Late Night Taxis at Vancouver Train Station?

[RedbirdFLCruiser]

We are taking the Amtrak Cascades train from Portland to Vancouver and will arrive at the train station at about 11pm. Our hotel is in the downtown area and we prefer not to take the skytrain, due to our luggage. Will there be taxis available outside the train station that late at night?

 

If not, what would you suggest?

[d9704011]

Yes, taxis will be on hand to meet train passengers.

[dawnvip]

Also Uber and Lyft available.

[martincath]

Can confirm that train arrival = taxis start lining up, as we walk past the cab line every time (we live an easy walk away). Even when there's been a nightmarish delay - once we arrived after 2am! - there will be a big pile o'cabs; in fact, if the train gets delayed beyond 1am there will be even MORE cabs than usual because SkyTrain stops running really early here compared to some other cities, so cabbies know they'll score even more fares than usual.

 

Top tip - check with Amtrak on the day, as sometimes there can already be a multiple-hour delay on the train between Eugene and Portland. Even if it's only late by 30mins, the seats in PDX station are not very comfy for extended sitting! Drop checked bags by all means, but you can walk to plenty of coffee, beer, donut etc. spots if you have to kill an hour or two. While the dining car on the train is decent (caveat - have not ridden since the Covid border closures, this train only restarted in March, could have gone downhill!) you could assemble a vastly superior spread in World Foods Market, Everett & 9th, less than a half-mile away. They actually serve a decent selection of hot food, but by the time you want dinner it'd be cold anyway so their deli meats, cheeses etc. would be what I'd focus on.

 

If you're not in Portland to visit local friends/family who will show you around, feel free to ask about things to do/see/eat down there too; we visit so regularly it was cheaper to buy a condo than to rent hotel rooms!

[GTJ]

1 hour ago, martincath said:

Even if it's only late by 30mins, the seats in PDX station are not very comfy for extended sitting! Drop checked bags by all means, but you can walk to plenty of coffee, beer, donut etc. spots if you have to kill an hour or two.

However uncomfortable the seats in the railroad station may be, at least there are seats. Greyhound Lines, including its sister company FlixBus, provides no seats for passengers boarding in Portland. No station, either, just stand outside in all types of weather, next to a fence. No checked baggage either. Beware. https://goo.gl/maps/ktz8QKGtfQaDXVyX9

[martincath]

1 hour ago, GTJ said:

However uncomfortable the seats in the railroad station may be, at least there are seats. Greyhound Lines, including its sister company FlixBus, provides no seats for passengers boarding in Portland. No station, either, just stand outside in all types of weather, next to a fence. No checked baggage either. Beware. https://goo.gl/maps/ktz8QKGtfQaDXVyX9

Given that the poster being responded to is using the train I fail to see the relevance of listing current bus pickup spots - which have varied considerably over the years we've been living within a couple of blocks from your pic site. If something freaky went wrong with the train and Amtrak deployed a 'bus bridge' to connect further up the line, those buses have designated spots right outside Union already so I simply can't imagine why the houndflix stop might be of any possible interest to OP...

 

But just in case this thread is perused by an entirely different person looking for options from Portland to Vancouver or Seattle and considering the bus - yes, it's a street pickup, just like virtually every single Bolt, Megabus etc. stop; for folks used to Greyhound here 2019 and earlier it is a step down because until IIRC labour day that year, there was a functioning greyhound station a few blocks away (still has signage on Streetview despite being taken down in real life). As someone who literally walks this street regularly - it's got a lot of cover from bridges and the angles make it the most efficient way to a swathe of downtown from the Pearl and vice versa - this is actually a relatively great street stop compared to any other I've used.

 

In typical PNW weather, when the liquid sunshine falls you can take shelter in the parking structure that fills one side of the whole block to find shelter and have excellent sightlines so that when the bus comes round the corner you can step right out to meet it - and the parking attendants don't hassle folks waiting for the bus as long as they stick to the ground floor, rather than suspiciously wandering the garage as if looking for unlocked car doors! In nicer weather there are multiple very comfy benches on the corner of Marshall and Station, which even get a bit of shade on summer mornings, and the entire block is full of trees which were a bit spindly when planted but are now big enough to actually provide shade along most of the block and even some rain protection - it's a genuinely more attractive spot to wait in than the old greyhound station was!

