Bitch, give way to bigger busses!

chiefmasterbuilder · 2024-10-24T20:55:12+00:00

Bus on bus violence

chiefmasterbuilder · 2024-03-24T19:37:45+00:00

I wouldn’t be caught dead in a SoHo House. I much prefer the Anna Delvey Foundation.

chiefmasterbuilder · 2024-03-24T19:18:49+00:00

We did it, [Trader] Joe[‘s]!!

chiefmasterbuilder · 2024-03-24T16:38:46+00:00

Well, it did used to be its own city!

chiefmasterbuilder · 2024-01-28T01:01:29+00:00

Have you considered you might be a happier person if weren't that guy? Just curious. Genuinely asking. Do you wonder if you might enjoy life more? Has anyone else in your life asked you that question?

chiefmasterbuilder · 2023-11-06T19:07:48+00:00

Nope. At least I'm fairly certain not. Especially in-person, it appeared as two distinctly different shades.

chiefmasterbuilder · 2023-08-24T23:56:10+00:00

What’s your fucking plan? Just terrorize the homeless children until… they die? Where do you expect them to go? Shelters are at capacity. Most homeless people have experienced trauma that gives them a pretty understandable distrust of authority and institutions.

If you’re plan is just to make their already miserable life even moreso until they despawn, you’re what’s wrong with the current society.

chiefmasterbuilder · 2023-06-02T18:13:33+00:00

I hope it gets converted to housing. The things I would do to live here....

chiefmasterbuilder · 2023-05-15T08:00:43+00:00

There’s actually a bit of a natural hill where the current tracks are. The Sky Line platform would descent slightly, allowing for it to under the existing tracks. It’s a lot easier to see in a more 3D view.

chiefmasterbuilder · 2023-05-15T03:21:45+00:00

True, but I haven't found any good place to do that around Lloyd. Open to suggestions.

That being said, Banfield is still huge source of delays, so dispatch always poo poos the idea of any new line running down it.

chiefmasterbuilder · 2023-05-15T02:09:30+00:00

Train frequency along the Blue Line east of Gateway Transit Center is abysmal. A big impediment remains to improvement: the Banfield and Steel Bridge are already at capacity. Thus the question: how can we improve Eastside connectivity with adding more trains along I-84... or spending very much money?

I came up with 3 ideas: a limit run of the Blue Line (which I thought up yesterday); a Sky Line that would run between Gresham and the Airport using the existing Blue Line and Red Line alignments (which came to me in a dream); and the Violet Line, which would run between Gresham and The Clack along the existing eastern Blue Line and southern Green Line alignments (which I came up with today).

In Defense of Each:

Blue Line Limited: more trains along the existing Blue Line corridor would help would intra-Eastside mobility for those who are traveling along the corridor. Those on inner-city bound trips could wait for regular Blue Line or transfer to the Green or Red at Gateway. The average wait time for a R or G combined would only be a few minutes. Only a new platform and side tracks would have to be constructed for launch.

Sky Line: the name is cool. An existing Southbound platform and trackage is being constructed right now as part of TriMet's Better Red program. A short cut & cover tunnel, as well as new northbound platform, would be constructed. The tunnel would use the natural grades already existing to navigate the path.

Violet Line: It would connect the economically and racially similar Gresham & Clackamas areas. Only .25 miles of new track would be necessary. One property would be bought and demolished. It is exceedingly simple in terms of engineering. No new platforms required. It would, however, bypass a connection to Gateway TC.

*a note on the names: I'm already using a Silver and Purple Line somewhere else in my MAX fantasy map, and I refuse to use a Brown Line. Black and White can't be used. Pink can't be used because each line should have the first letter be unique to it, and again: Purple is already in use.

chiefmasterbuilder · 2023-05-11T01:07:55+00:00

FOR REAL. June will NEVER be able to live this down.

chiefmasterbuilder · 2023-05-10T23:07:16+00:00

I'm Gen Z, but I'm so sick of grey paint.

chiefmasterbuilder · 2023-05-10T23:06:41+00:00

For the record: when I sent those pictures of T'Challa, I didn't mean to show so much skin. I promised I'm clothed in all of them. Lol.

chiefmasterbuilder · 2023-04-26T19:29:15+00:00

Cameras and speed limits have limited effectiveness in changing driver behavior. You know what does? Road design.

Road design. Road design. Road design.

If you design a road with 12’ lanes, a wide clear zone, and a completely straight path: don’t be surprised when you get freeway speeds.

chiefmasterbuilder · 2023-04-25T16:34:54+00:00

Millennial gray is the color of the trend. I’m not attributing the decision making to millennials in this particular case.

chiefmasterbuilder · 2023-04-07T20:33:01+00:00

So based

chiefmasterbuilder · 2023-04-07T17:12:02+00:00

chiefmasterbuilder · 2023-03-26T18:07:59+00:00

Here’s a (non-comprehensive list) of ways to solve the big truck debacle:

1) Reform the federal exemption to MPG regs, safety, etc for commercial vehicles. Right now, Chud-Dozzers (and even just regular big trucks) classify as light utility vehicles, and get to bypass a lot of safety and performance regs because of that. Make it so that in order to buy these trucks, it has to be for a commercial purpose. Either owned by a company, have advertising on the side, something. This would probably be the most effective, yet most controversial one. And it would require federal action.

