Students travel from all corners of Portland and beyond to go to school at Benson. Many students take public transportation to get here, even if that means waking up early, braving the weather, or facing the public early in the morning or after dark. 

Suzanne Larrison has a nearly hour-long commute one way to school. She takes two busses, the 17 then the 70, and says “the 70 is really busy when I get on it at Powell and 12th because it has all the kids that go to Cleveland on it, ‘cuz they get off at the stop after mine, but it’s not too bad when it runs smoothly.” Larrison has hypermobility and suffers from chronic pain, and admits that standing on the bus can be painful, “When I get on the 70 there’s not usually enough room to sit, and standing on the bus when it’s wobbling around… I don’t really got the ankle strength for that.”

Ike Prahl has been a teacher at Benson for seven years, and also has an hour-long commute. He says that when we were at Marshall his commute was very easy. He would simply “walk out my front door, keep walking and I didn’t even have to turn and then I’d end up there at Marshall.”  But now that we’re at Benson it’s a little more difficult. “Usually I have been taking the green MAX line to get to or from work.”

But not everyone has such a lengthy commute, of course. Oliver Millette has a much easier trip. “20 minutes” he says “I get on 12, get off the 12”. Millette also says that while taking Trimet he has never had an experience that felt unsafe, other than “The standard tweaker walking up and down the aisle mumbling about how the world is going to end.” Prahl shared that “At the start of the year there were people at gateway for a couple weeks that were spiritually harassing riders, demanding that they be allowed to pray for them in the name of the very hateful God. But aside from that I haven’t had any real safety concerns on Trimet and I’ve been off and on using Trimet for [..] almost three quarters of my life.”

While having a long commute can be challenging, many students find it worth it. “I think my commute is definitely worth it,” Suzanne Larrison said “I really like Benson and all the opportunities it gives me and I’m really excited to be there.”