear riders,

One of the most enjoyable parts of being the General Manager of TriMet is engaging directly with riders. Last Friday, I had coffee with 14 riders and we had a terrific 60-minute discussion on a wide variety of topics. I had a ball answering real questions from our riders—I would argue the most knowledgeable and committed transit riders on the planet!

Last Friday, TriMet General Manager Neil McFarlane answered questions from riders at the first in a series of “Coffee with Neil” events around the metro area.

By the way, you will see me—and my colleagues—out in the community more moving forward. We know you are frustrated with the level of service, overcrowded buses and trains, and the negative conversation about TriMet in the news. We know you want the facts and want to talk with us directly, and we agree.

Friday morning we touched on a variety of topics—here’s a brief recap:

• Service reductions over the last three years: Understandably, riders are frustrated and want more service, not less. While we’re not in a financial position to significantly add service, we are investing $1.6 million more this year to reduce overcrowding, extending Line 94 all day and looking to add service to one key route in Washington County to help workers get to jobs. While this alone won’t satisfy the growing demand for transit in our region, it’s what we can afford to do for riders right now.

• This year’s budget: There is some good news in our budget this year: no service cuts and no fare increases (assuming that our latest labor contract proposal is upheld). We are also accelerating our new bus purchases—70 more buses are coming this year—and continuing our “Access Transit” fare programs for low-income riders. We are hiring more bus operators to accommodate the new Hours of Service policy we agreed upon with the ATU (our labor union), and we will be increasing MAX vehicle and track maintenance, plus improving lighting and other amenities along the MAX system.

• Pay raises for non-union staff: It was clear that what riders heard in the news was not the full story. These raises went to our 440 non-union employees, most not in management roles. The vast majority of these employees had their salaries frozen for 3 ½ years, and they have been paying more for their health care coverage. I made this decision to be fair to these hard-working public servants who play a critical role keeping our agency and our transit system running. While we informed our Board of Directors and community groups of this decision at the time, we certainly can and will be more transparent about changes such as these in the future.

• TriMet’s health care costs: With an aging workforce and health care for life for retirees and their dependents, our health care costs remain a structural long-term challenge for the agency. We need to tackle this issue for the future of TriMet and transit service in our region. In order for us to make a case for new revenue, we need to get our house in order. I am confident the region will invest in us if they know the resources are going to new service, and not health care costs.

• New bus purchases: Our bus fleet is too old. We purchased 55 new buses in fall 2012 and we’ll be replacing 70 more in 2013 and about 40 more each year after that. By 2017, we will have replaced all of the remaining high-floor buses in the fleet (those with steps at the door).

• Washington County service: Riders are frustrated by the level of service within the county and some of the challenges of bus service on roads where the traffic is too fast and there is a lack of sidewalks and safe crossings. We are continuing to work with our partners to improve access to transit service and we’re seeing progress throughout the region.

• Reducing stop spacing: Riders continue to express concerns about the number of stops along bus routes slowing down the service. We, of course, need to balance this desire with accessibility concerns of our riders who are seniors and have disabilities. One rider recommended created conditional ADA stops that would only be available to riders with special needs. This is certainly worth exploring.

• TransitTracker system: Riders are frustrated with the quality of the audio on our TransitTracker by Phone system. I am pleased to report that this system is being upgraded—likely sometime later this year—and we expect the automated voice will be easier to understand.

• East Portland bus service: One student shared his frustration with the lack of north-south service between 122^nd and 185^th in East Portland. This is a legitimate concern and a challenge for our riders, many of whom have moved east for more affordable housing. This summer we are starting a planning process to revise service for East Portland, which may help with these kinds of service gaps.

• The shortcomings of  the Type 4 MAX cars: The Type 4 cars are too cold! We also discussed that some of the seating is too tight for riders. Both of these issues will be fixed in the next generation of MAX cars, which will enter service in 2014 and 2015. We also are working to resolve the temperature control system of the newer rail cars.

• Interlining the Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Line with the Yellow and Green lines: We are still developing the service plan, but, yes, the future Orange Line will be interlined with some Yellow and Green line trains. (Interlining means using the same vehicle and/or operator on multiple routes.)

