At an advisory committee Tuesday morning, the Port of Portland fleshed out plans for big changes to the intersection of NE 82nd Way and Airport Way.
As I reported last week, the Port is moving forward on a project to relieve congestion at the busy intersection that feeds directly into Portland Airport terminals. At their meeting today, Port Aviation Planner Mike Coleman shared more details about the project and fielded a question about why the Port will invest over $100 million for a car-focused project when there’s a light rail line that goes directly to the terminal.
Coleman said Airport Way is the busiest surface street in the state of Oregon with 60,000 car users passing through it each day. The intersection handles airport traffic and regional traffic headed to and from the I-205 bridge. Currently there are 13 general travel lanes entering the intersection, as well as two tracks of MAX light rail vehicles. This leads to long signal wait times, made even longer because of the eight MAX trains that rumble by each hour (something that “interrupts the operation of the intersection,” Coleman said).
Coleman said the Port isn’t planning to expand the width of the roadways or add any more lanes. Instead, their design reduces the number of traffic movements that require separate signal phases . Their solution creates a flyover on Airport Way for eastbound (toward Cascade Station/I-205) drivers to avoid the signal altogether. Westbound (toward the airport) drivers would also avoid a signal by having two through lanes without facing cross-traffic. The two left turn lanes that come from 82nd Way would be separated as they join the westbound lanes on Airport Way and there would be no need for merging. People who want to use 82nd Way would turn under the overpass.
“So really, lane-wise, nothing changes,” Coleman said at today’s committee meeting. “We just move some of those conflicting movements out of the intersection. So no additional lanes, and yet a snappier, single operation.”
Coleman also claimed new design would make crossing Airport Way easier for people walking and biking. Non-drivers would still need to cross nine lanes (plus the two MAX tracks) to reach the Airport Way frontage road, but that’s two less than today’s crossing. And the new design would mean walkers and bikers would face only one lane of eastbound car traffic instead of four. Put another way, if you want to get to the frontage road from NE 82nd Way today, the crossing currently consists of six different segments — a slip-lane, then the MAX tracks, then three eastbound lanes, then two westbound turn lanes, then three more westbound lanes, then the two lanes of the frontage road. The new design removes one of those segments.
Coleman said the new crossing will be a, “Much safer, much simpler approach to pedestrian and bicycle access at the interchange.”
For a project estimated to cost well over $100 million and that’s being pitched as a safety project (more on that below) that type of crossing still leaves something to be desired for folks who aren’t driving. Non-drivers will cross underneath a short tunnel, creating possible public safety concerns. And it remains unclear what type of crossing walkers and bikers will have. Will they be flashing beacons or full signals? Will the detection be responsive?
During his presentation Tuesday, Coleman said no new lanes are in the plans at the moment. But the Port understands width exists for adding more in the future. Speaking about the two westbound lanes and generous shoulder width, Coleman said, “Early on, I’m confident that this could actually be done with only two through lanes, but three lanes would be available in the future.”
After Coleman’s presentation, another member of the committee questioned the intent of the project, saying he felt it was being designed to allow more driving. “$100 million for a project that facilitates more cars coming to the airport when we have a light rail system that connects directly to it? I think funds could be better spent,” the commenter said.
Coleman responded by saying typical trip generation rules don’t apply to the airport and he believes induced demand is “less likely.” Coleman pushed backed at the notion the project was about increasing capacity for drivers. “This is a multi-category project. I’d say it’s safety-oriented; it’s delay-reducing.”
The Port’s Chief Aviation Officer Dan Pippenger backed up Coleman. “Many of our passengers don’t have access to the light rail system. They’re coming from outside of it.” Pippenger then said backups on the road can be “pretty rough” during peak times and “We just want to get [those drivers] through and out.”
“You know, we’re still a car-based economy,” Pippinger added. “And what we can get out of it, we can maybe foresee those reductions that we would all like to see in emissions and things of that nature.”
So far, the Port has completed preliminary design work and is confident they have a buildable project. The design will be finalized in the coming year and they hope to break ground in 2027.
Thanks for reading.
