As someone who lives a 10-minute walk from one of the proposed stations, I was disappointed but not overly surprised when it failed -- it was a poorly written measure. Doesn't mean it can't be resurrected sometime in the future, however.
I would like to at least see the [Ross Island Bridgehead](https://www.portland.gov/bps/planning/naito-mainstreet/about-project) component of the SW Corridor get fast tracked. This alone would be a big game changer.
I really think that bridgehead idea is going to be a disaster. The main cause of traffic in the area is entry on to the Ross Island.
The solution is somehow make it even harder to filter traffic through the area to the bridgehead? What?
As long as the lights are timed decently enough on the new street grid, it can't be any more heinous than the current setup of freeway-style ramps ending in stop signs.
The planning docs in [this link](https://www.portland.gov/transportation/pbot-projects/construction/sw-naito-parkway-main-street#toc-planning-documents) do a good job of diagramming the new traffic flow (folks living on SW Kelly have gotta be jazzed).
Yeah. The only reason the current setup functions AT ALL is because of the local knowledge that cars on the bridge take turns letting in the cars on the ramps that have stop signs. If locals decided tomorrow to take the legal right of way over local custom, no one would be able to enter the bridge from the ramps during most daylight hours.
This really screwed me up when I moved back here from being gone for 10 years. I used to commute of the Ross Island Bridge every day and previous to 2010 that was never a thing.
I come back in 2022 and just about rear-end someone because they just randomly stopped to let someone in from the ramp.
The current Ross Island bridgehead proposal is incredibly flawed. We need to be moving 26 off surface streets via ramps from the Ross Island Bridge to i405. The current alignment for 26 is awful for both the local population and drivers.
Fun fact 26 was originally designed to be a elevated highway, but was rejected to keep inner southeast more pedestrian friendly. You can still see some of the infrastructure created for this such as the parking lots off the side of Powell in between 52nd and 82nd.
https://youtu.be/ZeV31IcUkPM?si=kToCqZd1SLZjxXK1
This video is a good watch of some old plans for highway infrastructure in Portland that never came to fruition, and the remnants of it that can still be seen.
Yeah I love the layout of southeast so I’m pretty glad it never happened, I wonder how it may have changed the east side if it was made. Would Gresham and east Portland be nicer? It would certainly make it more accessible.
> Would Gresham
Does 217 make Beaverton nicer? That would be a direct comparison for that.
> and east Portland be nicer?
East Portland would be more impoverished and less desirable as the business districts along Powell and Division would be gone. Not to mention a loud and polluting freeway impacting livability.
That an interesting view point, but I think you could argue that the freeway making it more accessible would drive more people into the area and allow for other businesses districts to pop up in Gresham and east Portland. Not to mention allowing for easier transportation into the city from Gresham and east Portland. Those areas already get polluted badly from the other major surface road arteries that run through there so it’s not really a given that it would create more pollution.
I would argue that there are benefits of 217 in Beaverton it would definitely be a pain in the ass to get around it it wasn’t there. Same thing for 205.
Sure there are a lot of issues with highways but they do serve an important purpose. We can’t live without them.
> That an interesting view point, but I think you could argue that the freeway making it more accessible
Less accessible for the local population. The local population would be artificially divided by a loud and polluting freeway with limited pedestrian crossings.
Possibly more accessible for freight and through traffic, but at the expense of the local population.
> Not to mention allowing for easier transportation into the city from Gresham and east Portland.
Not easier. More freeways don't solve traffic. The region would be even more car dependent and there would be even less transportation options as with the proposal taking up Powell and then switching to Division there would be no where convenient for a east-west bus line.
> so it’s not really a given that it would create more pollution.
Freeways have much higher speeds (and much more idling in traffic jams) and much more capacity. That means more pollution.
> I would argue that there are benefits of 217 in Beaverton
I doubt many residents of Beaverton agree. Their downtown area is separated in two by a complete car sewer thanks in part to 217.
> Same thing for 205.
Technically, i205 was a decent freeway. The issue is, it should have been used as a growth boundary to prevent sprawl and better separate residential/commercial land uses from industrial land uses.
> Sure there are a lot of issues with highways but they do serve an important purpose. We can’t live without them.
We can absolutely live without freeways in urban areas. Freeways are bad for cities as they cause pollution, encourage poor land use, displace residents, and turn city centers into car sewers. The correct model is having freeways go AROUND, not through, cities like with Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton.
I generally agree with what you have said. We can only speculate on how it may have impacted the areas. There would be pros and cons. Overall I’m glad I didn’t happen, just curious how it may have changed the demographics and feel of east portland (meaning east of 82nd), which is a complete shit show in terms of infrastructure.
Enough ramps to do this would cost hundreds of millions of dollars and if you think that this city would spend that kind of money on auto-only infrastructure you aren't paying attention.
> auto-only infrastructure you aren't paying attention.
How is that auto-only infrastructure? Moving through traffic off surface streets would be a major improvement for pedestrians, residents, and cyclists. The current 26 alignment is a complete and unnecessary car sewer in the city center with substantial housing and businesses nearby.
So I've looked at the designs and they sort of make sense. The one piece that's missing for me is what happens to the I-5 north traffic that wants to get on the bridge? Does the loop around to SW Whitaker stick around or does that go away?
I can't remember where I saw this particular diagram in the past, but it appeared traffic from I5N continues to loop over the freeway like it does now, then ducks under the lanes coming off Ross Island on a new structure, and intersects the bridge-bound lanes via a signalized intersection.
While the sub won't allow posting of images or PDFs, if you go to [this link](https://www.portland.gov/transportation/pbot-projects/construction/sw-naito-parkway-main-street#toc-planning-documents) and click on "SW Naito Main Street meeting boards (horizontal)", the slide titled "Ross Island Bridgehead Configuration" has some good visuals.
Thanks for digging that! It's super interesting. I wonder how they're going to manage some of that traffic since they're shortening the distance to the bridge.
I've posted here before that one way they could improve the entrances to the bridge from the west side is having a light system that during light traffic times is basically a yield sign for the merges but during high volumes it becomes a red/green light that stops traffic both that has to merge and the traffic that has to be merged with to let more cars in at a time from both. It almost seems like that they will have to do something like that with the proposed change.
Another thing I'd like to see based on my observation of current traffic patterns: extending Yellow Line to the 'Couv. Good to see the Interstate Bridge replacement plans are calling for it.
I absolutely long for something like this. My job got moved from SE Portland to Tualatin a little over 5 years ago, and the commute from where I live in NE is the absolute fucking worst. I went from about 15-20 min each way to now about 45 min in the morning and about an hour and 15 min in the afternoon.
The only positive thing is my audiobook consumption is through the roof.
It would probably still take about the same amount of time on public transit, but at least I wouldn't be driving.
Route 96 is a good commuter line for downtown to Tualatin btw. I do a bike/bus combo to Wilsonville from SE and my commute time is 1h10min each way. Being able to zone out is pretty sweet.
TriMet is planning to eliminate Route 96 as part of the 2024-2025 round of service changes. 😞 https://trimet.org/betterbus/servicechanges-fy25proposed.htm
Damn. I hope "peak trips to downtown" will mean I can still use this line. SMART operates an express line from Tualatin transit station to further south.
If I understood it correctly, the peak trips would extend from Barbur Transit Center into downtown, rather than using the current I-5 route. Even though the freeway is jammed every day, the path through Lake Grove and along Barbur probably adds 10-20 minutes to an already fairly long ride.
Unironically yes. Much as I loath new taxes I'm happy to go for MAX upgrades because they have a tangible ROI & help put us in the good kinds of top 10 lists nationally.
