C-Tran

I often describe the Couve and it’s surrounding areas as The Death of a Thousand Suburbs.
Unless you are on Hwy 99, Mill Plain, 4^th Plain or Main Street, you tend to have one foot off the grid and another standing on a banana peel.
It’s often not possible to get from A to B on one bus. This town just isn’t built that way.
There are very few major north/​south or east/​west arteries upon which to build a major transit system. So what we end up with are a bunch of ‘feeder routes’ or whatever they’re called.
It is what it is. Most of the main routes seem to run at 15 minute intervals during peak hours.
I would like to see a park-​and-​ride closer to downtown. Clark College seems under served IMO. I know that to some, standing around 5 Corners for an hour must feel like they are waiting for the Noon Stage. Sorry. Want more buses? Pay more money.
There are 7 express routes to get people across to Portland but it still doesn’t always seem adequate.
It’s hard to talk about C tran without talking about the Interstate Bridge but I’ll save those 9 paragraphs for another time.
All in all, I think C tran does an all right job of keeping up with all the growth spurts.
I think the next 5 years will be interesting times around here. I think a lot of people are going to look at that dot on the map that’s north of Portland and say «Hmmmmm.»

I am kind of new to the area, and was not aware of the differences between trimet and c-​tran. until i had a first day of a new job and attempted to get on one of your lovely buses only to have the drivers hand fly up, doors close quickly and off she went. I went through what felt like days of anguish, did i know her? have a wronged this individual in a past life? why won’t she let me fulfill my need to get to my first day of the job on time… only after TWO more attempts on other c-​tran buses, i (WAS NOT EVER TOLD) deduced that, my cooties infested trimet all day pass was not good enough for the ctran. i was never even suggested that by the, i’m sure otherwise fantastic human specimens, needless to say, the job wasn’t as forgiving as the driver’s hand in my face. so i wanted to take this time to thank you for the lovely experience.

It’s been quite a long time since I have been on a bus and even longer to require one to get to work; even those times were off hours.
Now, I find myself in the first week of a commute from Salmon Creek to Downtown Portland; a basic M-​F 730am to 430pm commute. The first few days were timely. A few busses were late but managed to make up the time. Today, not so much. I’m already 38 minutes off my arrival time and I’ve not arrived yet… probably another 5 – 10 minutes. We did have a rainy morning so I’m sure that is the bulk of the problem and we made a detour into downtown Vancouver for a sick passenger.
I will probably adjust my schedule to account for this in the future.
The busses themselves are all a little different but are astonishingly clean and comfortable. They are far more like airport shuttles than the busses of my youth that were neither clean nor comfortable.
The drivers are helpful and friendly but their driving style reminds me of cabbies in San Francisco — agressive bordering on maniacal. I cannot watch else I get the anxious, backseat driver nerves.
Overall, impressive for public transport.

Never on time! I ride everyday at different times. Drivers seem to have the attitude that «hey I get paid by the hour, I’m in no hurry, we can spend 5 minutes at every stop even tho I’m already 10 minutes late at the start of my route» I hate C-​tran in every way, maybe Tri-​Met has just spoiled me. It’s like anyone who is qualified to drive bus works for Tri-​Met and C-​Tran just hires the rejects or left overs. C-​Tran drivers never seem happy, it’s like they’re all depressed and hate their jobs. I don’t know how many times I’ve waited for the 37 and never saw a bus for 45 minutes plus. So I walk mostly, since even if a bus does come, it’s probably late anyway. Get it together C-​Tran, or just do away with schedules, just show up whenever you feel like it and if you feel like it. It’s the way it is anyway, but at least people wouldn’t have expectations.

Oh crap trans. How I hate thee. You fuck us all commuting and could care less. If there were a way to put you out of business, I would fully subscribe!

CTRAN caters to the crowd along Mill Plain and 4^th Plain Streets as well as Portland routes. The rest of the county over the years has been given the bus and before people see if it is going to stay on route they pull away and change the routes. They don’t go everywhere we want to go in the North County. Service to Battle Ground is poor and nobody can relie on the service to get you from one end of Main Street to the other. Walking is faster any day.

C-​Tran — From the perspective of a «Heart of Downtown Vancouver» resident.
I buy a $ 45 C-​Tran bus pass at Fred Meyer during the last 5 days of each month. It’s good for all of their routes in Clark County, Washington.
C-Tran’s $ 82 «All Zone» pass is good for Clark County, plus anywhere in Portland (Trimet bus, Streetcar and Max). I’d buy this pass if I got down there more often. But it makes more economic sense, and with less effort to buy 10-​packs of Trimet tickets in advance at Max machines — see my Trimet article for more info about this.
C-Tran’s top tier is the $ 105 «Express to Portland» pass. It’s good for everything mentioned above, plus any of the 7 different 100 series express buses, which travel directly to points in Portland.
For infrequent usage, pump $ 1.30 into the cash box as you board the bus for a single ride, or $ 3.00 for a day pass in Clark County, WA, or $ 6.00 for a day pass in Clark County and Portland.
Occasionally I rent one of the three clean new Zipcars located in downtown Vancouver
This costs just under $ 11 per hour, half price between 12am-​5am, and includes everything; the rental, as well as gas, insurance and taxes. Everything.
From downtown Vancouver, C-​Tran bus #4 runs south every 15 minutes to the Jantzen Beach Super Center, from there it heads onto the MAX Yellow Line (light rail) at the Delta Park Transit Center (TC). Then it returns to Jantzen Beach, to downtown Vancouver, and continues northeast via 4^th Plain, up to Vancouver Mall.
The 37-​H runs every 20 minutes north up Highway 99. Also from downtown, 37-​M runs every 20 minutes east via Mill Plain to Fisher’s Landing TC.
From Fisher’s Landing I can catch #65 every 30 minutes, at the top and bottom of the hour, but not on Sunday. It heads southbound on I-​205 down to Park Rose TC in Portland. From that TC I can catch the MAX or a number of Tri-​Met buses.
I often transfer over from C-​Tran #4, to Tri-​Met bus #6 where the two meet up at Jantzen Beach. Tri-​Met #6 also runs every 15 minutes. It heads south down MLK Way to the Rose Quarter (Rose Garden and Convention Center), where it meets up with the MAX again, then it continues on via MLK Way to downtown Portland.
The
web site was recently improved and overhauled. Now there’s an extremely cool and concise trip planner on the homepage, you enter your start and stop addresses, it tells you how to get there. Remember to enter the right day of the week, because most buses have limited schedules on Saturdays, and more limited on Sundays and holidays.
It would be cool if C-Tran’s bus stops and routes were documented in Google Earth like Trimet does. (Google Earth is a program you download to your computer. Click a check-​mark on «transportation», to enable blue diamonds on the map near your destination, and you can see which Trimet buses and Max lines serve that location).
It would be even cooler if each stop had an actual «street address» — to help clarify which side of which street they were on. I wish the printable PDF for routes were more concise.
I remember how daunting it was when I started riding the bus, there were so many things to learn, much of which the knowers took for granted. I think the web site would improve even more if they’d solicit anonymous input from newbies, then publish what they learn.
I like C-Tran’s clean new gray paint jobs and cool logo. But then one day they started advertising on them — I understand that advertising brings in 1% of the budget. But in my opinion, a fleet of spamy looking buses casts a reflection on the city.
Both C-​Tran and Trimet have lots of visible security — far more than the nightly news would lead you to believe.