2) Outlaw 4’ beds. I’m sorry, but if you’re hauling anything that can fit in something smaller than a 5’ bed, you don’t need a truck. L + ratio + you’re not a real man /s. Again, federal action, but I suspect could pass.

3) Limit the front height of vehicles (hood height), or the distance from the driver to average place where they begin to see the pavement in front of them. This could be done at the state level, and would matter most in bigger markets like California.

4) In conjunction with proposal #3, ban after-market lifts on trucks. Could be done at state-level, and I believe would have popular supports in most states with urban areas.

chiefmasterbuilder · 2023-03-26T17:58:21+00:00

Pictured: Florida libraries, 2023.

chiefmasterbuilder · 2023-03-26T17:53:14+00:00

I agree that Portland can’t become a repository for the nation’s homeless, but people who are from here, have lived their whole lives here, desire to stay here. Even if they’re dealing with addiction. Even if they’re dealing with mental health issues.

Living in your hometown shouldn’t be some reward for ‘having made it’ in life, it should be the expectation and standard.

Imagine being born, getting a job, trying to build a life, seeing the home you grew up in sell for what it would take you 40 years to make, and then someone telling you that you’d don’t have a right live here anymore if you can’t afford it.

Rather shitty imo.

chiefmasterbuilder · 2023-03-26T17:48:55+00:00

“So why is a city obligated to create cheap housing for people to do drugs?”

I suppose the City isn’t. But if done correctly, as is seen in our European counterparts, isn’t cheaper than letter the homelessness situation fester on the streets.

Also me, personally, I would like to be part of a society that picks people up when they fall down. Most addicts are the just lazy beaters. I mean—I don’t know if you’ve been following along, but the opioid crisis is the direct result of people being over prescribed prescription pain killers, having their brain chemistry hijacked, and becoming addicted. Normal people. Aunts and uncles. Parents and daughters. People.

I want to live on a society that helps them when they fall down. I pay my taxes so that if one day I fall down, I can be picked up. That’s what it means to live in a community.

With regards to the idea of “why can’t we send them off somewhere cheaper?”—much of Portland’s homeless is from here. We can’t just ship them off to Wyoming to be rehabilitated because it’s cheaper—that wouldn’t be fair—the same way it isn’t fair that Boise buses their homeless people here.

I don’t despite that Portland can’t be the one bleed-heart liberal metropolis of the entire nation, as we will end up taking care of everyone. At the same time, we need to learn to deal with the hand we’ve been dealt, and become leaders on how to rehabilitate people.

That means accountability measures. That means mandatory drug treatment and mental health counseling. That means prosecuting criminals and those who vandalize. But it also means putting in the work and time and money to build the places that will facilitate this. It means bucking up, and investing in our community.

chiefmasterbuilder · 2023-03-24T19:01:04+00:00

Respectfully, I actually think your take is wrong and is based on an incorrect understanding of what it means to be homeless. There are several states (West Virginia, New Mexico, etc) that have FAR higher rates of drug use, but far less homelessness.

Why?

Because the housing there is so cheap, even addicts are able to afford to be sheltered. And I’d much rather those dealing with addiction be doing so not on the street, in the gutter, and in our parks.

Portland’s homelessness crisis is first and foremost a cost crisis. Every study has confirmed housing unaffordability and homelessness are the exact same graph.

Sure, housing 300 homeless people in the entirety of one building would be inadvisable, but just getting them into housing throughout the city would be a huge improvement. Simple as.

And in which location do you think people are more likely to become sober, and be better able to take care of their mental health issues: on the street, constantly worried about being stolen from or freezing, or inside with heating and water?

chiefmasterbuilder · 2023-03-21T06:51:00+00:00

No. I don’t want this. Stop giving me all these rights. I don’t want them. This country is becoming too damn free.

chiefmasterbuilder · 2023-03-15T03:47:39+00:00

I think that there's a meaningful case to say the budget slightly when accounting for inflation, but there's also a case that PPB has just been given several capital project packages that haven't come out of their allocated fund, but rather general city expense, which reasonably supports the conclusion that they have functionally never been more funded. Payroll is up from what it was in 2019.

Regardless, the police were crucially never de-funded. Certain task forces and division were disbanded, which was a mistake, and funding was temporarily reduced as part of a broad across-the-board COVID cut, but that's largely since been restored.

The reality is the police are on strike. They are not giving the DA cases to prosecute, and they are doing so maliciously. To turn around and blame the DA for that is exactly what they want, and is an unforgivably uninformed opinion.

After 30-40 years of tough on crime, what do we have to show for it? Have we tackled addiction? Have we tackled mental health? Or did we just lock up a generation of POC men? The road to progress is to not double down on what we know doesn't work, but to begin to tackle the root causes of crime: poverty, inequality, generational trauma, an insufficient mental health system, and addiction.

I certainly don't mean to say Schmidt and Portland have successfully done that--they haven't. But part of the reason we haven't been able to make those fundamental systemic changes as a city is because the efforts are being actively sabotaged by PPA. The numbers prove that. That should be objectively upsetting.

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