 

Since 'houndflix actually have the correct block clearly noted on their websites, deploy signs for every bus, the new ticket office location is likewise correctly advertised, and beyond that they actually plastered posters in all the windows around the old station for months before and after it closed, I'm perfectly happy with the quality of the location and their spread of the info about it changing - and it just so happens that bus access is now even closer to our Portland pad than the train (also very useful for folks in the Residence Inn next block up!)

[GTJ]

3 hours ago, martincath said:

Given that the poster being responded to is using the train I fail to see the relevance of listing current bus pickup spots - which have varied considerably over the years we've been living within a couple of blocks from your pic site.

The relevance is the comparison of the facilities offered to passengers seeking to travel from Portland, Ore., to Vancouver, B.C. The seats at the railroad station in Portland might be less than ideal, but at least Amtrak is providing a respectable and reasonably comfortable location. These are characteristics that may be important to people as they choose their means of travel from one place to another. Among those choices are Greyhound Lines and FlixBus. And so in this particular instance, showing that there are worse choices available, with respect to seating and shelter, may provide reaffirmation of the Amtrak choice, notwithstanding the seating its provides possibly being less than ideal. In addition, as duly noted, the information provided here should not necessarily limited the specific circumstances of the original poster because many others will read the information provided, and use that information to make their own choices.

 

One might also go beyond a mere informational exchange here, and raise the larger transportation policy issues that permeate travel more generally. For example, there has been a trend in recent decades to relocate both railway and bus stations to places outside city centers (though this trend has greatly retarded, and arguably reversed, for railway stations, but has been accelerating for bus stations), and included within this trend is the outright elimination of stations altogether and their replacement with, at best, gasoline service stations, and at worse, a barren sidewalk in a desolate urban location. Many cities are complicit in this problem, oftentimes taking the view that persons who would choose to travel by bus are uniformly undesirable. The bus station situation in Portland should be viewed as an embarrassment to an important American city, and the largest in the state of Oregon. People traveling from Portland to Vancouver, having paid for an expensive cruise voyage, would ordinarily and reasonably expect proper facilities for making the transfer, whether by air, rail, or bus. The city of Portland should ensure that all modal facilities meet those expectations. But, at least for the time being, they do not.

 

As also duly noted, the former Greyhound Lines station was not ideal. Indeed, I remember that, with Amtrak having arranged for several Greyhound schedules being operated as "Thruway" connections, Amtrak invited its Thruway passengers to remain in its station, rather than to wait in the former Greyhound station, promising to announce Thruway Greyhound departures in the Amtrak station, all, presumably, to save Amtrak passengers to discomforts of the Greyhound station. There ought to be a convenient, comfortable, and respectable bus station for the city of Portland.

[d9704011]

3 minutes ago, GTJ said:

People traveling from Portland to Vancouver, having paid for an expensive cruise voyage, would ordinarily and reasonably expect proper facilities for making the transfer, whether by air, rail, or bus.

Why should the quality of the product offered by operators of  air, rail and bus modes of transport be linked to a cruise passengers expectations?

[GTJ]

12 minutes ago, d9704011 said:

Why should the quality of the product offered by operators of  air, rail and bus modes of transport be linked to a cruise passengers expectations?

True, there should be be reasonable facilities and services for all, whether cruise passenger or not. But I think it can be insulting when someone, after having expended significant sums for a cruise, to then be presented with inadequate facilities and services that cause one to feel not welcomed.

[d9704011]

1 hour ago, GTJ said:

True, there should be be reasonable facilities and services for all, whether cruise passenger or not. But I think it can be insulting when someone, after having expended significant sums for a cruise, to then be presented with inadequate facilities and services that cause one to feel not welcomed.