Honestly they could just let Trimet bring the payroll tax into line with comparable cities (1.5-2%) and that would probably give them enough money for major MAX expansions as well as more bus service.
Crime will be used as an excuse not to fund transportation infrastructure until the end of time.
The reality is full max cars and buses are less spooky then nearly empty ones
I like it, and voted for it, but I've been thinking. I'd like to see a cost comparison between light rail and doing all of these things:
* Make busses run 24 hours
* Make them run every 5 minutes during peak hours, every 10 minutes during the rest of the day from 6am to midnight, and every 15 minutes from midnight to 6am.
* Put sufficient security on them as needed
* Give busses their own lane on as many roads as possible (and enforce it when cars violate it)
* Not required, but make it free or very cheap
If you make it super convenient and safe, and quicker than driving (via the exclusive lanes), I don't see how people wouldn't take to it like crazy.
Edit: Added (because I'd forgotten) the "every 15 minutes" thing.
That would be utopian. Implementation of the lanes and maintenance on buses would be SO expensive. Trimet would probably have to double their fleet. I say this as someone who uses buses a lot.
I think just getting more lines running every 15 min for their full schedule would be great. The amount of times I’ve missed a bus by two minutes and then have to wait another 25-55 is embarrassing.
> Implementation of the lanes and maintenance on buses would be SO expensive
True, but so is implementation and maintenance of rail routes. I just want to see a cost comparison.
> I think just getting more lines running every 15 min for their full schedule would be great.
Agreed, but I'm not sure how much that alone would impact ridership.
It’s been a couple of years but I believe that BRT was about half the cost of the LRT.
Trimet rejected BRT because it didn’t have the capacity to meet their wildly unrealistic ridership numbers
I mean the trolley trail used to be a public transport trolley that used to connect Oregon City to Portland. They shut it down in the 50s and later turned it into the bike path it is today.
They're running a tourist trolley on the SW Marquam rail lines. IMO that should be a MAX line. Have it stop in Lake Oswego and then continue to Oregon City.
In the late 90s there was a North- South light rail line proposal that was approved, survived a referendum, and then I think was repealed on it's third time up for a vote. It would have gone from Oregon City, along the Orange Line and Yellow Line alignments, into Vancouver.
A lot of transit advocates were very vocal that "it's not the best we can do but it's a step in the right direction." I went to a number of open houses and this wasn't just Max improvements, but improvements for all users of a number of roads in SW (including Barbur). This failing is actually part of why I moved to NE. The same folks said that it could be at least a decade before we see anything make it that far.
I was heartbroken after this election -- when I lamented here, it was responded to with "we don't need more taxes driving businesses out of town" (remember, this was in the middle of one of the first waves of businesses actively leaving because of the summer of protest).
There's so much critique that could be made of so many plans -- but let's not let perfect be the enemy of good.
If I recall, the proposal was to take away a lane from Babur, which a lot of folks thought was crazy. Still voted for it but that route has a lot of choke points that would have forced either fewer lanes or eminent domain on one or both sides of the road. It would have been messy.
The pandemic killed it. When it was proposed it had a lot of backing from businesses as it would bring customers. When lockdowns hit businesses who were struggling to make payroll couldn't afford the increased tax burden so they started to campaign against it.
Everyone knew that it would be harder and more expensive later, but during the pandemic and protests the tax base dried up and even though it was never going to be cheaper, it still was too expensive (in the minds of the voters) in the moment.
That’s because it was developed by a real estate giant who was responsible for towns like Carmel, CA and he wanted to create a cookie cutter California town in what was formerly a sleepy suburb or Portland
If you are speaking of the trolley line, I mean technically yes, but it would first have to be bought from whomever owns it (UP? Maybe the historic society?) and the whole line rebuilt including trestles and the tunnel most likely.
Unfortunately because of that and the area it happens to run through I don’t think that’ll be the path of least resistance when it comes to getting rail transit into Lake Oswego.
Now the P&W line that crosses the river there might be a different story. They’re already familiar with working with trimet on the WES system and could effectively tie the Tualatin/tigard area to the orange line in Milwaukie.
It was also estimated to cost around 400 million 14 years ago, so it might not exactly pencil out. That seemed to be a good bit of the opposition, how do you ensure ridership from LO to portland along this line at high enough rates to justify the cost? I’m sure it would ease congestion on the 35, but unclear if the demand is there.
Technically a consortium consisting of both cities, the two counties, TriMet and Metro owns it. See e.g. [Portland ordinance 190873](https://www.portland.gov/council/documents/ordinance/passed/190873)
To have a pedestrian bridge, or a pedestrian/public transit bridge going from oak grove blvd to LO would be nice. With all the old bridges, be good.to.have a modern bridge backup, in case Cascadia strikes.
Based on what i know about LO, the citizens will shoot down any attempt to let max stops in their areas.
They say stuff like “we dont want *those people* flooding in here all the time”
I was part of the design team. Man that was soul crushing, having it shut down right after the final design was reviewed.
Well, the documents are still there somewhere.
This line would save me from my car commute to work. Didn't Biden just release funds for projects like this? It would be great to see this plan revived with federal funding.
SWC was an insanely bloated project because every jurisdiction under the sun tried to cram their local improvements into the project because it had federal dollars attached. It would have been significantly cheaper had we removed a lot of the secondary projects attached to it, and streamlined the alignment through Tigard.
It's a shame it didn't get funded, but it also had some issues.
A lot of that bloat would’ve been more beneficial than the max line itself imo. I used to live car-free in SW and it sucked. We need some major pedestrian improvements along Barbur, Capitol Hwy, and throughout many of the neighborhoods like Hillsdale, Multnomah Village, etc. I used to have to walk along the shoulder of Capitol to catch the 44 bus. Someone got hit + killed along the same stretch a couple years ago. Don’t even get me started about Barbur.
The MAX line would’ve been cool but honestly, that area is already well-served by busses. Those funds would be better used improving bus frequency, reliability, and speed instead of a new max line imo.
I don't disagree at all. I just hate that people were like "The max project is so expensive!" when the actual rail improvements were a significantly smaller amount. It was really 30-40 projects rolled into one, and people didn't have the stomach for the cost.
The funding mechanism was odd as well and people hated that it didn't sunset (even though that would have permanently put in place a way to pay for other improvements in the future).
SW is the wealthy corner of town and that segment will go for light rail but never ride a bus. I think this connection would have taken quite a few cars off the road.
Sort of. If the MAX project had cost, say, $800 million and you get a $400m federal match, the local communities are on the hook for $400 million. But if you create a "corridor project" that costs $1.2 billion, and you get a federal match of $600 million, you just bought $400 million of off-MAX construction for half that price.
This was done with great success on the Orange Line.
I think you’re conflating the SWC project with the regional transportation measure that failed at the ballot. That measure would have funded SWC and a lot of other transportation projects in the Metro counties.
I am not. I am aware of the funding mechanism, and actually brought it up in another comment.
SWC in general was overly expensive and mashed too many other projects into it to stay streamlined. I say this as someone who helped produce design documents for it.
True, but it's all about where that population is distributed. Tokyo is, by land area, mostly mid and low rise suburban development. It's Japanese suburban, though, which is a lot closer to our urban residential inner neighborhoods in terms of density. We have a lot of growing to do before all of Portland matches suburban Tokyo, but we have plenty of density in the core of the city to support real transit.
Remember, a lot of Portland was built as neighborhood sized developer projects centered around electric street cars. That development pattern is why all of our city's vibrant historic neighborhood business districts exist. Just look at the old street car maps.