BikePortland has served this community with independent community journalism since 2005. We rely on subscriptions from readers like you to survive. Your financial support is vital in keeping this valuable resource alive and well.
Please subscribe today to strengthen and expand our work.
Pippenger is right: The MAX just doesn’t work for most people going to PDX. Heck – it hardly even works for people in Portland itself. A Trimet journey from SW Portland to PDX takes over 90 minutes at the best of times but only around 30 minutes by car. If you have an early morning flight, Trimet buses don’t run early enough to get you to the MAX.
I hate the idea of spending $100M to make driving to PDX easier and wish it could be spent on an express train to the airport. But that $100M wouldn’t even buy a mile of track and it would need to come from another pot of money etc. We have sunk so much money into car-based infra that almost nothing else we try even makes a dent.
One thing Coleman mentioned is that the MAX needs to run 24 hrs a day to the airport to fully realize its potential. He said it’s missing a ton of riders due to its limited service hours.
Max would need to run more hours, and so would the bus service feeding into the Max. It would be a very expensive proposition to serve the relatively small number of people with early flights who would use the service (and perhaps some employees). This during the off-off-off peak late night/early morning hours when the roads have tons of excess capacity and driving is at its easiest.
Even with all that, it would still take 3x as long to get from SW to the airport by transit.
I dunno, lots of systems around the world run not-24/7 and get a lot of ridership. The hours it’s not running are ~1a-5a, hardly the busiest in a day. Using those hours for other rings–namely maintenance–is a lot more important to ensure that the hours it is running can go smoothly. I’m fairly certain that low frequency/long travel times are more of a deterrent for most people.
I’ve heard an issue for airport workers using MAX is that the shift times often start before the MAX starts running (they have to get there by 5 am or something to be ready for the early flights), or they end after the MAX stops running. It really is a 24-hour operation for employees.
Fair point, but proportionate to the total number of people at the airport, those working there are a fairly small number. It’d make more sense from a cost and reliability perspective to see which bus services are (or could be) most popular with airport workers, and extend service hours where it makes sense.
How much would that cost and who’s gonna pay for it? Via another tax for just the “wealthy” in Multnomah County? Reminds me of a book about the wrecked whaling ship Essex. Starving sailors made it to an island with lots of birds. Life was good as they had plenty of seabird stew. Then all the birds flew away. The remaining sailors resorted to cannibalism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Heart_of_the_Sea
Typically all airport projects are paid for by charging the actual airline companies that use the terminal–that was how the recent terminal remodel was paid for. The airlines, to some extent depending on how competitive their flights are, can pass along some of that cost to the people who buy their tickets. But in any case, typically little to no taxpayer dollars are involved in airport projects, and if they did, it’s often through competitive grants.
I’m not super-sure extended hours would help. I decided to take Max from the airport to downtown for my dental appointment. It took an hour and a half, the train felt dirty and stinky, and was mostly empty except for sleeping homeless people (who were pretty rank). It was incredibly time-consuming and not a pleasant experience. I ended up taking an Uber back because I didn’t have three hours travel time to get to downtown and back. That’s pretty excessive for about 10 miles each way. I literally could have bicycled it faster. And I wouldn’t want to do that at night to catch an early flight.
I’m a big proponent of public transport. To be successful and desirable, it needs to be relatively fast, clean, safe 24 hours a day, and confidence-inspiring.
I don’t disagree – the MAX to the airport is only really useful if you’re traveling to/from downtown, or one of the stops between the airport and downtown. Yes, one can transfer from the bus at various transit centers, but with 15 minute frequencies on the red line the transfer penalty is just too great.
To really make it useful to passengers and employees going to the rest of Portland, they need to at least double the frequency on the red line or create a new line between the airport and one of the other branches (i.e. to Clackamas TC, Gresham or Expo Center). That would then create the frequency where people are on average only waiting a few minutes for their bus > MAX transfer.
I don’t see the issue. After all, the only two groups that matter to Portland’s leaders are 1) tourists and 2) homeless. The rest of us can pound sand (and pay taxes).