Well then, I'd say 'someone' is too easily insulted if they believe there is any relationship between what they paid for their cruise and what they may be offered by non-cruise transportation operators.  Following your reasoning, cruisers ought to turn their ire on to the cruise lines for every problem they have at an airport or with an air carrier.

[martincath]

32 minutes ago, GTJ said:

<snip>The relevance is the comparison of the facilities offered to passengers seeking to travel from Portland, Ore., to Vancouver, B.C.<snip>

If you're genuinely attempting to be helpful to future readers, given your re-framing above I eagerly await a well-researched comparison of all the OTHER transportation options someone might choose to travel by on this route. Flights? Car rentals? How can the uninformed cruising masses make the best decision for them without your in-depth take on these readily-available options as well? No need to get silly with chartered flights or limos, but I think it's extremely fair to say that comparing just a bus to a train is not remotely close to the overall picture.

 

In return, while it doesn't help cruisers a lick, I'll throw in some extremely local, not-available-via-Google knowledge of the actual reasons why the bus stops are where they are - if you're as big a lover of transit minutiae as I think you are, that should be enticement enough to finish what you claim to have started! 😉

[GTJ]

On 5/5/2023 at 6:51 PM, d9704011 said:

Following your reasoning, cruisers ought to turn their ire on to the cruise lines for every problem they have at an airport or with an air carrier.

For better or for worse, many people do blame companies for locating in places with transportation not meeting their expectations. Those companies may not be directly at fault for the transportation inadequacies, but nonetheless may be the recipients of the criticism.

 

An example that is local for me: Royal Caribbean Cruises made the decision several years ago to move its departures from New York, N.Y., to Bayonne, N.J. Transportation in New York is generally very good, while transportation in Bayonne is much less so: there is neither local bus nor rail service providing service within reasonable walking distance of the terminal in Bayonne. Royal Caribbean has no direct control over the transportation in either city. And good policy arguments could be made that it is the government that is shirking its duties in failing to provide good transportation in Bayonne. Yet, I blame Royal Caribbean because it chose to locate itself in a place with inferior transportation . . . all else being equal, I would choose to patronize another cruise line that has remained in New York.

[GTJ]

On 5/5/2023 at 7:57 PM, martincath said:

I eagerly await a well-researched comparison of all the OTHER transportation options someone might choose to travel by on this route. Flights? Car rentals? How can the uninformed cruising masses make the best decision for them without your in-depth take on these readily-available options as well? No need to get silly with chartered flights or limos, but I think it's extremely fair to say that comparing just a bus to a train is not remotely close to the overall picture.

I think it is fair to say, with respect to commercial aviation, that reasonable facilities are provided to travelers at Portland International Airport. Car rental companies do not provide transportation (they rent vehicles, but do not actually transport passengers themselves), but even with their non-transportation service, these rental companies generally provide reasonable facilities for their customers. The facilities available for for-hire transportation services, where the customer specifies their pick-up location (as in chartered flights and limousines), are chosen by the customer hiring the carrier. In sum, reasonable facilities are provided for all of the transportation carriers (even if those facilities are not as good as they could be, as has been alleged with seating at the railway station) . . . except the intercity bus lines. Those persons intending to travel from Portland to Vancouver should be aware of this deficiency and likely failure to meet reasonable expectations.

 

To be fair to Portland, the problem is not limited to that city alone. Even in this country's greatest city, New York, FlixBus uses a parking lot with no seating or other facilities, and Megabus uses a sidewalk alongside a fenced railroad yard with no seating or other facilities. But other bus companies do use the Port Authority Bus Terminal, where there is seating and other facilities (insufficient as they may be), so discriminating travelers can (usually) choose a bus company based on facilities. And New York is making progress on providing an upgraded intercity bus terminal with sufficient capacity and facilities to meet the reasonable expectations of travelers. Whether it is accomplished by the bus companies or by the municipalities themselves, all cities of any reasonable size ought to have facilities for their intercity bus travelers that meet their reasonable expectations.