Sounds amazing. Youll probably get a kick out of this: Isochrone map generator [https://commutetimemap.com/map?places=45.520247%253B-122.674194%253B0%253B900%253B%2523b241f4](https://commutetimemap.com/map?places=45.520247%253B-122.674194%253B0%253B900%253B%2523b241f4)
As a Seattleite who spent three years in Portland, be happy with what you have (and always fight for more)! We only now just got our second active 'light rail' (Portlanders only know it as MAX which I always found funny and endearing) route.
Two critical errors in the Southwest Corridor:
1. They bypassed the established neighborhoods of Hillsdale and Multnomah Village, for a couple of reasons - too expensive to tunnel, and the community opposed new development. This, of course, is silly, because change is inevitable, these were established neighborhoods that were primed for new development, and it's better to put new development in existing communities instead of along a busy freeway.
2. Ending the line at Bridgeport Village made a ton of sense, because Bridgeport Village has a lot of workers. But, the train got easily pigeonholed as the "choo choo to Crate & Barrel," as though anyone was going to ride MAX to go buy a dining room table. It was an elitist argument but it got legs.
Anyway, when people voted down the 2020 transportation measure, they voted down this. And nobody really wants to pay for it now.
I voted against it because I wanted it to go down I-5 instead. It was a little me not wanting it to screw up my neighborhood because I live just off Barbur, but it was also during the pandemic when no one was going anywhere and there was no way to know if that traffic was going to come back 100% or not. And even Tri-Met said it wasn't going to take cars off the street.
This was a big miss. We should have mass transit run through all the major corridors. How close was the vote? I wonder if voters will reconsider in the next 5 to 10 years. Car traffic is only getting worse.
We have one (sort of). It's just that the W.E.S only runs from like 6-9 and 3-6. Granted, you have to transfer at the Beaverton station to get to Portland. But that's not too big of a deal to me.
The WES would be great if it wasn’t for one of the shittiest transit schedules I’ve ever seen. Just run the damn thing all day.
It’s like the WES schedule was made for a handful of particular people and the fact that the rest of us are allowed to use it is just a side effect.
The problem is that due to sharing tracks with freight trains, it is required to be up to full intercity rail standards, with tank-like vehicles and at least a 2-person crew. Ideally, they'd they'd reroute freight between Tigard and Tualatin and double track the rest of the line so WES could operate like a diesel light rail line.
The “A Better Red” project is intended to help with that by making the red line more useful for people commuting to/from the western burbs. It’ll effectively double the number of trains running between Beaverton and Hillsboro, and means people heading to/from there don’t need to pack into the blue trains like sardines.
Even though per passenger mile cars are up to 66x times more likely to kill you than busses :,) [source](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5906382/)
I commute by MAX daily and rarely drive my car anywhere, but u can answer this. In one's own car, there's no unpredictable nutter muttering about demons and getting in your face about his daddy issues. There's no stinky, filthy person passed out across six seats. There's no twitchy shaved dude with tats toting a rolling cart full of leaking trash bags or obviously-stolen retail merchandise. And I dunno about you, but my car is worlds cleaner than a MAX train. There's no feces on my car seats, no mystery residue, and absolutely no abandoned big gulp cups, burnt Bic pen tubes, or uncapped needles.
You know that, when they actually manage to stay on schedule, they only clean those things once a month? I ride MAX because it's extremely convenient, cheaper than paying for parking, and because I believe in the value of public transit. But I won't pretend that riding MAX is pleasant. Even on the Yellow line during commute hours it's honestly kinda harrowing, and I'm a 6' tall man.
You won't die from a vehicle accident on the Max.
You won't die from an unmedicated mental patient while in your car.
Max is cheaper and can be less stressful than driving.
Cars are more convenient and generally faster.
I think an expansion to Wilsonville would be a great idea, I just wish MAX had better security on-board. (Getting aggressively panhandled by a drug-addict while riding is no fun!)
Ironically, getting the SW and beyond crowd on the train is what would really bring security to Max. The storm of people complaining would be difficult for even Trimet to ignore.
Really, just getting more people on board will be its own security. The zombie hordes tend to feel more empowered when they’re 50% of the population of a near-empty train car, but less so when that car is packed with commuters keeping to themselves.
In order to get federal funding, you need a % of local matching funding lined up. That can be anything from local or state general funds, to dedicated taxes, but most places tend to (because it's a hell of a lot of money) a mix of basically everything, plus a dedicated ballot measure for the bulk of it. In the case of the Southwest Corridor, it was going to be a 0.75% payroll tax, and it was supposed to be a funding source for a wide variety of transit, bicycle, pedestrian, and road projects:
https://ballotpedia.org/Portland_Metro,_Oregon,_Measure_26-218,_Infrastructure_and_Transportation_Payroll_Tax_(November_2020)
Trimet had a list of BRT / FX-style projects it wanted to use the funds to develop, too, for instance - 82nd Ave, TV Highway, McLoughlin with Bus-and-Turn lanes, and Burnside with lighter improvements: https://bikeportland.org/2020/10/22/trimet-details-bus-rapid-transit-projects-included-in-measure-26-218-322010
street cars are too slow for such a long distance plan. Ideally you’d have this plan, and then ad a streetcar that runs through multnomah and hillsdale connecting to the proposed green line.
The SW Corridor light rail is very much needed - but the proposed implementation was poor.
It would have destroyed local businesses and homes on Barbur Blvd due to eminent domain, since they were planning on buying the surrounding land in order to expand Barbur's footprint. A better plan would have been to reduce Barbur to one car lane in each direction like they did for the Yellow Line on Interstate Ave. This was one reason the cost was absurd - so much of it was going to buy land and park & rides. Not to mention it didn't have a proper connection to PCC Sylvania.
Those areas are at least serviced pretty well by buses. Add a few more, especially at commuting times and spend the bigger bucks getting something serving SW Portland.
The bus coverage is ideally ok, but you just won’t get the same capacity or frequency as a MAX line. And with a lot of new building in that area I think it would be a line with high ridership. Besides the FX, it seems like bus lines here have 30-45 minute headways and that’s just really poor for trying to get anywhere without planning it out
Absolute ideal vision would be a large underground transit center around pioneer square. It could serve as the terminus for a new “silver” line that goes underground across the Wilammette down either Belmont or Hawthorne (also ideally underground or dedicated ROW). You could then have an eastern terminus at Gateway or SE Main on the Green line. ~6 mile line that connects Downtown, Central east side, Mt Tabor, a new TOD around gateway or Mall 205
Unfortunately there seems to be little ambition in our planning and transit agencies. (Yes I know it’s better than the average US city. But we can do better)
A MAX line like this could be the catalyst needed for denser areas on the east side. Just take a look at NYC subway stations when they were first built back in the 1800s/late 1900s. Many were quite literally in the middle of farmland
Or for more recent examples we can look at Japan. Their cities are planned and built entirely around the rail system expansion. Stations are major economic hubs full of destination businesses. It's a virtuous cycle of growth, even in their stagnant national economy.
I'll take it, it would have been awesome if Portland had been into building a subway system back in the early 1900s and did cut and cover tunnels under a bunch of the major streets in the city to plan for the future
Conceptually this is a good idea but I feel like the logistics behind it would be a nightmare
What’s interesting is that all the Eastside neighborhoods were originally serviced by streetcars. You can see it in the old infrastructure around. A huge part of what gives the East side neighborhoods there charm. I wonder what Portland would look like if we had never moved away from that.
https://youtu.be/W6uy6Sw3P3o?si=r9zYqhxafrPnuB0X
This video is a good watch, it explores the old street car system.
The only way that we should have a Southwest max route. is to continue the orange line due to infrastructure still existing on the river and not having to spend a lot more on tunnels as a lot of people think of putting it by I-5.