It was such a missed opportunity to not build the “Better Red” project at Gateway in such a way that it would enable a north-south Clackamas to PDX line to be overlaid on top of the current service, doubling frequency. All they need is one northbound track to connect the two!
I entirely agree. Any fix will now cost a lot more than if they’d designed the Better Red project a little… better.
Yeah, definitely baby steps. I might be wrong, but I think it would only take a very small section of track at the junction.
Current number of Trimet bus lines going to the airport: 0
I’m not sure how this would work. Say you had a bus-to-the-airport route in all 5 (6?) “quadrants” of the city. In order to be effective, they’d need to make a relatively hasty route to PDX. So people would probably get to them by transferring from a different bus line. For most quadrants, you’ll probably have to pass though the Rose Quarter or Lloyd Center(ish) areas, and at that point you might as well jump on the MAX
Wasn’t there a time when both the #12 bus and MAX served the airport?
I don’t know. But if you’re taking a bus from an arbitrary location in Trimet’s service area to get to the #12, you can probably get to the red line just as fast.
The 12 served the airport in the pre Red Line days
I would start with the 72 bus on 82nd Ave. The proposed new terminus is in Cully across the street from some giant piles of dirt. The airport would be a much better terminus.
There is no policy benefit to the decision. It’s just convenient for the people who run Trimet and run the airport.
FWIW The Port said no to the new 82nd BRT project going to the airport. Said they didn’t have the space to host in the terminal. It was studied at length and ultimately the Port determined they couldn’t accommodate.
I’d push back on your characterization of the terminal in Cully. There is tons of future TOD development going in at the proposed terminal. Right now it’s not all there, but it’s def in the cards. That said, with the ODOT highways right there, definitely not ideal
Nearly any bus line to the airport would simply steal ridership from the MAX, rather than add new ridership, since there is only one way to get to the airport, from the east. It will always make more sense to force a transfer, since there is a ton of MAX capacity.
Lots of people come to PDX from outside the immediate community and making their experience smooth and efficient is a worthwhile goal. They can’t just jump on the Max, walk or ride their bike to the airport. Portland needs all the positive economic activity it can get right now…this seems like a step in the right direction. Keeping the status quo just to stymie vehicle use seems like a poor strategy.
I am a terrible reader, I guess. I don’t see anything about stymying vehicle use as a reason for opposing the project. The straw man knocks down too easily.
Off topic sort of but… does anyone know if there are small lockers available if one rides to the airport? I was going to ride a few months ago but then I wasn’t sure what to do with my helmet, pump, tools, lights etc. so I had someone drop me off.
I asked inside but the question just seemed out of left field to them and they indicated there were not lockers available.
I’m almost positive there are not; security and all that.
The answer is sort of no- PDX does not provide low-cost lockers. A private company called Stashers provides luggage storage for somewhere between $6 and $15 per day (different spots state different prices) which is pretty outrageous.
When I bike to PDX, I just pack my gear with me. Once TSA took a look at my multitool but were satisfied when they found it was not a drill.
This is a huge waste of resources for a nonissue. Car travel to and from the airport is fine.
The ram is comically steep as well. People are going to go airborne on this thing.
Also, they’re spending $100 million and it doesn’t even eliminate the at-grade MAX crossing point at the intersection? Elevating 82nd itself would be a better solution if we want to give this intersection freeway vibes.
I was thinking the same, but I don’t know the delay from the MAX. It doesn’t seem that substantial. I’m ambivalent on this project, but it does seem like IF there were to be ped/bike access to the North side of Airport Way, a full tunnel would be better. Not sure it’s necessary since the bike path is on the south side.
PDX serves a large region, not just the city. What PDX really needs is the main Portland Amtrak station within and directly under the main terminal, with trains running under the Columbia Sough and River. PDX to PDX.
You know you can already go PDX to PDX on the red line MAX, right?
He wants to make the trip by rail.
What are those things that MAX trains run on?
Not superdry humor, apparently.
