The Port of Portland is ramping up urgency of a major expansion of NE 82nd Avenue to meet what they say are future demands at Portland International Airport (PDX).
At a meeting of the Portland Bureau of Transportation Freight Advisory Committee this week, Aaron Ray, the Port’s senior manager of aviation long-range planning, said PDX has rebounded well from a drop in travelers during the Covid-19 pandemic. That, combined with recently completed investments in their terminal facilities, have PDX planners nervous that traffic backups on 82nd (the only road into the terminal) could hurt the passenger experience.
PDX expects 27 million passengers a year by 2027 and says that number will grow to 34 million by 2045. When Ray’s presentation touched on how larger airport crowds would impact traffic on surrounding roads, he mentioned the intersection of NE Airport Way and 82nd Avenue as a pinch-point.
“We are looking at investments to 82nd and Airport Way to fly traffic over that intersection. The idea is that traffic coming from I-205 to and from the terminal won’t have a need to use the [existing] signal, they’ll fly over it,” Ray said.
This project idea isn’t new. The Port has eyed more driving capacity at this intersection for many years. It was also on a top priority list for investment as part of of Metro’s failed 2020 transportation bond measure.
In the Port’s 2024 Transportation Improvement Plan, the project is estimated to cost $119 million, $5 million of which would come from the City of Portland and $73 million of which remains unfunded. Here’s the brief description of the design provided in that plan:
“Grade-separate Eastbound Airport Way over 82nd Avenue to reduce intersection signal phase competition, merge northbound left-turners with westbound traffic without a traffic signal and reduce cross traffic exposure for bicycling and walking across Airport Way. Provide efficient movement of traffic to PDX properties.”
When this project was included in the package of investments in the Metro T2020 bond measure proposal, a coalition of environmental and transportation nonprofits strongly opposed it. The Getting There Together Coalition asked Metro to remove the project due to their concerns around how it would add new lanes and increase driving capacity.
At the freight committee meeting on Thursday Ray sounded confident about the project’s prospects, saying the flyover on 82nd Avenue is, “The next major landside investment that we’ll do.”
If you’d like to learn more, the project will be discussed at the Port’s Community Advisory Committee meeting on Tuesday, May 6th.
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Two things:
Indeed, the airport itself is the bottleneck, not 82nd. PDX can barely handle the traffic it already gets, and often has huge traffic jams of people waiting to drop off and pick up. The parking structures are also near capacity. I have no idea where they expect to put all these extra cars.
Express busses between the airport and major transit centers would be a big win, and very cost-effective. I really wish that’s something they’d lean into – I’d certainly take the bus instead of driving if I had access to a route that didn’t take 90+ minutes.
If we need special buses because our premier railed vehicles that already travel from transit centers along dedicated ROW are too slow or too cumbersome then that just speaks to a huge failure all around. Though, I suppose, the fact that TriMet now routinely turns to buses to replace some Max service should tell us something.
You can take your own personal bus to the airport, departing on your schedule, from any location of your choosing for about $40 (depending on location, of course). It has a nice app, and it’s pretty fast.
Given the number of people who would ride a conventional bus to the airport, and who aren’t already using Max (which costs around $10 per ride to operate, mostly coming out of your paycheck), I can’t imagine a fleet of scheduled express buses running at a reasonable cadence could be built and operated more cheaply, and the service would inevitably be worse (you’ve got to get yourself to the start point, and travel on the bus’ schedule) compared to the “personal bus” option, which conforms to your needs.
This is NOT an argument for or against the proposed intersection redesign. And I almost always take Max to the airport myself, except for those times when an early morning ghost train screws me, leading me panicking into the warm embrace of Lyft, with their clean vehicles, pleasant chit chat, and the near certainly I won’t step in puke or be shanked along my journey.
I think there’s a case for running buses down 82nd to the airport, but a 205 exclusive MAX line terminating at the airport would be far superior – especially for speed from East Portland, deep SE, and Clack Co. A big factor for airport travel is for employees, and I think on those grounds alone, faster transit connections are worth pursuing.
Clackamas TC to PDX would be a great MAX line addition. No new tracks needed. Northbound trains into Gateway would use the center platform to layover and reverse direction to head to PDX. Southbound would have to cross over from Gateway north, which is not ideal, but should be fine at 15 minute headways. This would cut the headways at PDX in half.
I presume you would want this in addition to existing Green Line service. Is there enough potential ridership to justify a new 15 minute train service along the Green line?