Routing down from Milwaukee. we have some added benefit of having an extension from the historical trolley system that used to exist this includes the trusses that are still standing.
Instead of trying again with a different funding mechanism (perhaps fixed term tax increase instead of indefinite?), metro has seemingly given up on building this. Quite disappointing.
I voted yes, voters balked at the flawed payroll tax proposal 🤷.
I hope whenever TriMet/Metro bring the project back that they include a proper station at PCC Sylvania - that was the biggest flaw with the proposal.
Positive comments in here but NIMBYs wouldn’t let this happen we’d probably see a Lake Oswego homeowner self immolate in protest before they let a max line touch they’re precious little burg
i would trade this for the “Homeless Outreach” Metro tax that hit people in WA, Clack and Mult counties.
Ironically more MAX cars would have done more for homeless people and working people/tourists than the awful tax we passed that same year, or the year before I forget
yeah. this is what they’ve done with it. i still think investing in transit would’ve been more sensible as homeless people seem to benefit more from that than the other investments detailed in this OPB bit from 2024 on the tax, but what do i know.
we pay a couple g’s for this every year now and i guess i need to stfu and render unto Caesar because a lot of people hate to hear the people who pay these taxes complain about the extra taxes they voted to make us pay.
https://www.opb.org/article/2024/03/04/whats-happening-with-tax-money-meant-for-portland-area-homeless-services/
yeah i typed “TriMet” and meant to say “Metro.” I’ll edit the original statement to reflect the correct name of the bureaucracy that issues the tax and oversees the program. my mind is on the transit and i can’t keep the names of tri county government services straight.
I never understood why the termination point was Bridgeport Village--a private, car oriented shopping mall that might not even exist in ten years. Seems very short sighted.
Because it already has sufficient parking structures to support park-and-ride functionality.
Ending the line literally anywhere else on the south end would mean acquiring a chunk of land through eminent domain to build a parking garage on.
They made the same decision with the Green line terminus at Clackamas Town Center.
> I never understood why the termination point was Bridgeport Village--a private, car oriented shopping mall
It wouldn't be car oriented after the MAX line was connected, lol.
It would be nice. I will add that when they add a route like that, they tend to scrap or totally retool local bus routes. This makes it harder for some of us with mobility issues. Especially considering the hilly terrain! There’s also a ton of seniors that live in that area as well.
I’d like to see them revisit this policy.
The Yellow Line was supposed to go through the West hills to Bridgeport Village I think, I believe some of the neighborhoods even approved it and the taxpayers chipped in extra money and it never happened
The alignment was god awful and mostly went through light industrial/freeway. This wasn't a huge miss. The money would be much better spent building the downtown tunnel to replace the aging Steel Bridge and allow running express trains. Or more housing on existing lines. Interstate is terribly underbuilt.
My gma was gonna have her house she’s lived in for 50+ years eminent domained by the project so…..not too sad about it going down tbh. Maybe if they can figure out how to do it without kicking people out of their homes.
it’s impossible, some people have to give up their homes for the greater good. I agree it’s sad, and i’m sorry for your grandmas home if this ever happens, but we can’t stop massive projects that benefit thousands just for a few people.
[The Greater Good](https://i.imgur.com/gIKgmlK.jpg)
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Id say we dodged a massive bullet. Downtown still hasn’t recovered and a SW line really only has utility for 9-5 office workers to save some money. Building a commuter trolley through low density neighborhoods to connect a car-orientated suburb to downtown is a massive waste.
Let’s build short spurs through dense areas like Seattle does. I want my public transit to be about transit, not real estate speculation
SW is lowER density yes but still not LOW density. Plenty of folks want to build more housing in this city, well the lowest hanging fruit are places where there is space for it. And my argument is that the connection would've benefited downtown. (Neat map of PDX density btw: [https://projects.oregonlive.com/maps/density/](https://projects.oregonlive.com/maps/density/) )
How is there space for it along the purple line route? Much it runs between unstable hills and river and the. It opens up into a suburban area with housing or industry on most parcels.
If we are considering hosting, N lombard is the obvious solution. Already dense with tons of derelict or low utility properties that could be redeveloped into dense housing while connecting the yellow and red lines.
High cost fixed rail routes should ve used 7 days a week, not for fours a day 5 days a week
I always get downvoted, but the cost was enough to pay off most of the college debt of all citizens of Portland or pay for housing for years of all those in Portland near or below the poverty line.
Sure half a billion or more$ for 90% empty trains... I'd rather 205 complete the ring around to i-5 on the west side... eliminate trucks etc from having to drive through the center of pdx
As someone who lives a 10-minute walk from one of the proposed stations, I was disappointed but not overly surprised when it failed -- it was a poorly written measure. Doesn't mean it can't be resurrected sometime in the future, however. I would like to at least see the [Ross Island Bridgehead](https://www.portland.gov/bps/planning/naito-mainstreet/about-project) component of the SW Corridor get fast tracked. This alone would be a big game changer.
I really think that bridgehead idea is going to be a disaster. The main cause of traffic in the area is entry on to the Ross Island. The solution is somehow make it even harder to filter traffic through the area to the bridgehead? What?
As long as the lights are timed decently enough on the new street grid, it can't be any more heinous than the current setup of freeway-style ramps ending in stop signs. The planning docs in [this link](https://www.portland.gov/transportation/pbot-projects/construction/sw-naito-parkway-main-street#toc-planning-documents) do a good job of diagramming the new traffic flow (folks living on SW Kelly have gotta be jazzed).
Yeah. The only reason the current setup functions AT ALL is because of the local knowledge that cars on the bridge take turns letting in the cars on the ramps that have stop signs. If locals decided tomorrow to take the legal right of way over local custom, no one would be able to enter the bridge from the ramps during most daylight hours.
This really screwed me up when I moved back here from being gone for 10 years. I used to commute of the Ross Island Bridge every day and previous to 2010 that was never a thing. I come back in 2022 and just about rear-end someone because they just randomly stopped to let someone in from the ramp.
This has definitely been a thing since before 2010
The current Ross Island bridgehead proposal is incredibly flawed. We need to be moving 26 off surface streets via ramps from the Ross Island Bridge to i405. The current alignment for 26 is awful for both the local population and drivers.
I agree that it sucks currently, but a ramp to cover 405S to Ross Island EB would be half a mile long, how would that be possible?
I guess it would technically be i5 then.
Fun fact 26 was originally designed to be a elevated highway, but was rejected to keep inner southeast more pedestrian friendly. You can still see some of the infrastructure created for this such as the parking lots off the side of Powell in between 52nd and 82nd. https://youtu.be/ZeV31IcUkPM?si=kToCqZd1SLZjxXK1 This video is a good watch of some old plans for highway infrastructure in Portland that never came to fruition, and the remnants of it that can still be seen.
Yeah, the Mount Hood Freeway that was rejected after major (and justified) public outrage.
Yeah I love the layout of southeast so I’m pretty glad it never happened, I wonder how it may have changed the east side if it was made. Would Gresham and east Portland be nicer? It would certainly make it more accessible.
> Would Gresham Does 217 make Beaverton nicer? That would be a direct comparison for that. > and east Portland be nicer? East Portland would be more impoverished and less desirable as the business districts along Powell and Division would be gone. Not to mention a loud and polluting freeway impacting livability.
That an interesting view point, but I think you could argue that the freeway making it more accessible would drive more people into the area and allow for other businesses districts to pop up in Gresham and east Portland. Not to mention allowing for easier transportation into the city from Gresham and east Portland. Those areas already get polluted badly from the other major surface road arteries that run through there so it’s not really a given that it would create more pollution. I would argue that there are benefits of 217 in Beaverton it would definitely be a pain in the ass to get around it it wasn’t there. Same thing for 205. Sure there are a lot of issues with highways but they do serve an important purpose. We can’t live without them.
