Everything was in a metal box. It was just sitting there –completely exposed – at a busy Northeast Portland intersection.
On Tuesday, TriMet officials said they never imagined that a car traveling 80 mph would literally fly over the curb and destroy aging equipment needed to send out real-time arrival information used daily by tens of thousands of MAX commuters.
But that's exactly what happened at the Rose Quarter station last Thursday. As a result, Oregon's largest transit agency says it could be three or more weeks before the popular TransitTracker service for light-rail riders is back online.
MAX riders, meanwhile, are asking why TriMet didn't do a better job of protecting crucial communications gear, especially since replacement parts for the 16-year-old device are no longer available.
On Twitter, the comments were scathing: "Bad planning." " "Need bollards maybe?" "A single point of failure taken out by a car crash? Did the Galactic Empire build this?"
Rider Matt Seeman tweeted directly to TriMet: "So basically your systems are so fragile that one accident takes them out for 3 weeks? Classic."
Of course, it was an extraordinary crash. Police say the driver of the car suffered a "medical situation" after exiting I-84 west and taking the freeway ramp leading to the Rose Quarter.
Approaching Northeast First Avenue and Holladay Street, the car flipped end over end, TriMet said. It crossed through a pedestrian walkway in the middle of the Rose Quarter MAX station. The vehicle then flew across the MAX tracks, over the curb on the north platform, knocked out a pedestrian railing and smashed into the TransitTracker box.
Still, images taken by Google Maps last fall show the TransitTracker equipment box was completely exposed to any vehicle jumping the curb from the street. "The box was in a location believed to be far enough removed from automobile traffic that no one ever expected a car could get into that area," said TriMet spokeswoman Roberta Altstadt.
Now, the transit agency is scrambling to find new equipment that will work with the system. In the meantime, TriMet's online trip planner will display scheduled arrival times for all MAX stops. It will not, however, adjust for variations, as does TransitTracker.
It could be worse. In 2005, a homeless man pushed a flaming shopping cart into an analog relay room on the New York City Subway, damaging archaic 80-year-old wires and cables beyond repair. Initially, the city said it could take five years before the A and C trains would run normally again.
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