I’m pretty sure if it made operational sense, TriMet would have done it already.
Yeah, only if said employees actually lived close to this inflexible train line you advocate for.
Money spent on the trains (at least how TriMet mismanages them) is wasted. Buses are way more flexible and are less likely to have issues, which Max has shown over the years to have many. How many times every week does TriMet send out notices of “train delays upto 15 minutes due to mechanical issues”? How often do you see the same for buses?
RE: the “personal bus” framing – you do realize that the core problem that needs to be solved here is that the airport physically, as a matter of geometry, cannot accommodate personal vehicles for every single passenger, right?
It doesn’t matter if it’s a car I own, or one I summoned with an app. It causes car traffic the same either way. Assuming (generously) that the Port is correct and we’re looking at 100% more passengers in the next 2 decades, that is something that cannot and should not be solved by adding car capacity. If you’ve ever flown into or out of LAX, you know exactly what I’m talking about. The terminal is already a traffic nightmare at peak arrival/departure times.
As blumdrew points out (correctly), better MAX connectivity would be ideal here. My thought toward busses was that they’re something that’s comparatively easy to do w/ existing infrastructure, but I’d agree it’s not the ideal and that in the long run we should just have more direct train connectivity to the airport.
My point was that if Max doesn’t work, let’s fix Max, not try to address the issue with buses. That and the problem described (transit is slow) is a problem inherent in the model, and can’t really be solved by adding direct bus lines for every trip that’s slow.
Space may be limited, but so is money.
It actually causes more traffic using the “personal business” (barf), because after drop-off, drivers will circle around looking for another passenger.
And all you need to facilitate this miracle of modern capitalism is an exploitative gig economy nightmare of “self employed”, no benefits drivers trying to stay above water on their car payment!
“after drop-off, drivers will circle around looking for another passenger.”
Do Uber drivers circle the airport waiting for a customer? Here’s a hint: no.
Now that we have the Better Red improvements, it is now possible to run a short “shuttle” MAX line that loops through Gateway (drop off at Gateway North and layover and Gateway Main). We could effectively double the headways between Gateway and PDX, giving 15 minute or better all day, and 7 minute headways during regular hours. Some small traffic flow updates at Parkrose TC would make it a great spot for drop off and pick up.
We live close to MAX, and the service is great to PDX, to the point that I decline offers for rides to the airport. It just needs to run more frequently.
Improved airport connectivity via transit should be done via a new MAX line from Clackamas to the airport – something which would immediately improve access for basically all of East Portland, deep SE, and Clackamas County. At my old apartment, that would have taken an easy 20 minutes off my time to the airport (my current place wouldn’t see much movement since my local buses go to Gateway anyways).
Express buses from transit centers would not be cost effective.
Having previously lived along the Red line, I’d enthusiastically agree that expanding Streetcar/MAX ultimately makes much more sense & would be the best option.
But given the time it’d take to add a new MAX line in the current funding environment (presumably north of a decade), I’d happily as an interim measure take an express bus from the peninsula to the airport over spending 90 mins on the very indirect combo of 75 -> Yellow line -> Red line.
Basically anything is vastly preferable to dropping hundreds of millions incentivizing more car traffic.
Huge waste of money, especially at a time when so much of our existing infrastructure is reaching end-of-service life and replacements are unfunded. ODOT is replacing 3 bridges per year on average, at which rate, per ODOT’s Bridge Report, it will take 900 years to fully rebuild the system.
If the Port wants to fund this project interally, still an absurd waste of money, but fine, okay. But Portland, Metro, and the State shouldn’t give them a dime.
How is the Port of Portland funded? Does it have taxing authority?
It does show up on property tax bills, so I’d say yes (though I imagine it can’t arbitrarily raise those taxes). Aviation and non-aviation have to be budgeted separately per federal guidelines – so the airport side of things mostly pays for itself. It’s not clear to me if this project can be allocated to that bucket or not.
I get that they are trying to plan for the future but this seems like a huge solution for a problem that is nowhere close to being a reality yet.
Hard pass.
Nearly $120 million for a viaduct that will shave maybe a minute off travel time for around half of the drivers coming to or leaving the airport?
Think about how much bike infrastructure that could build.
How is this not just a huge subsidy to the Port’s parking revenue? Making it as easy as possible for people to drive rather than take transit and fill the Port’s long-term lots.
Guess how many Trimet bus lines go to the airport currently? Zero!