• Metro’s work on a BRT line along Powell-Division: Metro is launching a planning process to explore a new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line along Powell-Division. It’s certainly a corridor where there is a tremendous need and demand for more service. It’s a very promising opportunity to improve service on the Eastside.

I really enjoyed meeting riders and answering their questions at our first “coffee talk.” This is just the beginning, and I look forward to continuing the conversation with riders all over the region.

If you’re interested in joining Neil at a future “Coffee with Neil” event, please send us an email.

“Ask TriMet” answers some of the questions we get frequently from riders. Have a question? Send it to ask@trimet.org and we may feature it in a future post.

When we announced that we were purchasing 55 new buses last year, many riders asked us how we could afford them when we’d just raised fares and cut service due to a budget shortfall. Here’s the answer:

Bus replacement is as much a cost of service as the driver and mechanic. We delayed purchasing new buses as we weathered the last two recessions. We now have one of the oldest fleets in the country, and we simply can’t delay buying replacement vehicles any more. Not only are the aging buses uncomfortable for riders and operators, they have become too unreliable and expensive for us to maintain.

The Federal Transit Administration requires a minimum life of 12 years or 500,000 miles out of the type of bus TriMet uses. Thanks to our creative and innovative maintenance staff, we are able to keep our buses on the road a lot longer. Our maintenance staff are able to calculate the life of many of our bus parts and swap them out just before they fail most of the time, which helps prevent in-service break downs. We also go beyond upkeep by making improvements to our active buses in the fleet.

But like any vehicle that is heavily used, our buses are only useful for so long. The buses we are replacing are well beyond their useful life of 15-16 years. (As several of you have pointed out, some are over 20 years old!) As such, they have higher maintenance costs and can only be used to a limited extent in service. We will continue replacing the oldest buses in our fleet over the next few years.

We received $20 million in grant funding from the FTA to pay for replacement buses. The 55 new buses we purchased in 2012 are now in service, and we’ve already purchased 70 more that will go into service this year. We will replace about 60 more each year from 2014 to 2016, and about 40 more each year after that.

By 2017, we will have replaced all of the remaining high-floor buses (those with steps at the door) in the fleet and the average age of a bus in our fleet will be about 8 years. This is an essential investment which will improve the reliability, efficiency and safety of our buses, while reducing our costs over the long term.

Learn more about TriMet’s new buses

Have a question? Send it to ask@trimet.org and we may feature it in a future post.

A message from Neil McFarlane, TriMet General Manager

TriMet General Manager Neil McFarlane

Dear riders,

Many of you have asked when TriMet is going to be able to restore the service that was cut over the last few years. I know first-hand that buses and trains are crowded, and for some of us, it’s a long wait for the next one.

On Wednesday, I made a presentation to our Board of Directors about the state of TriMet’s budget and what we can expect in the years ahead. I wanted to share with you what I told them.

First, the good news: We don’t anticipate any more service cuts or fare increases—except for a scheduled LIFT paratransit fare increase—in the next fiscal year (through June 2014).

That’s assuming that the Oregon Employment Relations Board upholds our latest labor contract with Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757 (ATU), which the union has challenged. I’m optimistic, but be aware that it could mean additional service cuts if the ATU prevails.

The bad news: An even bigger budget crisis is on the horizon. Looking out a few years, we are projecting a $15-17 million budget shortfall in 2017, increasing annually to $195-$200 million in 2030. The main reason is the rising cost of health care benefits for our union employees and retirees. Retiree benefits, for example, are growing at compound annual rates of 15-18 percent per year.

In fact, without a change to our labor contract, employee health care costs will consume nearly half of TriMet’s operating revenue from payroll taxes by 2020.

Our job is to keep the Portland area moving. TriMet and the ATU have a responsibility to bring these costs under control so that we can restore—and eventually grow—transit service to meet the rising demand.

Of course, that’s not sustainable. The more we pay in health care, the less service we can provide. Plain and simple, it’s about the math.

And we only have a brief window of time before riders will feel the effects. So, how can we fix this?

As we begin negotiations for a new labor contract, we have proposed solutions to the ATU leadership that will help rein in these costs. Our proposal would bring health care costs down while maintaining a fair and competitive benefit package that is more in line with that of other public employees.

