Portland Aerial Tram | Complete

[bvpcvm]

how will they know you're not visiting a patient?

[pdxstreetcar]

Anyone know how the fare is paid?
Directly to a ticket booth?
To the operator?
Feed a ticket or token into a turnstyle?
Honor-system?

[CouvScott]

First ride - OK, we're cool, that was just the middle tower, really, it's smooth and steady, hey, check the knockout view

Friday, December 15, 2006
STEPHEN BEAVEN

Thursday morning, I sat in the lobby of OHSU's new Center for Health & Healing and memorized the faces of the people around me, just in case we plunged to our deaths during a ride on the Portland Aerial Tram.

I wanted to prepare myself for the worst and thus allay my unbridled neuroses.

Thursday's ride was a preview for the media, a harmless round-trip from the South Waterfront to Oregon Health & Science University's main campus before training runs begin today and the public opening late next month.

Awaiting the ride, everyone in the lobby seemed so happy. The OHSU people. The TV news reporters, with their shiny hair and white teeth. Even Portland Mayor Tom Potter.

Sarah Graham, a Portland native who helped design the tram, exhibited the outward cool of a fighter pilot on a Sunday stroll. While radio reporters jammed long microphones in her face and asked her questions for actual news stories, I had a more basic query:

So, this thing won't crash while I'm riding it, right?

"I can assure you of that," she said without missing a beat, "because if I'm wrong, I'll be right there with you."

She seemed fairly confident.

Still.

We boarded, squeezing cheek-to-jowl into a Jetsons-style silver pod. There were only a few seats, so nearly everyone stood. Cold air blew from overhead. And the drab gray color scheme looked more like a hospital waiting room from the '50s than a sleek new transportation alternative.
The trip started smoothly enough up the hill. Then -- I am not making this up -- we lurched, as if we'd lost altitude when we passed the tram's middle tower. My stomach twisted. There was a collective gasp, to which Potter, the tough-guy-ex-cop, quipped: ". . . a bunch of sissies back there."

But the three-minute ride continued, slow and steady, without a hitch. We didn't sway in the wind or plummet to the platform. In fact, there was so much excited chatter, I couldn't hear the rain whipping the windows. It felt, briefly, like we were part of something new, riding straight up into the future.

Then the doors slid open at the main campus, where we waited a few minutes and boarded another silver pod for the return trip.

From high above the city, as we made our way down, long lines of tiny red and white lights snaked along the streets, heading toward the gray skyline, creating a perfect Portland moment on a rainy December day.

We hit another bump as we passed the tram's middle tower again, and then, like that, it was over.

I stepped out at the Center for Health & Healing, grateful to stand on solid ground, safe and sound. Not so bad, really.

Just like I figured.

[CouvScott]

Friday, December 15, 2006

O n a dark December day with a storm coming in that threatens to blow umbrellas inside out, your chariot arrives at 7:51 a.m. No, it's not the tram.

It's the tram's slowpoke cousin, the Portland Streetcar, which recently started running from Riverplace to the South Waterfront. Today you're testing not only the tram, but also the theory that the tram and streetcar are true transportation links.

Both are pretty, and they've done an amazing job of stimulating a $2 billion development. But the tram and streetcar, combined, also are supposed to shoulder a big job: transporting residents of the new South Waterfront area, faculty, students and patients at Oregon Health & Science University up Marquam Hill, and back to downtown Portland.

Since the streetcar runs at the pace of traffic, you figure it will take forever to go from downtown to the Southwest Gibbs Street tram station. Not so. You grab the streetcar at 7:51, and it deposits you at the tram station at 7:59. The tram cars are waiting, sleek and silvery, to whisk you up Marquam Hill. Through a blur of raindrops, the cars are so unobtrusive they can be hard to see. They do exactly what the tram's architect has designed them to do, "dematerialize" against the sky.

Mayor Tom Potter, OHSU personnel, reporters and even a couple of patients have assembled for this experiment. Everyone knows that windstorm is blowing in later, and there are a few nervous jokes about the ride. But it's easy to suspend disbelief, especially for four minutes.

That's how long it takes the tram to ascend from the Gibbs Street station to its Marquam Hill landing. You can't see much out the windows, but the ride is smooth. As in an old sci-fi show, you dematerialize at one spot, and a few minutes later materialize at another. Since it's only a test, the tram cars actually are moving at a relatively sluggish pace today. Soon, the ride will be down to 3 minutes.

Using the tram and streetcar, it will be theoretically possible to go from Portland State University to the South Waterfront, up Marquam Hill to OHSU and return to downtown in 30 minutes. Few will make the round trip that fast. Still, it's going to change how people move, and even imagine moving. A little walking is going to seem easier than driving and parking. Soon not just South Waterfront but Marquam Hill itself may feel like an extension of downtown.

