Our friends at the Westside Transportation Alliance just posted a fun and informative video about TriMet's WES train. Although the WTA is promoting WES for Beaverton-area commuters, it's also a great choice if you live in Wilsonville, Tualatin or near downtown Tigard and commute to downtown Portland.

Commuting by WES provides passenger rail amenities (more space, Wifi, etc.) and a predictable ride that isn't slowed by I-5 traffic (ditto when you transfer at Beaverton Transit Center to MAX).

One of the things that makes Portland great is the number of choices we have for getting around.

Regardless of what mode you choose, almost all trips involve being a pedestrian for some of the journey. Creating safe and enjoyable places to walk is a combination of facilities (sidewalks), environment (street trees) and considerate and safe behavior by all road users.

Portlanders are known as a relatively friendly and polite bunch, but sometimes when we get behind the wheel we forget our manners (and more importantly, the law).

Every intersection is a crosswalk - even if it doesn't include painted lines or markings. And by law, at every intersection all road users must yeild to pedestrians. Here's a video on the rights and responsiblities of all road users at crosswalks.

In partnership with the Portland Police Bureau, the Willamette Pedestrian Coalition and the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, PBOT undertakes crosswalk enforcement actions to educate road users and help maintain safe travel environment for pedestrians.

If you walk somewhere that you believe warrants an enforcement action, contact the Traffic Safety Hotline at 503-823-SAFE.

Want to learn more about making Portland streets safer for getting around? Come to the 6th Annual Transportation Safety Summit on Tuesday, March 13th at Jefferson High School at 5:30 p.m.

We blogged recently about how reducing car speeds before hitting a traffic jam helps fight congestion.  Now our Vancouver, BC correspondent, Ron Richings (not really, he just posted on the Shift list), found a short video that again shows the big power of small change on the roadways.   Enjoy!

Congratulations to Jayden of Gilbert Heights Elementary for winning a brand new Raliegh bicycle, along with a sturdy helmet and lock. Jayden picked out his bike yesterday at the nearby Bike Gallery on 110th and Division.

The Safe Routes survey his mom completed this fall was selected at random from the 2,700 we received from parents all over the city. The surveys let us know how students like Jayden get to and from school, gauge the impact of our programming, and strengthen our applications for grant funds.

We look forward to sharing our fall survey results with you all soon. Keep your eyes peeled from our spring survey, arriving in mailboxes in April for another chance to win. In the meantime, happy riding Jayden!

At the dawn of the Internet, one of the oft heard promises was that people would have greater access to information. Certainly, information and data seems to be everywhere.

A challenge for us all is having the time and wherewithal to process this data into something understandable and usable.

We've blogged about this before, but we think it bears repeating. TriMet's Performance Dashboard provides everyday folk with the easily understood graphics to gauge how well TriMet is operating.

The dashboard provides graphics with 12 month data on ridership, operating cost per ride, on-time percentage, collisions and tax and farebox revenue.

For example, below is the graphic on boardings for 2010 and 2011: 

If you want to dig deeper, TriMet provides monthly performance reports and monthly statistics for each indicator.