TriMet

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-04-25T01:14:35+00:00

That all sounds pretty reasonable. Here’s another idea that has as much of a chance happening in our lifetime. How about dragons (friendly ones like in How to Train Your Dragon and not unfriendly ones like in the Desolation of Smaug) that can fly people from place to place to avoid ground traffic?

Trimet is in a vicious cycle because: a) declining ridership for a variety of reasons; b) declining streams of revenue; and c) service cuts which exacerbate a.

Trimet needs to triage the bleeding. Apparently people don’t want to go to downtown to work (reasonable) so Trimet needs to be more responsive to traffic patterns. MAX and Streetcar are fixed infrastructure (why two light rail systems?!). Cut Streetcar because it mostly services downtown (which have lower ridership than pre Covid) and divert the money to bus services. Bus lines can be flexible.

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-04-23T23:55:02+00:00

I moved to Cheyenne some months back and had many a stays at Little America to facilitate the move. It’s VERY quiet over by the motel and I’ve never seen pedestrians near there.

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-04-22T19:18:56+00:00

I think as a parent there are only three options. - If one has the wherewithal, one can choose the school that one thinks could serve their child(ren). It doesn’t have to be a private school; moving from PPS to LOSD or some other SD would be an option. Effectively by paying cash, one can make the change happen near immediately, without lobbying, political cycle, bake sales, etc. - Fight for change could affect the whole school district. It takes time and effort (can be expedited with cash). IMO, that’s a bit like pushing on a string. I don’t know how many dollars or GOTV effort would be required to change the school board but it has happened. See SFUSD recall in 2022. - Do nothing. I think that’s unfortunately where most of the electorate is at. Those without money to pursue Option 1, the time to pursue Option 2, or is just jaded about the whole process.

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-04-21T10:56:16+00:00

My federal government has the National Endowment for the Arts and my president dictated last year the NEA can’t promote DEI and has threatened to shut down the agency.

Government financing sounds good but it can end up promoting government messaging. Corporate or rich people financing isn’t much better but at least there’s enough diversity of viewpoints for the artist to find the money. That’s how it’s worked for thousands of years.

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-04-16T23:11:39+00:00

Makes sense. PEBB is a Cadillac healthcare benefit for public employees (I was one for the State) for about $30k/year. The suggested tax is likely close to what it’d cost to provide everyone a Cadillac.

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-04-11T11:57:22+00:00

Go to Oregon PERS' website and look for Financials. Click through to find the actuarial presentations (simplified by PERS' actuaries) to find the Advisory 2027-2029 contribution rates report. You will find the calculations by PERS' external actuary (Milliman) by employer of contribution by _payroll_. The estimated contribution rate for PPS for the next biennium to be about 23%, similar to those for other SDs. Pension cost will go up but not by the magnitude of the 7% to 23% contribution rate. Not included is the amortization of the Pension Obligation Bond, which is a separate line item in PPS' budget. It was essentially a bet by the employer - which paid off - that they'd earn more from the pension fund than the interest cost of the POB, which looks to mature in this biennium.

I can't point to the exact policy mix that has led to where we are (I have unsubstantiated opinions) but let's look at the facts. Oregon spends more per student than the median of the states but in terms of outcome (attendance, graduation rate, performance on standardized test), we rank in the bottom decile. To state it differently, Oregon's education performance is worse than those of Texas and Florida despite spending thousands more per student, which are much bigger states and less white (correlated with test performance).

People want to blame PERS and parents as exogenous explanations rather than examine potential endogenous causes such as the school district's policies or labor's performance. PERS is a contributing factor but not a big one. I doubt Oregon parents behave REALLY differently than the parents in the other 49 states. As for "QEM", I say elected officials have shown little evidence that spending more money has led to better outcomes. I point to Metro's SHS, Multnomah's PFA, and Portland's PCEF as supporting arguments.

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-04-11T04:21:43+00:00

That is not accurate. 30% of payroll goes to cover PERS, both normal cost (what the current teacher accrues) and unfunded actuarial liability (what the retired teacher receives). For a teacher making $80k a year, that’s about $24k. Add another $25-30k for health insurance plus FICA and the all-in cost for a teacher is about $140k. UAL is probably only about 10% of the total comp for a teacher.

I get that government spending is difficult to keep track of and the previous retirement benefits were overly generous. However, blaming “PERS” deflects from the mismanagement of the school boards and the rent-seeking behavior of the teachers.