You’re gonna need a lot of pumps to keep those tunnels dry
I live fairly close to the airport so it’s the most frequent place I drive as it’s convenient for friends and family. Whether I’m taking 82nd or 205 the light at 82nd and Airport Way has almost no impact on my commute compared to all the traffic trying to cut through the city on 82nd or take 205 into Washington. Heck I’ll frequently wait longer getting onto the freeway at Glisan than I’ll wait at 82nd. It at most adds 1 to 2 minutes to my commute and that’s if I have to wait for the full light. It’s really a non issue.
Everyone is talking about the airport servicing people outside of Portland but I’m sure the light at 82nd has even less of an impact on their overall commute than it does for someone living 15 minutes down the road like myself.
Wow, an overpass? No wonder it’s 9 figures (make no mistake, the cost will probably double during development). And a significant downgrade to what was already a troubled crossing for those of us who bike to pdx. How about a flyover from the Embassy Suites to the frontage? I’d swoon and then die of surprise if that ever got built.
I live by the airport and because of that I end up taking friends/family to/from the airport a couple of times a month at random hours.
I don’t understand the traffic issues, it’s always been fine for me.
Feels like there’s no shortage of better things we could do with one hundred million dollars!
What could one hundred million dollars do to change SW Barbur or East 82nd Avenue? That kind of money could put power lines underground which means great street trees could be planted.
Good idea, campers need firewood.
Careful, Multnomah County and/or the City will start funding a nonprofit to provide a “free” firewood delivery service to urban campsites if you keep mentioning this. Anything to save the trees right?
Quick, someone draw up a grant to fund enough new tree plantings to offset the carbon footprint of enabling thousands of homeless related fires every year
A project to make it easier to travel in the least efficient mode of ground travel (cars) to get to the most polluting mode of overall travel (aircraft). High speed rail when? We are running out of time. 2024 was the hottest year on record.
*Least efficient on some metrics. Most efficient on others, like time, comfort, ease of traveling with luggage, and, for visitors, comprehendability/directness.
Those are all pretty debatable.
Time, because we elected to build our cities for cars and not people. Comfort, because U.S. rail vehicles are almost exclusively trash. I’ll debate ease of travel even as it is; it’s more effort to hoist a suitcase into a trunk than onto a bus/roll it off the MAX. For visitors, I can think of nothing less intelligible than an unfamiliar city than its road network, even with a navigation system. I know where a rail line starts and where it stops; everything else can be easily oriented around that.
I just got back from a trip to South Korea, and between the train from the airport, and the subway to my hotel, and the train from Seoul to Busan, it couldn’t have been easier to get around without a car. The mess we’ve made here was a choice, and an almost entirely avoidable–and now eminently fixable–one.
Perhaps so, but you go to the airport in the city you have, not the city you wish you had.
A few weeks ago, I had dinner with guests from out of town, who were staying at a hotel less than a block from Max. I tried several times to convince them to take the train to the airport, but they were unsure about getting on the right train, how to get a ticket, and even where to go (they didn’t want to get on a train going the wrong direction). They took an Uber. It was just easier, and they didn’t want to add to the stress of flying.
In short, every transit system is unique and bespoke, but Uber is the same everywhere.
“Perhaps so, but you go to the airport in the city you have, not the city you wish you had.”
Rumsfield was such a POS and its a shame he was never sent to the Hague on charges.
Nothing to do with the sentiments of your post, that line just gets me still.
But you got to admit, it was a good line.
It was, and relevant in a lot of other ways as you demonstrated.
The city I wish I had is, coincidentally, also the one Portland wants to be: more climate-aware, transit friendly, populous, and denser, at least if land values and the population growth trajectory of the region means anything. We have financial reasons, too, to try to make better use of the assets we have (like the MAX) rather than cart the expense of transportation off onto private automobile traffic (which we know costs everyone more in the long run).
And I’m sure it’s part of my general attitude toward travel, but not being a part of the traffic problem in any city I travel if I can avoid doing so seems like a small courtesy for being a visitor to a place, and knowing how to get around is just…part of being an adult. (How would these people have functioned before Uber [which we know has ethical concerns of its own]? They’d have to have called a cab, which isn’t necessarily a simple and risk-free process.) If you can download and sync an app and debit card for Uber, you can do the same for a transit system.