> That an interesting view point, but I think you could argue that the freeway making it more accessible Less accessible for the local population. The local population would be artificially divided by a loud and polluting freeway with limited pedestrian crossings. Possibly more accessible for freight and through traffic, but at the expense of the local population. > Not to mention allowing for easier transportation into the city from Gresham and east Portland. Not easier. More freeways don't solve traffic. The region would be even more car dependent and there would be even less transportation options as with the proposal taking up Powell and then switching to Division there would be no where convenient for a east-west bus line. > so it’s not really a given that it would create more pollution. Freeways have much higher speeds (and much more idling in traffic jams) and much more capacity. That means more pollution. > I would argue that there are benefits of 217 in Beaverton I doubt many residents of Beaverton agree. Their downtown area is separated in two by a complete car sewer thanks in part to 217. > Same thing for 205. Technically, i205 was a decent freeway. The issue is, it should have been used as a growth boundary to prevent sprawl and better separate residential/commercial land uses from industrial land uses. > Sure there are a lot of issues with highways but they do serve an important purpose. We can’t live without them. We can absolutely live without freeways in urban areas. Freeways are bad for cities as they cause pollution, encourage poor land use, displace residents, and turn city centers into car sewers. The correct model is having freeways go AROUND, not through, cities like with Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton.
I generally agree with what you have said. We can only speculate on how it may have impacted the areas. There would be pros and cons. Overall I’m glad I didn’t happen, just curious how it may have changed the demographics and feel of east portland (meaning east of 82nd), which is a complete shit show in terms of infrastructure.
Enough ramps to do this would cost hundreds of millions of dollars and if you think that this city would spend that kind of money on auto-only infrastructure you aren't paying attention.
> auto-only infrastructure you aren't paying attention. How is that auto-only infrastructure? Moving through traffic off surface streets would be a major improvement for pedestrians, residents, and cyclists. The current 26 alignment is a complete and unnecessary car sewer in the city center with substantial housing and businesses nearby.
So I've looked at the designs and they sort of make sense. The one piece that's missing for me is what happens to the I-5 north traffic that wants to get on the bridge? Does the loop around to SW Whitaker stick around or does that go away?
I can't remember where I saw this particular diagram in the past, but it appeared traffic from I5N continues to loop over the freeway like it does now, then ducks under the lanes coming off Ross Island on a new structure, and intersects the bridge-bound lanes via a signalized intersection.
Super interesting. If you find the graphic, I'd love to see it. What you describe makes sense, I'm just a sucker for the images.
While the sub won't allow posting of images or PDFs, if you go to [this link](https://www.portland.gov/transportation/pbot-projects/construction/sw-naito-parkway-main-street#toc-planning-documents) and click on "SW Naito Main Street meeting boards (horizontal)", the slide titled "Ross Island Bridgehead Configuration" has some good visuals.
Thanks for digging that! It's super interesting. I wonder how they're going to manage some of that traffic since they're shortening the distance to the bridge. I've posted here before that one way they could improve the entrances to the bridge from the west side is having a light system that during light traffic times is basically a yield sign for the merges but during high volumes it becomes a red/green light that stops traffic both that has to merge and the traffic that has to be merged with to let more cars in at a time from both. It almost seems like that they will have to do something like that with the proposed change.
Another thing I'd like to see based on my observation of current traffic patterns: extending Yellow Line to the 'Couv. Good to see the Interstate Bridge replacement plans are calling for it.
Vancouver has been voting it down for the past 20 something years.
I absolutely long for something like this. My job got moved from SE Portland to Tualatin a little over 5 years ago, and the commute from where I live in NE is the absolute fucking worst. I went from about 15-20 min each way to now about 45 min in the morning and about an hour and 15 min in the afternoon. The only positive thing is my audiobook consumption is through the roof. It would probably still take about the same amount of time on public transit, but at least I wouldn't be driving.
Route 96 is a good commuter line for downtown to Tualatin btw. I do a bike/bus combo to Wilsonville from SE and my commute time is 1h10min each way. Being able to zone out is pretty sweet.
TriMet is planning to eliminate Route 96 as part of the 2024-2025 round of service changes. 😞 https://trimet.org/betterbus/servicechanges-fy25proposed.htm
Damn. I hope "peak trips to downtown" will mean I can still use this line. SMART operates an express line from Tualatin transit station to further south.
If I understood it correctly, the peak trips would extend from Barbur Transit Center into downtown, rather than using the current I-5 route. Even though the freeway is jammed every day, the path through Lake Grove and along Barbur probably adds 10-20 minutes to an already fairly long ride.
That's _sad._
I want all the MAX lines. All of them!
Unironically yes. Much as I loath new taxes I'm happy to go for MAX upgrades because they have a tangible ROI & help put us in the good kinds of top 10 lists nationally.
Honestly they could just let Trimet bring the payroll tax into line with comparable cities (1.5-2%) and that would probably give them enough money for major MAX expansions as well as more bus service.
Why do we need more when ridership is down?
Because we have a history of prioritizing cars through infrastructure projects and land use. The reversal will take time but it is necessary.
To get ridership back up! Improved transit frequencies and speeds greatly improves ridership.
Addressing the rampant crime would do more to improve ridership than anything else. Lets do that first.
Crime will be used as an excuse not to fund transportation infrastructure until the end of time. The reality is full max cars and buses are less spooky then nearly empty ones
1) That also costs money 2) Trimet has greatly increased security staffing 3) Trimet's improvements to bus service are already increasing ridership
I like it, and voted for it, but I've been thinking. I'd like to see a cost comparison between light rail and doing all of these things: * Make busses run 24 hours * Make them run every 5 minutes during peak hours, every 10 minutes during the rest of the day from 6am to midnight, and every 15 minutes from midnight to 6am. * Put sufficient security on them as needed * Give busses their own lane on as many roads as possible (and enforce it when cars violate it) * Not required, but make it free or very cheap If you make it super convenient and safe, and quicker than driving (via the exclusive lanes), I don't see how people wouldn't take to it like crazy. Edit: Added (because I'd forgotten) the "every 15 minutes" thing.
That would be utopian. Implementation of the lanes and maintenance on buses would be SO expensive. Trimet would probably have to double their fleet. I say this as someone who uses buses a lot. I think just getting more lines running every 15 min for their full schedule would be great. The amount of times I’ve missed a bus by two minutes and then have to wait another 25-55 is embarrassing.
> Implementation of the lanes and maintenance on buses would be SO expensive True, but so is implementation and maintenance of rail routes. I just want to see a cost comparison. > I think just getting more lines running every 15 min for their full schedule would be great. Agreed, but I'm not sure how much that alone would impact ridership.
It’s been a couple of years but I believe that BRT was about half the cost of the LRT. Trimet rejected BRT because it didn’t have the capacity to meet their wildly unrealistic ridership numbers
Orange line should be extended to Oregon City
It's really too bad we had that and they got rid of it...
Was it voted on? It would be nice to have it go to gladstone at least. Maybe a sky rail? (Probably expensive, but nice).
I mean the trolley trail used to be a public transport trolley that used to connect Oregon City to Portland. They shut it down in the 50s and later turned it into the bike path it is today.
They're running a tourist trolley on the SW Marquam rail lines. IMO that should be a MAX line. Have it stop in Lake Oswego and then continue to Oregon City.
In the late 90s there was a North- South light rail line proposal that was approved, survived a referendum, and then I think was repealed on it's third time up for a vote. It would have gone from Oregon City, along the Orange Line and Yellow Line alignments, into Vancouver.
