The Square Dance
9:00 AM December 26th, 2007 by admin
Story Forum | 
Email This Post
|
[NEWS STORY]Here’s every number to know before deciding whether Fareless Square should stay or go next month.—JEREMY GILLICK
Read story @ The Square Dance
- Update on The Potential End to Fareless Square: Never Mind
Looks lik
- Few Speak Out At Open House To Preserve Fareless Square For Buses
After the
- Volume • DaNCE! DANCE! DaNCE! [PREVIEW
- Bye Bye To Fareless Square For Buses?
TriMet pr
- Bad Boys Of Dance (White Bird Dance) In this bo
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, December 26th, 2007 at 9:00 am and is filed under Story Forum.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
.jpg&contenttype=jpeg)
Cost of additional officers: $500k
Cost of additional revenue: $400-600k
It’s all about the Benjamins, Baby.
I remember when the FBI wanted Portland to get rid of the fareless square after 9/11 because officers couldn’t ask folks about proof of payment. This argument is stupid. First of all, an officer can ask anyone a question and strike up a conversation about anything. If he wants to do more than chat, like stop someone, then he needs reasonable suspicion that a crime is/was committed. You don’t need the pretext of asking about proof of payment of a fare.
The truth is that I have never seen an officer on trimet in fareless square. In fact, all i have seen is them getting off just outside fareless square and boarding the next train outbound.
Sorry but I’m all for nixing fareless square. It’s a nice idea in concept but no one can argue that it doesn’t result in sketchy characters and non-violent crimes increasing in said area. Seattle has the same thing downtown and the same issues. There is a reason why people feel extraordinarily safe in Subways in big cities like London, New York, Athens, etc. You need to pay and take a ticket before you are allowed to even go through the turnstyle.
The only issue with implementing this will be compliance which will necessitatte more officers on Trimet.
Dissolving Fareless Square will solve nothing. The trouble makers already ride outside the square without paying and they aren’t suddenly going to abandon the train because a ticket is required. The only people who will do that are honest riders who will now (like me) just drive into downtown, further clogging the already congested downtown streets, and spend their money to park closer to their destination. The same trouble making losers who are now causing problems will, however, continue to hop on the train and just jump off when a transit cop gets on, just as they do now when riding back to Gresham or Hillsboro. Keeping people safe on public transit is certainly an important goal, but it can only be done sensibly and with legitimately effective solutions, which this isn’t.
I thought the goal of fareless square was to address our transportation problem, not the fare inspector’s unemployment problem.
Jerry, I think Jeremy Gillick DID argue that.
Funny, I always liked knowing if some weirdo assailed or harrassed me downtown I could hop on a bus and ride for blocks to get away from them without having to pay, and the driver could radio for the cops if need be. Guess I’d better have my $2 ready if that happens again.
Watch the authorities boggle when it turns out that Fareless Square is closed…and sleazy men still congregate on 4th avenue! What the hell???
WHERE IN THE WORLD DID YOU GET THOSE STATISTICS?
WHAT A JOKE!
3 COMPLAINTS ABOUT PANHANDLING FOR THE WHOLE YEAR??!!
LOL!!!LOL!!!LOL!!!!
WHAT ARE YOU GUYS, ON DRUGS?
I SAW MORE DRUG DEALERS ON MY BUS IN ONE DAY THEN YOU SAY OCCURRED IN THE WHOLE YEAR!
sorry about the caps but your article is ludicrous.
Your article is so absurd I made a video and posted it to the trimetoperators site in rebuttal.
I’d like to hear what you have to say about this!
http://amargul.blogspot.com/2007/12/willamette-week-use-for-trash-can.html
There are drunks, dealers, crazies, idiots and malcontents in every state on every public transportation system. Some of you haven’t actually been around that much. As far as the ticket being purchased and that making you safe? Uh, have you ever been on a NY train. Plenty of idiots like anywhere else. All paying customers. The worst part is having to talk to the public employees who don’t feel like doing there job and get all agro when you ask them a question. If PDX wanted to get more money for public transit, they should not be sneaking it in through taxation or making up lies for their reasons. The whole problem is, Portland’s trains system sucks and is about as useless as Atlanta’s. I live right on the river east side and have never taken it. It doesn’t go where I need to go. It shuts down after bar closings. It takes too long for a train. Portland needs more micro-rail. Smaller, light weight, low capacity transportation over a wide network of places that ties into arteries. The whole problem now is that the whole thing was implemented badly from the start and you don’t even have any turn styles or gates to make people pay. Hey people. You get what you deserve. You elected these idiots that rob you on taxes and provide you with this great, corrupt, socialistic experiment. Happy Taxation.
The reason for using tax money to support a bus/train system is to allow low income people to get to work and to get people out of their cars. These reasons suggest that the entire system ought to be fareless. The suppresion of crime is a police function and will have absolutly no effect based on the fares charged.
I love the max but I don’t see why Max security can’t establish their presence by checking up fares periodically. The whole idea with fareless square was to reduced dependence on cars specially in congested areas. Yeah, increase revenues, but avoid making it at the expense of more pollution and congestion. I still have my bike permit from the past and I still don’t understand why this was removed for bike ferrying passengers. It could have been an income source for Max albeit a small one.
One of the biggest factors in building the multi-million dollar condos around downtown has been fairless square. Having this fairless square also raises property values in downtown for condo and business owners because it fosters development in the city. I guess all these condo owners must be riding fairless square and committing crimes that I am not aware of. I’ve got $20 that says Hansen doesn’t even ride the city’s transit system to get to/from work — some cities actually REQUIRE this of the head of their city’s transit system. Hansen and Giusto must be best friends because both are in positions of authority in our city and neither seem to care about the well being of our community.
It’s been pointed out over and over again that eliminating fareless square will do nothing to eliminate the proliferation of crime on the far east and west ends of the line. This is obvious to any thinking person.
But here’s the real reason it’s being eliminated: to appease the vocal anti-transit crowd. These people see no personal benefit to public transit and want to eliminate any subsidy of the system. Decreased ridership and increased central city car use is not a problem to these types of people. And they’re loud, constantly writing letters to the editor and, presumably, letters to TriMet as well.
Fred Hansen has caved to the right-wing, car-loving, self-serving nutjobs.
What a bunch of cowards! Yesterday, two meetings were held for the public to comment on the Hansen’s un-Portland-like idea of eliminating fairless square. Guess what? Not a single Trimet board member nor Hansen bothered to show up instead sending a stenographer to take down a transcription of public comments without the board bothering to listen to them. This isn’t how Portland works. This isn’t how Oregon works. I think its time for Hansen and his fellows to get their walking papers.