The tram is a looker, and it will be a landmark. But what's most impressive today is that the tram works. It collapses distances.

It's been known for its price tag, the politics and problems getting it built. But using the tram will melt misgivings and turn many Portlanders' opinions inside out, like their umbrellas. For all its complications, the tram will soon be known for its functional simplicity and true trademark -- speed.

[tworivers]

Cold air blew from overhead.

Guess that settles the heat question.

[Urbanpdx]

The best way to spot someone who is not from here is the umbrella. Real Oregonians do not use them.

[brandonpdx]

Originally Posted by Urbanpdx

The best way to spot someone who is not from here is the umbrella. Real Oregonians do not use them.

Exactly! Umbrellas are for tourists and transplants!!

[Chicago3rd]

Originally Posted by Urbanpdx

The best way to spot someone who is not from here is the umbrella. Real Oregonians do not use them.

Damn you made me agree with you stop that!
Everyone in Oregon knows rain goes down, up and all around before hitting the ground (find an umbrella that is good for that) and it eats off the build up on our hair.

[pdxstreetcar]

Oregonian Video of the Tram:
Riding the Tram

[dkealoha]

Originally Posted by Urbanpdx

The best way to spot someone who is not from here is the umbrella. Real Oregonians do not use them.

Ok so... I've been an Oregonian my whole life. What about people who have to dress nice for work? My North Face jacket and hood is not going to keep my wool slacks from getting soaked. Granted, my umbrella does not always help (like in the crazy weather last night!), but it does a slightly better job. Anyways, my point is, don't hate on the umbrellas so quickly because I use one when I walk to work and I am not a transplant or a tourist!!!

[Drmyeyes]

Rain, without the aid of an umbrella, makes seeing through this lifelong Oregonian's glasses difficult.

[Dougall5505]

can't wait till it really opens!

[pdxman]

Originally Posted by Urbanpdx

The best way to spot someone who is not from here is the umbrella. Real Oregonians do not use them.

I've lived almost my entire life in oregon and i use an umbrella whenever i can, except if its too windy.

[westsider]

Originally Posted by pdxman

I've lived almost my entire life in oregon and i use an umbrella whenever i can, except if its too windy.

Pansy.

[Urbanpdx]

Originally Posted by pdxman

I've lived almost my entire life in oregon and i use an umbrella whenever i can, except if its too windy.

We who have to dodge it on the sidewalk and those of us who have been poked in the eye with it thank you.

[pdxman]

So now whenever you guys are walking around DT and you see a guy with an umbrella, you'll be thinking 'hey, that could be pdxman'

[Drmyeyes]

People with umbrellas that let other peoples eyes get poked by them are not real Oregonians. They're simply umbrella neophytes.

[cab]

Urbanpdx, you actually get out of your car? You seem the garage to garage type

[robbobpdx]

OK, I'll bite. The thread turned to umbrella-mania.

Originally Posted by Urbanpdx

The best way to spot someone who is not from here is the umbrella. Real Oregonians do not use them.

Originally Posted by brandonpdx

Exactly! Umbrellas are for tourists and transplants!!

Originally Posted by Drmyeyes

Rain, without the aid of an umbrella, makes seeing through this lifelong Oregonian's glasses difficult.

Originally Posted by pdxman

I've lived almost my entire life in oregon and i use an umbrella whenever i can, except if its too windy.

Originally Posted by westsider

Pansy.

Originally Posted by Urbanpdx

We who have to dodge it on the sidewalk and those of us who have been poked in the eye with it thank you.

Originally Posted by pdxman

So now whenever you guys are walking around DT and you see a guy with an umbrella, you'll be thinking 'hey, that could be pdxman'

I'm a native and life-long Oregonian, and I too use an umbrella while going to work, etc. Can't say I use it all the time, but if it's raining hard and I'm going to get soaked, yes I pull it out.

Not everyone has goretex, or North Face gear . . . even native Oregonians don't always have all the gear. In fact, I think maybe non-native Oregonians probably have more gear than native Oregonians do. They seem to be the ones who LIVE in REI, and Patagonia etc.

So the true Oregonian (web-feet and all) may know how to keep the rain off one way or another, whether that's a hat, an umbrella, or a fancy jacket with a hood.

And if someone is getting poked in the eye by an umbrella, it begs the question, why are you walking so close, or not looking where you're going, doesn't it?

[robbobpdx]

Originally Posted by pdxstreetcar

Oregonian Video of the Tram:
Riding the Tram

Back to the tram news . . . That was a WAY COOL video. After watching it, I feel like I just rode the tram myself. In fact, can't wait to do that. I've ridden the one in Palm Springs (both old and new ones), and that was pretty amazing. The story in this morning's Oregonian by Joseph Rose was great -- and gave a good glimpse into how this will help the hospital, plus the fact that the general public will use it also.