What's everyone up to right now?

[Ravenshire]

How sad is it that I've never lived in Portland yet I recognize the areas you two are discussing?

[Clueless Morgan]

That's not sad, it just means you've been here a lot.

And the Farmington/Lombard intersection isn't one that's easily forgotten if you're stopped by a train at it. Especially when the trains just to the south are coupling and keep triggering the gates to come down but no train ever goes through the intersection... I was stopped like that for 20 minutes once.

[Losty]

I miss my best turtle

[Jackalope]

I'm out in the westside 'burbs.

The biggest headache I have with the MAX is that they hooked it up to the heavy rail lines and run it across the worst intersection in all of Beaverton to run a commuter rail through: Farmington and Lombard.  The rail lines cut diagonally across the intersection.  At least they fixed the awful timing of the light so Farmington turns green after the train passes through and at least aleviates the major traffic jams trains would cause - I'm talking gridlock.

I was a west sider until 1992, I used to live east of 217 near where the Target is on Beaverton-Hillsdale highway, I know that intersection very very well - that has to be the stupidest place to put a rail crossing in the known universe. Yeah, the tracks were already there, but still.

You probably won't be surprised to learn that I moved out of Beaverton to the east side almost entirely because of the traffic. I can only imagine what it's like now.

[The Valkyrie]

Bad news, Americans.

I'm invading Florida in December!

[Jenny A]

That is bad news but only because Florida is hot humid and flat not to mention a long ways from here.

[Clueless Morgan]

I was a west sider until 1992, I used to live east of 217 near where the Target is on Beaverton-Hillsdale highway, I know that intersection very very well - that has to be the stupidest place to put a rail crossing in the known universe. Yeah, the tracks were already there, but still.

Even more stupid than the layout of the intersection was the timing of the lights after a train would come through - there is absolutely no doubt that Farmington is the way busier road, but after the gates would go up, the lights would change to let left-turners from Lombard turn onto Farmington, then straight-traffic on Lombard, AND THEN Farmington would go! This, combined with instances of train-coupling just down the tracks that would trigger the gates would gridlock Farmington in the mornings.

In that respect, the MAX going through was actually a good thing because they finally fixed the stupid lights, but now what you have is instead of the occasional train and truly terrible lights, you have good lights but trains every 30 minutes with gates that go down a full 60 seconds before the train even begins to cross the intersection. Stupid, litigious Americans forcing stupid safety rules...

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You probably won't be surprised to learn that I moved out of Beaverton to the east side almost entirely because of the traffic.  I can only imagine what it's like now.

It's not terrible. On weekends Beaverton can get pretty bad in midday when everyone goes out to do their shopping but bad traffic is mostly a freeway thing or a rush-hour thing (Driving to Hillsboro down TV Hwy during rush hour is the stuff of nightmares). They need to add a third lane each way on 217 but they never will because they'd have to rebuild all the overpasses.

In other traffic news: Hillsboro is dumping their one-way streets in downtown.

[Ravenshire]

Bad news, Americans.

I'm invading Florida in December!

Any chance you'll ever invade Denver?

[Regina]

Getting ready for my holiday next week

The Mediterranean is calling me home Where I belong tbh, I need to move there permanently

[Clueless Morgan]

I made pineapple curry last night and now that's all I can think about...