Until I’m proven otherwise, I think it's safe to say that the 15 to 20 souls on
experienced Wednesday night’s most hellish commute.
was among them. His usual 45- to 50-minute ride home from downtown to West Linn on TriMet turned into two maddening hours when the bus essentially went in a circle because of an inexperienced driver, a sudden detour and slammed TriMet dispatchers and managers, he said.
Still shaking his head about what would eventually become a 12-mile ride home, Hunsberger
.
Apparently, it started with streetcar construction Southwest Moody Street. Then the bus driver got lost, prompting her to park the bus for a 20-minute stretch while she awaited directions from TriMet.
View My 12-mile, 2-hour commute on Tri-Met Bus #35, 8/3/11 in a larger map
Here’s how the commute, according to Hunsberger, went downhill from there:
* First Stop: Bus driver parks, reports the detour to dispatch and awaits rerouting instructions. She waits 20 minutes. She notes she's not used to driving on "this side of the river" and blames dispatch for directions.
* The bus actually needed to be about 1,200 feet, or a fourth of a mile, away.
* “Driver resumes, drives in 3/4 circle,” about 1058 feet.
* Second stop: “Driver says dispatch directed her to get on to Hood, but she declares traffic too heavy to maneuver. She then parks again within 1,100 feet of where she needs to be, calls dispatch” and waits for a supervisor.
* Detour resumes: 2.8 miles - about 5 minutes.
* Third stop: “Bus driver stops to wait for supervisor to pull ahead of her and lead her on detour back to Macadam.”
* Scenic detour veers south toward downtown: 4.2 miles - about 10 minutes.
* Back on Route! “Bus finally gets back on route, 90 minutes after it left it. Approx. detour length: 7.6 miles. My normally 45-minute commute home ends in West Linn 2 hours later.”
Good lord!
Still, Hunsberger said, at least half the riders stayed on for the entire trip. “It's Portland,” he said. “They were politely frustrated. Some eventually got off and walked, though it wasn't certain they'd find another bus.”
During the whole ordeal, Hunsberger sent out stop-by-stop tweets.
No response from TriMet on Twitter.
Minutes later, another S.O.S.:
Hunsberger told me “
sprang to mind.”
Earlier today, I asked TriMet for an explanation of how a route could go so wrong.
At 3:30 p.m., spokeswoman Mary Fetsch e-mailed as she left the office for the day: “While we’re still gathering info, it looks like a combination of construction in the area, rush hour traffic and a concrete spill. More details to follow. ... Not sure I’ll have anything more today.”
After I called TriMet this morning, the agency sent a Twitter message to Hunsberger: "Thanks for your tweets today and yesterday about your Line 35 ride home yesterday. I'm passing on all the info to Operations."
Godspeed tonight, you riders of the No. 35.