My comment was referencing things as they are, not as they may (or may not) one day be.
But, I strongly suspect, transit will always be slow because it has to make lots of stops. It’s baked directly into its fundamental design.
At the moment, with each transit system in each city working differently (and even different parts of the same system being different — Max, bus, and FX (and probably WES) all have differences) it is simply harder and more complex for people who have never used a particular system to figure it out compared to using something they’ve done perhaps dozens of times.
Telling me it’s easy doesn’t change that. What might is some sort of universal transit app that lets you pay for the system wherever you may be, and explains the fare rules to you (zones, fare discounts, transfers, etc.)
Well, that would still be a bit more complicated.
You’ll take my Amtrak Superliners from me over my cold dead body. I’ve ridden on some pretty atrociously uncomfortable European intercity trains. Nothing compares to the soft luxury of recently refurbished Superliner. Which you’ll need for the long trip.
I don’t think there’s a huge difference between a new-ish MAX train and a new-ish European tram. The transit industry writ large has been shifting away from rider comfort for a long time – just compare the old BART seats to the new ones – but I don’t think that’s exclusive to the US.
People don’t have a problem sleeping on those new Max trains so must not be all that bad.
Driving to the airport is amazingly convenient. That’s an efficiency metric.
Reminder: this is an agency that spends over a half-million dollars on its director’s salary. They spend billions and don’t blink an eye.
It’s so sad that this project is what hundred(s) of millions of our tax dollars are being used for, when hundreds of Oregonians die in traffic each year. Our roads aren’t safe because we’re doing projects like this.
Never had a problem with congestion at the airport; there’s no evidence in this article of significant congestion.
I think this project is not needed, but it’s misleading to frame it as wasteful of taxpayer dollars. The airport is self-funding through fees charged to airlines and passengers, and that money has to be spent on airport related expenses. I’m not 100% sure this project falls under that, but I think it’s probable that it does.
If we look at only roads that the Port reasonably would be improving, this probably isn’t the highest priority (improving safety around Lombard/Columbia comes to mind – the overpass of the railway around there is definitely sketchy to ride). But in the very narrow scope of “Port roads that airport funds can be spent on”, this intersection isn’t the worst choice. But I do think improving safety/traffic around the cell phone lot area should be a way higher priority (82nd/Air Cargo Way). Maybe moving the lot to be somewhere that doesn’t require people to use this intersection at 82nd at all! I’ve walked to the airport and 82nd/Air Cargo is definitely horrible to use as a pedestrian (I also hate using it as a driver)
Is it silly that the FAA prevents airport funds from being used on non-airport projects by authorities that run airports? There’s certainly an argument for it. But changing that would not mean the Port would be spending this $100M on making Barbur or Powell safe to ride a bike or walk.
$100 million is truly astronomical for a single overpass. For reference, ODOT has been spending around $1,000/sf on recent bridge projects (Umpqua bridge (2022), Three Mile Lane (2024)). This is a ~10,000 sf bridge. If costs were in line with average ODOT bridge costs, it would cost $10 million.That is probably more or less what the bridge itself costs. Maybe $20 million with approach abutments. The rest must be traffic control, temporary alignments, property acquisition, relocation of the frontage road, etc–though how that adds up to these kinds of costs is beyond me.
Here’s a better idea. Build the at-grade inbound bypass. That will be cheap and will benefit travelers who are actually on a schedule. But drop the silly bridge for vehicles exiting the airport. If backups there are still a concern, eliminate the left-turn motion from EB Airport Way to SB 82nd. A turnaround can be added at the parking garage exits to accommodate the motion, and/or vehicles can just use the interchanges at Mt Hood Ave or I-205.
I think this is a great option, but they probably would need to site the cell phone waiting lot elsewhere (since it requires a left from EB airport to SB 82nd). They should do that anyways, since it’s in a place that obviously constrains this intersection!