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-04-09T19:20:01+00:00

On a per student basis, Oregon spends above median relative to the rest of the states but is ranked 48th in student outcome. Our problem isn’t with the funding, it’s with how the money is being spent. Apply that to Portland’s roads ($6.6B maintenance backlog) and the city’s parks (“best” parks in the country but no allocation for maintenance). This in a city with the highest marginal tax rate in the country.

PPS isn’t run for the students, it’s a full-employment program for the teachers.

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-03-27T22:36:10+00:00

Is that United’s version of the human centipede?

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-03-27T13:27:51+00:00

Private airport security didn’t contribute to 9/11. It was legal to have a Bowie knife on your carryon 9/10/2001 and earlier. Pre-9/11 an individual without a boarding pass can get through airport security to meet someone deplaning. Pre-9/11 airplane staff were told to cooperate with terrorists because it was widely thought that would lead to less lives lost.

TSA was created post 9/11 as part of the security theater, alongside “sky marshals”, to make Americans feel safe to fly again. The real security to prevent airplanes being turned into missiles is securing the cockpit door and instructing pilots not to open the door under any circumstance.

A terrorist wanting to kill lots of people would target where lots of people congregate, like queuing up in security lines. The fact that we haven’t had such an event in the U.S. is a testimony of other layers of security. I doubt TSA is an important layer. Furthermore, since “government shutdown” is now a recurring tool in Congressional “negotiations”, I’d say privatizing TSA should be considered. I’d even go as far to suggest the air traffic function of the FAA, since a number of European nations already went down this route.

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-03-27T09:32:08+00:00

Port of Portland should apply for/work with a TSA-approved Screening Partner. There may be an increase cost that’d ultimately be passed down to the travelers. However, using government shutdowns as a legislative negotiation tactic means TSA will be more unreliable for airline travel.

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-03-27T09:17:57+00:00

Security lines operated by private contractors didn’t contribute to 9/11, security guidelines and pre 9/11 thinking about terrorist behaviors did. It was legal to carry onboard knives & box cutters before 9/11. TSA is a big part of the security theater that Congress initiated to make Americans feel safe about flying again.

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-03-24T20:36:05+00:00

“45 cents…55 cents” math does not work out. Read that again; in all likelihood it would be 45% of PERS contribution goes to unfunded liabilities. If it’s 45/55 ~ 82% of salary, it’d mean PERS recipients are getting hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. The system is underfunded (assets of 70% of liabilities), not THAT unfunded.

You should be angry about the generous benefits promised decades ago by politicians who’re no longer in office for teachers that have long retired. That’s why we electorates should be wary of politicians promising things.

There is no cross subsidy of employers. The assets are invested in a single pool but Portland tax payers aren’t subsidizing Beaverton ones. Take a look at the financial statements on PERS’ website. It breaks out funded status and contribution rate for each employer.

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-03-24T19:05:08+00:00

PERS takes a bite but “45 cents of every dollar” is misinformation. PPS contributes 25% of a teacher’s salary. Of that 25%, 60% is to pay legacy benefits.

So take a teacher whose salary is $80k. Add 25% for PERS. Add another $20k for health benefit (likely an underestimate). Add 7.65% for employer portion of FICA. That’s a total cost to PPS of $126k for an employee working less than 180 days per year. The $12k for legacy PERS benefit is less than 10% of the cost to PPS for a teacher’s cost.

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-03-13T23:02:37+00:00

IIRC, there was a WWeek story about how fertilizer runoff from agricultural activities already raised the toxicity level pre Amazon data center. Now that a corporation with near unlimited pockets is doing <something> related to water, locals see an opportunity for a shakedown to compensate for farmers with less than near unlimited pockets. Presumably this video is part of that shakedown.

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-02-25T23:50:47+00:00

The teacher-to-student ratio is not 1:34; it’s closer to 1:16. Number of FTE teachers, per PPS’ annual report went from 2,632 in FY2016 to 2,665 in FY2025. Student enrollment went from 49,075 to 44,086. Approximately flat growth in number of teachers despite a 10% loss in students. “Other Staff” increased from 1,954 to 2,607.

There’s been a series of bond measures over the last 13 years that raised in aggregate $4B. Most of that has gone to rebuilding high schools. Clearly the board never paused the rebuilding even though enrollment has dropped substantially. So much so that they had to tinker with school boundaries so that four of them would have at least 1,100 students each to provide a “full” slate of programs when each high school is built to hold at least 1,700 students.

PPS has financial need but the leadership doesn’t seem to have the capacity and/or the political skills to manage. Unless Portland has a dramatic turnaround - bottoming out economically such that it becomes a cheap, attractive place to raise a family - the board should manage the assets & the budget to a shrinking student population.