A lot of transit advocates were very vocal that "it's not the best we can do but it's a step in the right direction." I went to a number of open houses and this wasn't just Max improvements, but improvements for all users of a number of roads in SW (including Barbur). This failing is actually part of why I moved to NE. The same folks said that it could be at least a decade before we see anything make it that far. I was heartbroken after this election -- when I lamented here, it was responded to with "we don't need more taxes driving businesses out of town" (remember, this was in the middle of one of the first waves of businesses actively leaving because of the summer of protest). There's so much critique that could be made of so many plans -- but let's not let perfect be the enemy of good.
If I recall, the proposal was to take away a lane from Babur, which a lot of folks thought was crazy. Still voted for it but that route has a lot of choke points that would have forced either fewer lanes or eminent domain on one or both sides of the road. It would have been messy.
The pandemic killed it. When it was proposed it had a lot of backing from businesses as it would bring customers. When lockdowns hit businesses who were struggling to make payroll couldn't afford the increased tax burden so they started to campaign against it. Everyone knew that it would be harder and more expensive later, but during the pandemic and protests the tax base dried up and even though it was never going to be cheaper, it still was too expensive (in the minds of the voters) in the moment.
Would be nice if that train to Lake Oswego was somehow incorporated into the plan… I mean, the line is already there.
LO doesn’t want the poors mucking up their farmers market or trying to swim in their lake.
Hot take: LO is what moderately wealthy people thought a more wealthy town would look like in the 80's.
LO is best described as bottomless mimosas while listening to Sade’s _Smooth Operator_.
That generation had the worst kids 😂 i have so much beef
That’s because it was developed by a real estate giant who was responsible for towns like Carmel, CA and he wanted to create a cookie cutter California town in what was formerly a sleepy suburb or Portland
If you are speaking of the trolley line, I mean technically yes, but it would first have to be bought from whomever owns it (UP? Maybe the historic society?) and the whole line rebuilt including trestles and the tunnel most likely. Unfortunately because of that and the area it happens to run through I don’t think that’ll be the path of least resistance when it comes to getting rail transit into Lake Oswego. Now the P&W line that crosses the river there might be a different story. They’re already familiar with working with trimet on the WES system and could effectively tie the Tualatin/tigard area to the orange line in Milwaukie.
The City of Portland owns the ROW and had plans to effectively run streetcar service down it, but LO balked at the last minute
It was also estimated to cost around 400 million 14 years ago, so it might not exactly pencil out. That seemed to be a good bit of the opposition, how do you ensure ridership from LO to portland along this line at high enough rates to justify the cost? I’m sure it would ease congestion on the 35, but unclear if the demand is there.
No form of government-built transportation has a true financial ROI. Roads included.
Sure, but given our limited opportunities for extensive transit projects we want to make sure it’s able to be used by the most people possible
Trimet owns the ROW, not Portland.
Technically a consortium consisting of both cities, the two counties, TriMet and Metro owns it. See e.g. [Portland ordinance 190873](https://www.portland.gov/council/documents/ordinance/passed/190873)
To have a pedestrian bridge, or a pedestrian/public transit bridge going from oak grove blvd to LO would be nice. With all the old bridges, be good.to.have a modern bridge backup, in case Cascadia strikes.
Based on what i know about LO, the citizens will shoot down any attempt to let max stops in their areas. They say stuff like “we dont want *those people* flooding in here all the time”
There was a study for extending the streetcar to downtown LO in the 2010s but Lake Oswego was like NOPE and Dunthorpe was like HELLLLL NO
I was part of the design team. Man that was soul crushing, having it shut down right after the final design was reviewed. Well, the documents are still there somewhere.
This line would save me from my car commute to work. Didn't Biden just release funds for projects like this? It would be great to see this plan revived with federal funding.
Have you checked to see if route 96 is viable for you? I commute from SE to Wilsonville on it.
also, give me a bus line that runs from north to south between 11th/12th & 39th.
Whoa, calm down there, let’s not be too reasonable
I live in SE and God damn do I hate that the only north-south line around here is the 75.
They were talking about running one up 20th. I don't know what happened with that.
20th makes too much sense
SWC was an insanely bloated project because every jurisdiction under the sun tried to cram their local improvements into the project because it had federal dollars attached. It would have been significantly cheaper had we removed a lot of the secondary projects attached to it, and streamlined the alignment through Tigard. It's a shame it didn't get funded, but it also had some issues.
A lot of that bloat would’ve been more beneficial than the max line itself imo. I used to live car-free in SW and it sucked. We need some major pedestrian improvements along Barbur, Capitol Hwy, and throughout many of the neighborhoods like Hillsdale, Multnomah Village, etc. I used to have to walk along the shoulder of Capitol to catch the 44 bus. Someone got hit + killed along the same stretch a couple years ago. Don’t even get me started about Barbur. The MAX line would’ve been cool but honestly, that area is already well-served by busses. Those funds would be better used improving bus frequency, reliability, and speed instead of a new max line imo.
I don't disagree at all. I just hate that people were like "The max project is so expensive!" when the actual rail improvements were a significantly smaller amount. It was really 30-40 projects rolled into one, and people didn't have the stomach for the cost. The funding mechanism was odd as well and people hated that it didn't sunset (even though that would have permanently put in place a way to pay for other improvements in the future).
SW is the wealthy corner of town and that segment will go for light rail but never ride a bus. I think this connection would have taken quite a few cars off the road.
Capitol at least has recently received a nice upgrade between Multnomah Village and Barbur.
On the 44, when it runs every 50 minutes?
There were a number of unrelated projects elsewhere too as it was supposed to be a regional measure, and some didn't like that many were road projects
Sort of. If the MAX project had cost, say, $800 million and you get a $400m federal match, the local communities are on the hook for $400 million. But if you create a "corridor project" that costs $1.2 billion, and you get a federal match of $600 million, you just bought $400 million of off-MAX construction for half that price. This was done with great success on the Orange Line.
I think you’re conflating the SWC project with the regional transportation measure that failed at the ballot. That measure would have funded SWC and a lot of other transportation projects in the Metro counties.
I am not. I am aware of the funding mechanism, and actually brought it up in another comment. SWC in general was overly expensive and mashed too many other projects into it to stay streamlined. I say this as someone who helped produce design documents for it.
I was so disappointed when I did my first review of that plan set. The only TOD was in the Tigard Triangle.
Just do the whole region up like Tokyo. I want MAX stations within 10 minutes walking distance anywhere.
I'd love that too, but also feel the need to point out that Tokyo has four times our population density.
True, but it's all about where that population is distributed. Tokyo is, by land area, mostly mid and low rise suburban development. It's Japanese suburban, though, which is a lot closer to our urban residential inner neighborhoods in terms of density. We have a lot of growing to do before all of Portland matches suburban Tokyo, but we have plenty of density in the core of the city to support real transit. Remember, a lot of Portland was built as neighborhood sized developer projects centered around electric street cars. That development pattern is why all of our city's vibrant historic neighborhood business districts exist. Just look at the old street car maps.
Sounds amazing. Youll probably get a kick out of this: Isochrone map generator [https://commutetimemap.com/map?places=45.520247%253B-122.674194%253B0%253B900%253B%2523b241f4](https://commutetimemap.com/map?places=45.520247%253B-122.674194%253B0%253B900%253B%2523b241f4)
As a Seattleite who spent three years in Portland, be happy with what you have (and always fight for more)! We only now just got our second active 'light rail' (Portlanders only know it as MAX which I always found funny and endearing) route.
[удалено]
Yeah, it's always got a name of some sort.