What if they put the money towards building an “airport commuter” parking garage at Gateway Transit Center? Then run the MAX red line from there to the airport all night, and/or have bus service. Seems like a good way to make it easy for people to get to the airport, while using and encouraging public transit, and reducing traffic at the airport. It really is great just getting off the MAX and being at the airport.
What problem would a parking structure at Gateway solve? That seems to be simply an ever more distant long-term parking lot, except even less convenient, so it would have to be cheaper.
It’s a contrived way of getting people to ride the train, I guess. And when it doesn’t prove successful we can stomp our feet and stew about “car brains” who don’t want to add 30 minutes to their airport trip.
And it’s possible now that we have the Better Red improvements at Gateway. We could double the service levels between Gateway and PDX. Park and Ride at Gateway, Uber/passenger drop off space at Parkrose TC.
The biggest issue with congestion at PDX is the terminal loop itself. The light at 82nd is basically a non issue.
I would rather more housing get built at Gateway.
There’s a huge empty lot across from the Fred Meyer at Gateway. Plans at one time was to have mixed use development there with housing, then Covid hit and plans fell through.
Rumors in the development industry is there’s new plans for the space, but of course it’ll take years and years.
There’s a parking structure already at GTC that is never filled anymore. Face it TriMet sucks at getting people around to and from the locations that they need to.
Uber/Lyft/Whatever is likely a better option (it’s how I get to airports around the country when I need to fly).
My rationale for always taking the MAX to/from the airport is that on days I’m flying, I haven’t scheduled other things; the flight to wherever is the thing I have to do that day. Ergo, that it takes ~1.25 hours to get from Beaverton/Cedar Hills is mostly irrelevant. Pair that with the fact that a round trip is $5.60 and parking is a minimum of $15 dollars a day, and it’s the easiest choice to make.
However, the fact that the MAX is so much slower than driving is a problem. Frequency can more or less be addressed without major changes: buy more trains/hire more drivers. The fact that it’s so slow needs a tunnel through downtown/signaling upgrades/higher average speeds is a more expensive proposition (certainly >$100M), but one that the city should be looking into if it ever wants MAX to really matter.
A lot of people say this, but I always assumed that Max had signal priority. Does it actually spend a lot of time waiting for vehicles and traffic lights? Would a tunnel actually help that much absent other upgrades like reducing stops (which could be done without a tunnel)?
Can verify that it does not have signal priority.
Stop consolidation would help–and is so essential for a tunnel to e.g., avoid needing a million access points that it’s assumed in any tunnel proposal I’ve seen–but there are FRA regulations regarding speed and grade crossings that would require protection in a lot of places, enough that it would significantly eat into the advantages of a tunnel….Among which is the fact that Portland’s short blocks mean shorter rail vehicles are required, further limiting capacity (at least absent an increase in frequency).
You also would lose out on the opportunity for improved geometry through downtown. Lots of reason a tunnel makes sense, along the same lines that a commuter/regional rail tunnel makes sense in Boston/Chicago: significantly increasing the ridership potential of the entire network by speeding up travel along it everywhere.
As an aside, I’ve yet to figure out why MAX ridership peaked in 2016–before COVID, before Measure 110, before anything that looks to me like an obvious potential cause. Anyone know?
Lots of places had transit ridership peaks in the 2010 to 2016 range. The rise of Uber/Lyft is a much more obvious proximate cause. Measure 110 didn’t pass until 2020, at which point the whole Covid thing is a much clearer cause of the ridership drop
And the MAX definitely has signal preemption. I drove through downtown this week and definitely had to wait for a train to roll through in a way that clearly altered the signal timing
It sure seems like it does, with those big signs that light up and stop traffic whenever a Max is approaching.
Not at every stop. I know for sure that I’ve stopped at lights on the Blue/Red line going through downtown.
Knowing how those ride-hail services have always operated–and what they’ve done to our cities–I’m glad I’ve never used them.
I ride the Yellow/Orange/Green through downtown a lot and the Red/Blue sparingly, so it could be that the signals on the transit mall are better for the MAX than the ones on Yamhill/Morrison.
Even with a clear green signal across the entirety of downtown, there’s no way MAX would roll faster than 10mph. Too many grade-level hazards like peds, cross traffic and distracted bike bloggers.