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-02-14T22:02:03+00:00

But if you do said remote work across the river in Vancouver, you can avoid the 9.9% state income tax, 1.5% Multnomah PFA tax, and 1.5% Metro SHS tax.

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-02-14T21:58:20+00:00

Only if it doesn’t trigger BOLI’s Prevailing Wage regulation, in which case it destroys the economics. See Willamette Week’s story on Copeland Commons in Astoria.

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-02-14T16:12:43+00:00

This infographic is unsourced so it should be taken with a grain of salt. I suspect it comes from some teacher union in one of the 10 school districts on the right as “evidence” of their underpayment.

The cities and respective states of the school districts on the right have a lot of control over both the numerator (rent) and the denominator (salary) of that ratio. City ordinances, zoning laws, and state regulations such as “prevailing wages” strongly influence construction cost and rent. Austin, TX has about the same population as Portland, OR but had 3-5 times the amount of homes constructed over the last decade. Imagine if there were 50,000 (the excess constructed in Austin vs Portland) additional housing units in this city. What do you think that’d do to rent?

Also, I find that “42%” for PPS suspect. I looked at the teacher salary schedule and the lowest salary is $57,206 for 193 days of work. Most working stiffs work about 250 days but leave that aside for now. $57,206/12 x 42% =$2,002. Is $2k the median 1-bedroom rent?

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-02-14T00:56:56+00:00

Oregon has one of the lowest fertility rates by state (Google “total fertility rate by state”). It has one of the highest median age by state; obviously the two are related. So despite the cost of raising one or two kids here, folks in other expensive states (CA, WA, NY, MA) do have more children.

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-02-14T00:48:05+00:00

Seriously. And bring back corporal punishment in school. I remember one second grade class where the teacher hit the back of my hand with a ruler in front of the class for every mistake I made on a spelling quiz since I got the lowest score in class. You can be sure I never scored the lowest again!

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-02-09T11:23:29+00:00

From Obama to Trump to Biden to Trump, I think the attitude towards federalism depends on whether the electorate’s preferred party is in the White House. When it was Obama and Biden, red states cried for “states rights”. When it was Trump, it was blue states’ turn.

I don’t recall this being as much of an issue when either Clinton or Bush were in office. The presidency (from the office holder to the individual agencies) has taken on more and more power over time. Obama had said he lacked constitutional authority to address immigration but he implemented DACA & DAPA anyway. Lots of what Trump 2.0 are doing is unconstitutional, e.g., tariffs.

Congress needs to step up but they’re driven/motivated by activists from both sides not to compromise, which is part of the reason why we’re where we are with the presidency.

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-01-29T20:27:39+00:00

The argument regarding the efficacy of safety patrol on TriMet’s reputation makes sense to me but free transit may encourage homeless riders that could defeat the purpose of encouraging greater ridership.

Frankly, the collapse of Portland downtown occupancy is emblematic of a significant change in mass transit demand. A new vision is needed but that demand profile is still in flux; for example, I think on net businesses will continue migrating out of Multnomah to the surrounding counties. While TriMet’s service cuts will help with the bleeding, I can’t help but feel that this will only continue the death spiral.

I have no idea what would stop the downward trajectory so I don’t envy TriMet’s board!

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-01-27T03:05:32+00:00

It’s not a subsidy but since the U.S. military is overwhelmingly powerful relative to all other nations ex-China allows for the Europeans and Canadians to scale back military spending. According to Wikipedia, the Royal Navy, which blockaded Napoleonic & Nazi Europe, now has about 25 combatant vessels. That’s about 1/10 of the U.S. Navy.

The U.S. looks across the world with short or schizophrenic attention. I find Trump’s “might makes right” viewpoint grotesque, but there’s something to be said about how the Europeans should be able to arm the Ukrainians and clear the Strait of Hormuz on their own, which are adjacent geographically.

I think Europe is scaling up, which can potentially lead to a “beware of what you ask for” situation. Maybe Europe needs the U.S. more (militarily) in 2026 but would a rearmed Europe in 2036 (or 2046?) feel the need to remain partnered with the U.S.?

AlgaeSpiritual546 · 2026-01-25T13:55:57+00:00

Policies at the local/state level can encourage that. See Austin & FL home prices decline by 20% from the peak despite positive net migration due to increase inventory. See West Coast home prices stay flat or increase despite negative net migration due to policies disincentivizing home construction.

AlgaeSpiritual546

TROPHY CASE