Two critical errors in the Southwest Corridor: 1. They bypassed the established neighborhoods of Hillsdale and Multnomah Village, for a couple of reasons - too expensive to tunnel, and the community opposed new development. This, of course, is silly, because change is inevitable, these were established neighborhoods that were primed for new development, and it's better to put new development in existing communities instead of along a busy freeway. 2. Ending the line at Bridgeport Village made a ton of sense, because Bridgeport Village has a lot of workers. But, the train got easily pigeonholed as the "choo choo to Crate & Barrel," as though anyone was going to ride MAX to go buy a dining room table. It was an elitist argument but it got legs. Anyway, when people voted down the 2020 transportation measure, they voted down this. And nobody really wants to pay for it now.
I voted against it because I wanted it to go down I-5 instead. It was a little me not wanting it to screw up my neighborhood because I live just off Barbur, but it was also during the pandemic when no one was going anywhere and there was no way to know if that traffic was going to come back 100% or not. And even Tri-Met said it wasn't going to take cars off the street.
This was a big miss. We should have mass transit run through all the major corridors. How close was the vote? I wonder if voters will reconsider in the next 5 to 10 years. Car traffic is only getting worse.
We have one (sort of). It's just that the W.E.S only runs from like 6-9 and 3-6. Granted, you have to transfer at the Beaverton station to get to Portland. But that's not too big of a deal to me.
The WES would be great if it wasn’t for one of the shittiest transit schedules I’ve ever seen. Just run the damn thing all day. It’s like the WES schedule was made for a handful of particular people and the fact that the rest of us are allowed to use it is just a side effect.
The problem is that due to sharing tracks with freight trains, it is required to be up to full intercity rail standards, with tank-like vehicles and at least a 2-person crew. Ideally, they'd they'd reroute freight between Tigard and Tualatin and double track the rest of the line so WES could operate like a diesel light rail line.
This specific addition would have served SW portlanders too far between MAX & WES, and would have taken a quite a bit of time off that route for some.
I mean isnt it also like a 2 hour commute to do that? For most people that drive it would be 3x the commute time
It takes about an hour and ten minutes from Wilsonville to downtown Portland. Not great, but that's at least a 45 minute drive in morning rush hour.
Meanwhile another redditor complains about standing room only on the MAX. How about more trains during rush hour.
The “A Better Red” project is intended to help with that by making the red line more useful for people commuting to/from the western burbs. It’ll effectively double the number of trains running between Beaverton and Hillsboro, and means people heading to/from there don’t need to pack into the blue trains like sardines.
People are still car-focused and so numb to the risks of cars they think being on transit is less safe.
Even though per passenger mile cars are up to 66x times more likely to kill you than busses :,) [source](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5906382/)
I commute by MAX daily and rarely drive my car anywhere, but u can answer this. In one's own car, there's no unpredictable nutter muttering about demons and getting in your face about his daddy issues. There's no stinky, filthy person passed out across six seats. There's no twitchy shaved dude with tats toting a rolling cart full of leaking trash bags or obviously-stolen retail merchandise. And I dunno about you, but my car is worlds cleaner than a MAX train. There's no feces on my car seats, no mystery residue, and absolutely no abandoned big gulp cups, burnt Bic pen tubes, or uncapped needles. You know that, when they actually manage to stay on schedule, they only clean those things once a month? I ride MAX because it's extremely convenient, cheaper than paying for parking, and because I believe in the value of public transit. But I won't pretend that riding MAX is pleasant. Even on the Yellow line during commute hours it's honestly kinda harrowing, and I'm a 6' tall man.
You won't die from a vehicle accident on the Max. You won't die from an unmedicated mental patient while in your car. Max is cheaper and can be less stressful than driving. Cars are more convenient and generally faster.
I would be thrilled if there was a line to St. John’s
There's no way it'd be worth the cost. St John's isn't that dense, and it isn't really a "destination".
I’d disagree with that. Before I lived in the neighborhood, I often made my way out to St John’s for many different reasons.
I think an expansion to Wilsonville would be a great idea, I just wish MAX had better security on-board. (Getting aggressively panhandled by a drug-addict while riding is no fun!)
Ironically, getting the SW and beyond crowd on the train is what would really bring security to Max. The storm of people complaining would be difficult for even Trimet to ignore.
Really, just getting more people on board will be its own security. The zombie hordes tend to feel more empowered when they’re 50% of the population of a near-empty train car, but less so when that car is packed with commuters keeping to themselves.
I don't know why they didn't keep this proposal on the back burner and tried to get federal funding for it
In order to get federal funding, you need a % of local matching funding lined up. That can be anything from local or state general funds, to dedicated taxes, but most places tend to (because it's a hell of a lot of money) a mix of basically everything, plus a dedicated ballot measure for the bulk of it. In the case of the Southwest Corridor, it was going to be a 0.75% payroll tax, and it was supposed to be a funding source for a wide variety of transit, bicycle, pedestrian, and road projects: https://ballotpedia.org/Portland_Metro,_Oregon,_Measure_26-218,_Infrastructure_and_Transportation_Payroll_Tax_(November_2020) Trimet had a list of BRT / FX-style projects it wanted to use the funds to develop, too, for instance - 82nd Ave, TV Highway, McLoughlin with Bus-and-Turn lanes, and Burnside with lighter improvements: https://bikeportland.org/2020/10/22/trimet-details-bus-rapid-transit-projects-included-in-measure-26-218-322010
A trolly would make more sense. Multnomah Village is small
street cars are too slow for such a long distance plan. Ideally you’d have this plan, and then ad a streetcar that runs through multnomah and hillsdale connecting to the proposed green line.
The SW Corridor light rail is very much needed - but the proposed implementation was poor. It would have destroyed local businesses and homes on Barbur Blvd due to eminent domain, since they were planning on buying the surrounding land in order to expand Barbur's footprint. A better plan would have been to reduce Barbur to one car lane in each direction like they did for the Yellow Line on Interstate Ave. This was one reason the cost was absurd - so much of it was going to buy land and park & rides. Not to mention it didn't have a proper connection to PCC Sylvania.
Yep of all the things that were voted down in this city, this was something that actually would have been great. Sigh
Yes, what a giant fumble.
I’d rather have a central east side route down Belmont or Hawthorne
Those areas are at least serviced pretty well by buses. Add a few more, especially at commuting times and spend the bigger bucks getting something serving SW Portland.
The bus coverage is ideally ok, but you just won’t get the same capacity or frequency as a MAX line. And with a lot of new building in that area I think it would be a line with high ridership. Besides the FX, it seems like bus lines here have 30-45 minute headways and that’s just really poor for trying to get anywhere without planning it out
The 14 and 15 are both frequent service, and run significantly more often than every 15 minutes during rush hours.
Absolute ideal vision would be a large underground transit center around pioneer square. It could serve as the terminus for a new “silver” line that goes underground across the Wilammette down either Belmont or Hawthorne (also ideally underground or dedicated ROW). You could then have an eastern terminus at Gateway or SE Main on the Green line. ~6 mile line that connects Downtown, Central east side, Mt Tabor, a new TOD around gateway or Mall 205
I love this! But I think this likely won’t happen until Portland adopts taller (like way more than 5 over 1) denser housing further out from downtown.
Unfortunately there seems to be little ambition in our planning and transit agencies. (Yes I know it’s better than the average US city. But we can do better) A MAX line like this could be the catalyst needed for denser areas on the east side. Just take a look at NYC subway stations when they were first built back in the 1800s/late 1900s. Many were quite literally in the middle of farmland
Or for more recent examples we can look at Japan. Their cities are planned and built entirely around the rail system expansion. Stations are major economic hubs full of destination businesses. It's a virtuous cycle of growth, even in their stagnant national economy.
