Last updated 16 September 2026
CatchARidePDX is a personal, non-commercial transit tracker for Portland, Oregon. This page describes exactly what it collects and why. It is short because the app collects very little.
You can search for stops and see live arrivals without an account. In that case the only data collected is anonymous usage analytics, described below, plus your coordinates if you choose to use “near me”. No stops you look at are tied to you.
Signing in exists for one reason: so your saved stops follow you between devices. Accounts are handled by Amazon Cognito, optionally using Google Sign-In.
Passwords, if you use email sign-in, are held by Amazon Cognito and are never visible to this application. If you sign in with Google, no password is involved at all.
This site uses Google Analytics 4 to count visits and see which pages are used. It is configured with Google signals and ad personalisation both disabled, so your activity is not fed into Google's advertising systems. All optional data-sharing settings on the underlying Analytics account are switched off.
Google Analytics sets a cookie to tell repeat visits from new ones. Signing in stores a session token in your browser. Your theme choice is stored locally in your browser. There are no advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.
Saved stops and preferences are stored in Amazon Web Services in the United States (Oregon and N. Virginia), in an account controlled by the site's operator. Access is restricted to that operator.
Arrival times, vehicle positions and service alerts come from TriMet's public developer API. Your requests reach TriMet through this site's servers, so TriMet does not receive your IP address or browser details.
Location is the exception. If you use “near me” to find stops, your browser asks permission and then sends your coordinates to this site, which passes them to TriMet so it can return the stops closest to you. Those coordinates are used for that lookup and are not stored. Everything else on the site works without location, and declining simply falls back to a default point downtown.
You can remove saved stops at any time from within the app. To delete your account and everything attached to it, email the address below and it will be erased, not archived.
This site is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect their information.
If this policy changes materially, the date above changes and a notice appears in the app.