To be clear, I believe our hard-working employees deserve quality health care. We’re simply proposing that ATU employees receive the same level of health care benefits that I and other non-union staff receive—which, while not as rich as the union’s current plan, is still a very good benefit package by any measure.

As I’ve said before, TriMet is a transit agency, not a health care provider. Our job is to keep the Portland area moving. TriMet and the ATU have a responsibility to bring these costs under control so that we can restore—and eventually grow—transit service to meet the rising demand. It will take some time to get there, but, working together, I’m confident that we will get there.

Thank you for your continued support, and thanks for riding.

RELATED: Read Neil McFarlane’s “Hot Seat” interview with Willamette Week, February 13, 2013 

TALK ABOUT IT: Discuss this post on Facebook

Shelly Lomax is TriMet’s Executive Director of Operations.

The Oregonian has an article they call “TriMet overtime: ‘Exhaustion has become part of the culture’ at transit agency.” We wanted to take this opportunity to provide some further information and to assure you that we have a safe system that you can trust.

The story stems from when a MAX train hit a bumping post at the Expo Center in 2011 and there was speculation that the operator may have fallen asleep. This was an extremely rare and unfortunate event for TriMet—but we followed up with the appropriate investigation and discipline regarding this incident.

Since then, The Oregonian has asked for years of complaints against operators, hours of service (HOS), pay records and collision data to determine if there is a pattern of this type of behavior.

We have a few bus operators who choose to work a lot of overtime, and at times taking just a few hours off between service days. While this is rare it complies with our HOS policy. We are vigilant when it comes to improving safety because we can always do better, and we will.

Every day we do a lot to ensure a safe operation:

• Our operators are trained professionals who all receive annual safety training and refresher training when appropriate.
• We comply with the Oregon Department of Transportation’s requirement that we have an HOS policy approved by ODOT for our rail operators and have applied a similar policy to our bus operators. The HOS policy defines a service day differently between bus and rail. As we negotiate the next contract, we hope to work with the ATU to improve the hours of service policy and further strengthen our support of safe operations.
• Our negotiated HOS policy limits the number of hours a person can work in a week and the number of consecutive days a person can work; it also requires a period of rest within the service day. Additionally, operators have the ability to pass up work or request later work under certain circumstances so they can get the rest they need.
• If an operator is feeling tired, we have safety measures in place. If we get a complaint about unsafe driving or concern over a sleepy operator, we perform a field fit-for-duty check on the operator.

Bus and MAX operators come to work each day prepared to deliver safe and reliable transportation for our customers and our community. It is a responsibility every operator, and in fact, every Operations employee, takes very seriously.

Safety is our core value. There is no greater priority. We can always improve our safety efforts and will continue to do so—hand in hand with our entire Operations Division, Safety and Security Division and the ATU.

Drew Blevins is TriMet’s Director of Marketing and Customer Information.

Recently I shared some information about the ad featuring the headline “Palestinian Loss of Land” that is currently posted on some TriMet vehicles. What appears to be a response ad—with the headline “In any War Between the Civilized Man and the Savage, Support the Civilized Man”—will start showing up on some TriMet vehicles this week.

These are the controversial ads you may see on the sides of TriMet buses and trains.

In the past, TriMet’s advertising policy has only allowed ads that were commercial in nature, defined by the promotion of goods or services. Non-commercial ads were not allowed, as we didn’t want to open our doors to all advertisements. A 2008 Multnomah County Circuit Court ruling concluded that our advertising policy could not limit the categories of advertising accepted. The Oregon Supreme Court is now reviewing that decision. TriMet has asked the Court to treat us like any other entrepreneurial advertising media and to allow us to make reasonable determinations as to the categories of advertising we will accept. While awaiting the Court’s decision, TriMet is in the unfortunate position of having to accept all advertising.

We acknowledge that ads like these, indeed, make things challenging for everyone. We began to permit advertising on TriMet buses and trains to create a source of revenue for the good of TriMet and our customers. While TriMet supports our constitutions and the free speech they ensure, we recognize that our purpose is to unite our communities through transit. We are disappointed that the sides of our buses and trains have become a medium for divisive discussions, and we apologize to you. We hope that when the Oregon Supreme Court decides the case that we will once again be allowed to limit advertising to commercial goods and services.