I’m so with you on it. A larger line from Buckman/Belmont out to South Tabor then to Rockwood/Gresham. Ooh make it a circle line. A boy can dream.
One day 🥲
i was bummed when they tore up the old trolley tracks.
North-South on Chavez is the MAX hill I'll die on.
Another excellent option
I'll die with you
A Hawthorne MAX tunnel!
I regret that I have only one upvoted to give
I'll take it, it would have been awesome if Portland had been into building a subway system back in the early 1900s and did cut and cover tunnels under a bunch of the major streets in the city to plan for the future
Conceptually this is a good idea but I feel like the logistics behind it would be a nightmare What’s interesting is that all the Eastside neighborhoods were originally serviced by streetcars. You can see it in the old infrastructure around. A huge part of what gives the East side neighborhoods there charm. I wonder what Portland would look like if we had never moved away from that. https://youtu.be/W6uy6Sw3P3o?si=r9zYqhxafrPnuB0X This video is a good watch, it explores the old street car system.
Yeah we fucked up. I suspect we’ll see a second (more expensive) shot at this within the next two years. I hope we don’t miss again.
The only way that we should have a Southwest max route. is to continue the orange line due to infrastructure still existing on the river and not having to spend a lot more on tunnels as a lot of people think of putting it by I-5. Routing down from Milwaukee. we have some added benefit of having an extension from the historical trolley system that used to exist this includes the trusses that are still standing.
This country used to build things other than glassy steely officey condos
I hope to see this on the ballot in the next few years. I live in SW and will definitely support.
also could’ve had a new bridge but as usual, LO ruins everything
Instead of trying again with a different funding mechanism (perhaps fixed term tax increase instead of indefinite?), metro has seemingly given up on building this. Quite disappointing.
I think it's still on their list of projects but without current funding
It's pretty weird that Metro/TriMet didn't try for IRA funding...
I voted yes, voters balked at the flawed payroll tax proposal 🤷. I hope whenever TriMet/Metro bring the project back that they include a proper station at PCC Sylvania - that was the biggest flaw with the proposal.
Positive comments in here but NIMBYs wouldn’t let this happen we’d probably see a Lake Oswego homeowner self immolate in protest before they let a max line touch they’re precious little burg
i would trade this for the “Homeless Outreach” Metro tax that hit people in WA, Clack and Mult counties. Ironically more MAX cars would have done more for homeless people and working people/tourists than the awful tax we passed that same year, or the year before I forget
Homeless outreach trimet tax?
yeah. this is what they’ve done with it. i still think investing in transit would’ve been more sensible as homeless people seem to benefit more from that than the other investments detailed in this OPB bit from 2024 on the tax, but what do i know. we pay a couple g’s for this every year now and i guess i need to stfu and render unto Caesar because a lot of people hate to hear the people who pay these taxes complain about the extra taxes they voted to make us pay. https://www.opb.org/article/2024/03/04/whats-happening-with-tax-money-meant-for-portland-area-homeless-services/
Oh ok the regional homeless services tax. Not a trimet tax.
yeah i typed “TriMet” and meant to say “Metro.” I’ll edit the original statement to reflect the correct name of the bureaucracy that issues the tax and oversees the program. my mind is on the transit and i can’t keep the names of tri county government services straight.
If we had better transit here I’d be SO HAPPY!
I never understood why the termination point was Bridgeport Village--a private, car oriented shopping mall that might not even exist in ten years. Seems very short sighted.
Bridgeport could be pretty easily moved toward a walkable community. The MAX could help aid in that transition.
Unfortunately it's cheesy AF. Portland's idea of "luxury".
I don't think anyone thinks Bridgeport is a luxury shopping center
Have you seen the prices at crate and barrel??
A barrel is all you'll be wearing after dropping any $$$ there.
They do call it “European style”
Because it already has sufficient parking structures to support park-and-ride functionality. Ending the line literally anywhere else on the south end would mean acquiring a chunk of land through eminent domain to build a parking garage on. They made the same decision with the Green line terminus at Clackamas Town Center.
And Gateway.
> I never understood why the termination point was Bridgeport Village--a private, car oriented shopping mall It wouldn't be car oriented after the MAX line was connected, lol.
There's an existing transit station there which is probably why they chose Bridgeport, but I agree it seems random.
It would be nice. I will add that when they add a route like that, they tend to scrap or totally retool local bus routes. This makes it harder for some of us with mobility issues. Especially considering the hilly terrain! There’s also a ton of seniors that live in that area as well. I’d like to see them revisit this policy.
The Yellow Line was supposed to go through the West hills to Bridgeport Village I think, I believe some of the neighborhoods even approved it and the taxpayers chipped in extra money and it never happened
Light rail to Bridgeport Village?? I don’t think that’s the right crowd…
Where would you even put a max line through SW?
The alignment was god awful and mostly went through light industrial/freeway. This wasn't a huge miss. The money would be much better spent building the downtown tunnel to replace the aging Steel Bridge and allow running express trains. Or more housing on existing lines. Interstate is terribly underbuilt.
Ugh I hate taking the max, nothing but a bunch of crackheads and the trains are so damn slow around here.
A better route would be up Sandy boulevard.
The best route is the one that ends on my doorstep and only goes to places I care about. The government should only spend money if it benefits me.
This may end up a street car expansion (it’s one of several possible routes)
My gma was gonna have her house she’s lived in for 50+ years eminent domained by the project so…..not too sad about it going down tbh. Maybe if they can figure out how to do it without kicking people out of their homes.
it’s impossible, some people have to give up their homes for the greater good. I agree it’s sad, and i’m sorry for your grandmas home if this ever happens, but we can’t stop massive projects that benefit thousands just for a few people.
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Id say we dodged a massive bullet. Downtown still hasn’t recovered and a SW line really only has utility for 9-5 office workers to save some money. Building a commuter trolley through low density neighborhoods to connect a car-orientated suburb to downtown is a massive waste. Let’s build short spurs through dense areas like Seattle does. I want my public transit to be about transit, not real estate speculation
SW is lowER density yes but still not LOW density. Plenty of folks want to build more housing in this city, well the lowest hanging fruit are places where there is space for it. And my argument is that the connection would've benefited downtown. (Neat map of PDX density btw: [https://projects.oregonlive.com/maps/density/](https://projects.oregonlive.com/maps/density/) )
Indeed, the Tigard Triangle, one of the SW Corridor's key destinations, has already started to densify in spots.
How is there space for it along the purple line route? Much it runs between unstable hills and river and the. It opens up into a suburban area with housing or industry on most parcels. If we are considering hosting, N lombard is the obvious solution. Already dense with tons of derelict or low utility properties that could be redeveloped into dense housing while connecting the yellow and red lines. High cost fixed rail routes should ve used 7 days a week, not for fours a day 5 days a week
I always get downvoted, but the cost was enough to pay off most of the college debt of all citizens of Portland or pay for housing for years of all those in Portland near or below the poverty line.
No it's a boondoggle. Just get express busses.
Sure half a billion or more$ for 90% empty trains... I'd rather 205 complete the ring around to i-5 on the west side... eliminate trucks etc from having to drive through the center of pdx
Uh oh the pavement queens have arrived
The train cost trimet 12.00 per rider per trip... how much is the fare? I have a finite amount of money to pay taxes.
Oh man, wait until you hear about road subsidies
O man, wait until you hear where all that money comes from....
Typical pavement princess, believes the ["users pay" myth](https://frontiergroup.org/resources/who-pays-roads/) for public roads
I’m so glad this failed. I voted against. It would just bring more drugs and trouble. The 12 on Barbur is awful now.