I thought their communication was great… for the most part. The day that @capricious and I had our Day o’ Fun, though, they seriously dropped the ball in that communicatin’ department.

For instance, as I mentioned in my other comment, I received one of the TriMet emails within an hour of starting my wait. The email just had bad info in it (15-20 min 60+ min).

Also, they failed to communicate among themselves. When the TriMet employee on the scene moved our group, they needed to make sure to tell a) the drivers and b) passengers arriving after the move. I especially love how Capricious got yelled at by a driver for doing what the TriMet person told us. CLASSY.

I’m talking about transparency in the decision-making process and a general lack of visible leadership and inter-agency coordination.

So, who made that call? Was Portland’s commissioner of transportation, mayor-elect and North Portland resident Sam Adams involved in (or at least informed of) the decision? Why wasn’t the public informed?

It was obvious early in the week that the tracks weren’t being plowed and TriMet was pretty much just waiting it out for the Yellow Line. Maybe not a bad call, but I’d like to know who makes these decisions, when, why and in consultation with whom.

I think Portlanders are used to such terrific bus and train service that when the system is under duress, it seems like a really big deal. Given that Tri-met suddenly has a huge number of new and more frequent riders this week and the roads are still F*#ked up, their whole system has been in upheaval on routes with shuttles, with chains on buses, etc. I still feel they are doing a fantastic job. They have been especially good at communicating and keeping up to date info on Transit tracker and their website, and for me that goes a very long way in the respecto-meter.

I’d like to say a word of thanks to the driver of that bus as he made sure that EVERY last person (that I saw, at least) got on that shuttle. Also, those that had started walking up Interstate in disgust over the situation were also picked up, no matter that they were in the middle of the street. So a bus load of kvetching people that had waited too long in the cold turned into a friendly and thankful bus full of people, made even more so by the generosity of the bus driver that insisted that no man was left behind.

I can understand complaining if there was no service at all, but it seems TriMet went above and beyond to keep Yellow Line passengers moving along.

Worst part for me? On Monday, I left the office (south downtown, near the waterfront) two hours early… and still got home later than normal.

It took an hour just to get across the river to the Rose Quarter, but that part was understandable. They had limited trains that were packed to overflowing, so not only did you have to wait awhile between them but there was a good chance you could fit on one once it finally arrived.

But the Rose Quarter part on Monday? That was unforgivable.

I got to RQ around 4pm and walked over to the temporary Yellow Line shuttle stop TriMet set up just north of the MAX station. Including the rest of the people who got off my train, there were probably a couple dozen of us waiting for the Yellow Line shuttle.

A shuttle which, according to the alert TriMet sent out < 1hr earlier, was running every 15-20 minutes.

So I stood there and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

4:15 passed. 4:20. 4:30. 4:45.

At 5, after waiting a full hour for the shuttle, there was a huge crowd of people waiting, enough that the TriMet folks decided we were starting to cause problems (don’t know exactly how…). So one of the TriMet reps came by and told the lot of us that they’d decided to move the Yellow Line stop from its current location over to the regular Rose Quarter Yellow Line MAX station.

The TriMet rep led our little MAX Death March of about 100 people to the other stop and assured us that 3 different shuttles were en route, and that they should all arrive within the next 10 minutes or so.

Apparently, though, they didn’t tell the shuttle drivers about any of this, nor did they inform newly arrived Yellow Liners to go down to the new stop.

Sooo….

Shuttle One finally appears, but it goes back up to the previous stop and lets on all the passengers who’d just arrived. By the time it got to the “new” stop, it only had enough room to let on about 6 passengers. People in line who, like me, had waited over an hour were left out in the cold (literally). Some, those now late for jobs, offered to pay passengers at the front of the line for their spots.

About 10 minutes later, Shuttle Two started coming to our stop. That one didn’t even slow down, again already filled to capacity from the other station.

By that time, I’d been waiting about 90 minutes for the “shuttle that leaves every 15-20 min.” I was cold, tired, and more than a little pissed off.

And so were the rest of the passengers. After the second bus ignored all of us, about half of the crowd headed back to the original station. Me? I joined a few other people and decided to start walking, fully expecting to have to walk in the cold and the snow drifts all the way to my car parked at the Expo Center.

Thankfully, just as I got to the Albina/Mississippi stop, another shuttle bus finally came by (saw other buses in the mean time, but don’t recall if they were shuttles or running a regular route). That driver was kind enough to stop and let the three of us squeeze on (I stood on the bottom step at the front of the bus, my ass squeezed against the door).

I called in the next day.

Merry Christmas!