Three years after Northeast Portland residents teamed up for an Earth-Day litter bust on Martin Luther King Boulevard, it seems like something's going right.

Simply put: there's way, way less trash on the streets lately.

"We've gone from 300 volunteers four years ago to 85 this year because we don't have enough work to engage them all," said Gary Marschke of the North Northeast Business Associaton. "That's a great situation to be in."

Using old timetables provided by TriMet, we calculated her trip in early September 2009, when TriMet service levels were at their peak. Then we ran the same trip one year later, using TriMet's projected service levels for September 2010, after two seemingly small cuts to each route. 

In 2009, her trip took 36 minutes, only a bit slower than driving and parking. This fall, it'll take a full hour. 

Here's what her trip looked like in 2009: 

TriMet is preparing bus service cuts this September that will affect North/Northeast Portland residents, and some of the poorest residents citywide. 

According to TriMet's latest proposal, the transit agency will reduce service this September on the 4, 6, 8, 9, 16, 17, 24, 44, 73, 75 and 85 bus lines -- every line serving North and inner Northeast except the No. 72 Killingsworth/82nd. (The 35 Macadam/Greeley is due for a cut in June.) 

The changes will vary from two to 10-minute cuts during the day to six-minute cuts on weekends. Arrival intervals for the No. 24 Fremont bus will increase the most dramatically, by 10 minutes or more. 

Portland's other quadrants will be equally affected. 

It'll be the third service cut in a year for the local transit agency, which is funded mostly by payroll taxes. Only 20 percent of its operating budget comes from fares.