snowpocalypse 09
So, yeah, I was foolish last night.
After finding out that they had cancelled service on the 75 bus, the one I usually take to and from, I left work at 5:10, and went to see which bus would come first - the crosstown 70, or the downtown-bound 33.
The 33 won! I thought I'd run downtown, and see if I could get a bus back over to my neighborhood from there.
Not so much. After some wangling, where the driver went to the big bus garage hoping to have chains put on, only to be told that there weren't any (now, I have no idea if that meant that the chains were all out in the field, or if they just didn't FUCKING HAVE ANY READY), the driver continued on, hoping to take the Ross Island bridge into downtown. Once we approached Milwaukie and Powell, the last intersection before the bridge, we could see that the traffic was absolutely solid trying to get onto the bridge - and it wasn't moving.
"Fuck this noise," I said to myself, and hopped out at Milwaukie and Powell. I figured I could catch one of two buses going back over to my neighborhood, and there was barely any traffic from the bridge going the other direction. So I got to the stop and waited...
...and waited.
Why didn't I walk, you may ask? Well, Powell goes down underneath a train land bridge, as does the pedestrian sidewalk. This is a very, very popular living space for homeless men, which I learned when I worked at the Plaid Pantry at 21st and Powell and sold the same guys the same 16-ounce can of shitty beer every single day. Walking that underpass is extremely tense under ideal conditions (i.e., daytime); I wasn't willing to give it a go that night. And hey, the bus might come any minute!
Well, there were 75 of those minutes before a bus finally arrived. It was the 17 Holgate, which runs 9 blocks away and parallel to Powell; I ran for it and got on. (Apparently, the actual Powell bus was right behind it. Because... who the fuck knows why?) As the bus slowly progressed up Holgate, we came into view of a bus ahead of us... and a bus ahead of that bus... and another one in front of that one... all of them stalled, disabled, broken somehow - all with passengers still on them. WHO KNOWS WHY. It wasn't icy or slick, or even uphill, but it was a widowmaker nonetheless. (I have to say that I give props to all the drivers I encountered last night, who were patient, competent, and sweet - which is what makes the next issue that much harder to understand. But then again, that's how it goes for her sometimes...)
I got off that motherfucker and walked the rest of the way (about 18 blocks). I got a call from Miss C. while I was walking, and talked to her for a while; she was trying to get home from the west hills, where she'd gone to do a quickie computer repair and earn twenty bucks. At that point she'd been on that bus for an hour, after a 45-minute walk to get to that bus stop, since the bus that ordinarily ran RIGHT past the place where she had done the job had just CANCELLED SERVICE. I wished her luck and went home, and then went to the pub where I met The Joneses and had a couple of beers.
At 10, back at home and under the Snuggie, Miss C. called again. The bus she'd been on when she talked to me earlier had skidded out, and the driver kicked everyone off and told them to walk to Barbur Blvd. to catch a different bus. Two miles away. Uphill. So she did, and then waited for another hour. And then that bus took more than an hour to get downtown, where she transferred to yet another bus - and was forced to pay her fare again, since her earlier transfer had long since expired. A nearly five-hour journey, 2 hours of it on foot.
This is seriously fucked. I have never been so furious with Portland as I am now. I was so angry that I didn't get any sleep; I just couldn't. It's like I have some kind of PTSD or something. I am so pissed off that I am considering cancelling all of my plans for the next couple of days and just going somewhere and chopping wood for a day or so to work off the anger. I am nearly paralyzed by it.
Total accumulation: 3.5 inches. Come. The fuck. ON.
After finding out that they had cancelled service on the 75 bus, the one I usually take to and from, I left work at 5:10, and went to see which bus would come first - the crosstown 70, or the downtown-bound 33.
The 33 won! I thought I'd run downtown, and see if I could get a bus back over to my neighborhood from there.
Not so much. After some wangling, where the driver went to the big bus garage hoping to have chains put on, only to be told that there weren't any (now, I have no idea if that meant that the chains were all out in the field, or if they just didn't FUCKING HAVE ANY READY), the driver continued on, hoping to take the Ross Island bridge into downtown. Once we approached Milwaukie and Powell, the last intersection before the bridge, we could see that the traffic was absolutely solid trying to get onto the bridge - and it wasn't moving.
"Fuck this noise," I said to myself, and hopped out at Milwaukie and Powell. I figured I could catch one of two buses going back over to my neighborhood, and there was barely any traffic from the bridge going the other direction. So I got to the stop and waited...
...and waited.
Why didn't I walk, you may ask? Well, Powell goes down underneath a train land bridge, as does the pedestrian sidewalk. This is a very, very popular living space for homeless men, which I learned when I worked at the Plaid Pantry at 21st and Powell and sold the same guys the same 16-ounce can of shitty beer every single day. Walking that underpass is extremely tense under ideal conditions (i.e., daytime); I wasn't willing to give it a go that night. And hey, the bus might come any minute!
Well, there were 75 of those minutes before a bus finally arrived. It was the 17 Holgate, which runs 9 blocks away and parallel to Powell; I ran for it and got on. (Apparently, the actual Powell bus was right behind it. Because... who the fuck knows why?) As the bus slowly progressed up Holgate, we came into view of a bus ahead of us... and a bus ahead of that bus... and another one in front of that one... all of them stalled, disabled, broken somehow - all with passengers still on them. WHO KNOWS WHY. It wasn't icy or slick, or even uphill, but it was a widowmaker nonetheless. (I have to say that I give props to all the drivers I encountered last night, who were patient, competent, and sweet - which is what makes the next issue that much harder to understand. But then again, that's how it goes for her sometimes...)
I got off that motherfucker and walked the rest of the way (about 18 blocks). I got a call from Miss C. while I was walking, and talked to her for a while; she was trying to get home from the west hills, where she'd gone to do a quickie computer repair and earn twenty bucks. At that point she'd been on that bus for an hour, after a 45-minute walk to get to that bus stop, since the bus that ordinarily ran RIGHT past the place where she had done the job had just CANCELLED SERVICE. I wished her luck and went home, and then went to the pub where I met The Joneses and had a couple of beers.
At 10, back at home and under the Snuggie, Miss C. called again. The bus she'd been on when she talked to me earlier had skidded out, and the driver kicked everyone off and told them to walk to Barbur Blvd. to catch a different bus. Two miles away. Uphill. So she did, and then waited for another hour. And then that bus took more than an hour to get downtown, where she transferred to yet another bus - and was forced to pay her fare again, since her earlier transfer had long since expired. A nearly five-hour journey, 2 hours of it on foot.
This is seriously fucked. I have never been so furious with Portland as I am now. I was so angry that I didn't get any sleep; I just couldn't. It's like I have some kind of PTSD or something. I am so pissed off that I am considering cancelling all of my plans for the next couple of days and just going somewhere and chopping wood for a day or so to work off the anger. I am nearly paralyzed by it.
Total accumulation: 3.5 inches. Come. The fuck. ON.