Really wish there was an express bus from downtown to PDX. Or for the downtown/loyd tunnel to finally happen and make the max be a bit more of a competitive transportation option.
And they should dedicate a lane on I-84 and I-205 just for buses and nothing else.
They built Max on the dedicated I205 transit lane. I think the same is true for I-84.
Portland continuing to show the world how it addresses the climate crisis!
I think this is fine, actually. The biggest chunk of funding, by far, is coming from the port if I’m understanding it correctly. I’d like to see them expand and connect the bike infrastructure in the wider airport area though. There’s lots of open space for bike paths that could enable a lot of folks who work in the services surrounding the airport to bike to work. Maybe the $5mil from the city could be used for that?
How far would $120 million go toward improved transit and better park and ride options or dealing with rush hour congestion related to Washington commutes? I usually take Max to the airport but when I do drive I don’t find NE 82nd to be crowded nor is it the only road to the airport. The backups I see (on the I-205 approaches) come from congestion from the large quantity of vehicles heading north to Washington. Otherwise, I can’t say I’ve seen an issue on either 82nd or Airport Way.
I took an airport administration class in college that was taught by the former manager of San Diego and Baltimore airports. The professor hammered the same point over and over: airports make the vast majority of their revenue from parking.
Of course the port authority wants to make PDX a car destination. Every US airport is the same. Airports are built and maintained by parking revenue and airline ticket taxes, but mostly parking revenue. Next time you’re at PDX, take a look at it’s big, beautiful, multi-story parking lot. PDX has 3750 short term parking spaces, 5300 covered long term spaces, and 7800 economy parking spaces. Parking costs at least $20/day. Those parking slots bring in a lot of money.
I work at the airport and I drive 82nd a lot (and I bike it a little). By the airport, 82nd is a deserted race track. It’s empty. I’d love to see PDX grow but I have a hard time imagining a backup on 82nd. This project seems like a waste of money.
Trimet’s Better Red project cost $215 million, and seemed like a much more worthy project for improving overall airport access and MAX reliability.
Spending half that much on an intersection seems like a much less worthy use of funds.
https://trimet.org/betterred/
A better red epitomizes my pessimism about trimet’s ability to actually meet the transportation needs of the area. In the ’90’s I used to take the bus to the airport (IIRC, 12 went up 82nd to the airport, but my memory is hazy). I was very excited to see max go to PDX, and I ride it if feasible when I fly. Is it better than the old articulated buses? Yes. Is it much better? No. It feels SO FREAKING SLOW, and it was expensive to build. A better red cost $215M. What did we get for it? “Improved reliability” — your train is less likely to no show! If we want enough transit to make it really ‘work’, the cost would be astronomical. I don’t have any answers, but it bums me out.
And, FFS, no, we don’t need a $120M project to ‘fix’ 82nd and Airport Way — it’s bad enough already! As soren pointed out above, planning for more air travel in the future is nuts from a climate point of view….
What you are missing about Better Red is that it didn’t just improve reliability for the Red line, but also for Blue and Green. It eliminated multiple track crossover movements at Gateway that would delay other lines regularly. If you ever had your train stop randomly along the Banfield in years prior, it was probably because of Red line movements at Gateway. It also enables potential future lines that would increase service levels to PDX.
Thanks for the information! I’m just pointing out the subjective experience of watching the max network grow very slowly and struggle to provide good service. To me eliminating “multiple track crossover movements” sounds like rectifying design deficiencies in the original Gateway layout. To the anxious traveler who is in a hurry to get to PDX riding around that weird clover-leaf at what feels like walking pace we can say, “hey — at least your train didn’t stop for no apparent reason on the Banfield!” It’s dispiriting to reckon with the political difficulty of improving transit. I for sure think investing in max (and busses) is worthwhile — I just find it to be a surprisingly hard sell, even to myself, and I certainly see why a lot of people throw their hands up and call an uber.
“Better Red” was a solution in search of a problem. There was no massive problem with delays of the Red line going to/from the airport. It was all a smoke screen to get massive amounts of tax payer dollars. Just think if they had spent that money on things that are actually needed. Bus shelters, on time buses, etc.
It will be way better to Grade Separate the Whole Intersections. Railroad Crossings will be Gone for Good. MAX Light Rail to go underneath the 82nd Bridge. A New Diamond Interchange will help Ease Congestions & Better Traffic Flowing. Vehicles to drive on the Left Side to Exit Left onto a Freeway.