I'm still aghast that the MAX trains don't at least get signal priority through downtown. It's just stupid to make a vehicle that can carry hundreds of people wait so a handful of almost-certainly singly-occupied cars can go. My long-term view is either the MAX tunnel will happen, at some point in even a medium-term future, or Metro Portland as a whole will have sunk so low that transit ridership never recovers enough to justify it; that'd be suggestive of a metropolitan economy on an irreversible decline.
The reason the safety complaints rankle a little bit is that they're difficult to really square off. I'm not even going to say the perception is currently unjustified, because I can't find stats to confirm or deny it, but perceptions are often not reflective of reality. They can do everything in their power to make the MAX/buses
actually safer--they are now and have always been less lethal than driving or being driven, in any case--but if they don't "feel" safer--and that can be an ever-rising bar--then it's good money after bad.
I've had this discussion here elsewhere on the forums, but I think PDXers need to be a bit more honest with themselves in distinguishing between actually harmful behaviors and behaviors that just make them uncomfortable. I'm not saying it's not a gray area, but a little bit of introspection on the issue would be a good thing. No doubt,
the recent push to criminalize drug use on transit is a good thing for public perception, but if people don't know of that change, or don't "feel" it's being enforced, they still won't take transit.
There's still seems to be very little comment--almost anywhere--on the fact that transit use plateaued not with the pandemic, not with measure 110, but in 2012. The only reason I can find for that is a drop in service frequencies, and insofar as that might've led to a downward spiral reducing ridership, leading to having fewer "eyes on the bus/train" to communally police behaviors, etc., etc., that deserves more attention.
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