Lents is a funny neighborhood. I think the problems posed by the Woodstock/Foster/i205 couplet will permanently depress the Lents Town Center’s full potential. With as many apartments as have gone in you’d think it’d support a small market, but it’s a tough neighborhood to walk, split up by the couplet and the bypass. So for a lot of day-to-day stuff in our corner of it you can either head over to Woodstock, down to Johnson Creek or up to Foster.

The heart of the Woodstock neighborhood is about 40 blocks—2 miles—away. Over three seasons it’s a pretty nice walk, in the winter it’s not great. It’s okay by bike, but the main drag has really aggro drivers, and the unimproved roadways in that neighborhood mean you can’t really just assume a safe grid to evade the arterials. In the winter, the aggro drivers, dark conditions, and narrow areas where bikes and cars have to squeeze together make it pretty daunting.

Also, forget taking a car. Parking is not actually too bad—nobody seems to be policing the giant Safeway parking lot—but it’s really not a fun neighborhood to drive through. Lots of people on their horns, sorta slow going.

There is, on the other hand, the 19 bus line. The nearest stop is a five block walk, and there’s a shelter. When I need to run an errand into Woodstock I grab the Transit app and figure out when I need to go out the door. The ride itself is maybe 10 minutes. If I time my errands right I can probably hop off the bus, do what I need to do, and cross the street to catch the bus headed home with time to spare. Today I headed out the door at 3:15, ran through the UPS store to ship something, and had a ten minute wait for the return ride. I was home by a bit after 4.

Woodstock is a nice neighborhood to have this easy a connection to: There are two grocery stores, a hardware store, a bakery, a legit butcher, bars, restaurants, a newish food cart pod. With a big Banjo Brothers backpack I can haul a lot of stuff.

It’s pretty easy to knock off for the day, hop the bus to Woodstock, grab groceries for dinner, and be most of the way through prep before Al gets home.

There’s also the 14, which runs up Foster. It’s a bit longer walk to catch it, but also a quick ride to the good stuff on Foster in the 50s and 60s: Bread and Roses Market, Bar Carlo, Bruno’s, and a new kitchen consignment shop, among lots of other stuff. Also fine for walks or bike rides in nice weather. Also not somewhere I like to drive for as short a distance as it is.

And there’s the 72, which goes up and down 82nd. It’s a busy line, but the nearest stop is five or six minutes away, and it’s another quick ride down to the Johnson Creek shops, where there’s a Trader Joe’s, our pharmacy, a FedEx drop, and a few other things. Biking around there is not great. Walking is atrocious. Taking a car is frustrating. The bus is pretty nice. /r/Portland lives in superstitious dread of the 72 because there are a lot of poor people on it.

Anyhow, it took me a long time to understand the short-range benefits of the bus service. It just seemed easier to hop on a bike or plan for a leisurely walk. Now that winter is here, though, and it’s dark and wet, I really like running errands using the bus, especially into Woodstock. There’s a short, blustery walk, a wait under a shelter, then a quick ride. No worrying about getting run over or getting soaked.

The 14 & 19 will also go downtown, eventually. In terms of total trip time, they’re about as fast as the Green line (I have a longer walk to get to the stop), slower than a determined e-bike ride, and much slower than a car, but you can have that second Old Fashioned at the Tear Drop with any of the TriMet options. I tend to prefer the Max for downtown trips because it’s quieter and smoother.

Anyhow, tonight I signed up for a bunch of TriMet newsletters. I’m a fan of our transit system. It felt sort of prosocial.