(Images: TriMet)
Portland’s regional transit agency expects to add new locked “Bike and Ride” facilities this year to its Goose Hollow, Beaverton Creek and Orenco Station MAX stops, greatly increasing the west side’s capacity for bike-to-transit commuting.
It’s especially welcome news for MAX commuters through the crowded Robertson Tunnel between Portland and Washington County. Job and residential growth in Central Portland and urban Washington County have been leading to more and more people looking to reach those stations by bike.
At at least one of the facilities, there’s even room being set aside specifically for cargo bikes.
The Goose Hollow facility, pictured above, will include “about 50-60 bike parking spaces total, including both secure, enclosed facilities and covered bike parking spaces,” with construction starting later this year and finishing by the end of 2016.
Here’s a shot of the nearly complete Orenco Bike and Ride, which will offer “50 secure, enclosed bike parking spaces, a repair stand with tools, air pump, cargo bike parking area and outlets for e-bikes.”
“The facility is opening soon and we’ll announce a date shortly,” TriMet said Friday.
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The Beaverton Creek MAX station just south of Nike’s headquarters, meanwhile, is getting the biggest upgrade of the three.
“Initial concepts call for about 100 bike parking spaces, including both secure, enclosed facilities and covered bike parking spaces,” TriMet said. Spokeswoman Mary Fetsch said the current plan is for about half of those to be secure and half to be outdoors but covered.
That project, too, is supposed to start and finish in 2016.
At three cents per daytime hour parked and 1 cent per nighttime hour, the cost of using TriMet’s Bike and Rides comes out to about $6 per month for someone who parks a bike for 10 hours every weekday, or about $6 per month for someone who parks a bike for everything except 10 hours every weekday. (For people who are really into it, that’d be $12 a month to securely store two bikes at different bike & rides and use both of them for different legs of a daily commute.)
Storing a car for up to one day at a TriMet park & ride remains free.
The project at Orenco is assisted by a grant from Metro, with matching funds from TriMet. The projects at Goose Hollow and Beaverton Creek are assisted by an Oregon Department of Transportation Connect Oregon grant, with matching funds from both Washington County and TriMet.
If you’d like to influence the facilities or design of the Goose Hollow or Beaverton Creek areas, contact TriMet Active Transportation Planner Jeff Owen: owenj@trimet.org.
— Michael Andersen, (503) 333-7824 – michael@bikeportland.org
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