Even with dedicated lanes and signal priority, a surface-running light rail crossing a ton of intersections like in downtown Portland is very limited in terms of speed and dwell time at stops. It’s a safety issue–with so many drivers and pedestrians and bikes and everything, lots of blocks and signals to deal with, the trains aren’t allowed to just fly through there, and no amount of clever signal priority would allow it to go faster than the speed limit. Grade-separated rail can go way, way faster, simply because it is safer and there aren’t all these other factors in play.
The MAX does have signal priority, at least when the train is in motion, but that doesn’t mean the signals in downtown don’t still limit frequency. The signals do have to change back at some point after all. I think running in downtown has a lot of operational challenges – pedestrian safety being a big one, but stop spacing as well – that slow trains down.
A tunnel would allow for higher max speeds, but it’s not the only way to do that. Creating more of a dedicated right of way style alignment similar to Dallas (where the trains go almost twice as fast – 4 minutes to go 1.25 km vs. 7 minutes to go 1.3 in Portland) could also go a long way to speeding trains up. I think the important thing to plan around is that with a big train, there are inherent safety issues the more factors there are to deal with. Removing buses and cars from the road that the MAX uses in downtown would allow for higher speeds. My cheapest idea for that would be to run the MAX in a dedicated alignment on 5th, while converting 6th to two-way bus-only (similar to 3rd in Seattle). That could be a $100M project, but would only relate to the Yellow/Orange/Green lines. For the Red/Blue, I guess it would have to be a similar treatment on Morrison.
When you look at regional transit, even with a downtown tunnel the MAX is still slow. Gresham to Hillsboro on the Blue Line is an hour and 45 – 21 minutes of which is spent between Goose Hollow and Lloyd. Even if you could teleport from Goose Hollow to Lloyd, that’s the better part of an hour and a half for something that can be driven in 45 minutes to an hour. Add a bus connection on either end, and the trip becomes so long that very few people will be able to functionally use it.
In German speaking parts of Europe, where the statdhbahns that inspired the MAX originate, main line trains are used for regional mobility with a statdhbahn/tram/light rail/bus would be used for more local or intracity trips. Take the Ruhr cities (Essen, Dortmund, Duisburg, Dusseldorf, Cologne). You can get from Essen to Dusseldorf on the statdhbahn, but it takes well north of an hour. It won’t even show up as an option on Google Maps – instead, the suggestion is a regional or intercity train which takes 25 minutes and runs every 15 minutes. Of course, the Ruhr agglomeration is much larger and more densely populated than Portland, but the principle applies to most cities in Germany and Switzerland. The problem with light rail in Portland is that it’s the only thing we’ve ever built, and trying to do regional mobility on a local mode is difficult.
Do we have the urban population to support a Portland S-Bahn? I’m not sure. We almost certainly do not have the desire to make a second rail link between Hillsboro and Gresham. I think there are places where we could justify fast, suburban oriented trains if we built a dedicated high-speed intercity line essentially paralleling I-5 (I obviously support that idea, but I know it’s a long shot right now).
This exactly the problem — we can (and should) remove bottlenecks where we can, but transit is an inherently slow way to get around. That’s an unavoidable consequence of the fundamental design.
I can’t imagine the demand for travel between Hillsboro and Gresham could possibly justify a new train line.
Modern American transit anyways. In parts of the world where good higher speed mainline passenger rail exists, this is often not the case. Back in Germany, it’s about twice as fast to travel from central Cologne to central Duisburg via transit than it is by car, thanks to a regional train coming every 20 minutes. I think Germany is a good point of comparison since it has a strong automotive culture and lots of freeways (including many urban ones).
I think this is why we need to have regional or inter-regional transit lines first, with more local connections emphasized only after this is done. There is probably not enough demand from Tualatin to Portland to justify a stand alone transit project to serve just that market, but there seems to be a general feeling that the interregional Eugene-Salem-Portland-Vancouver-Olympia-Tacoma-Seattle-Vancouver market is enough to justify a high level of investment. Those tracks have to go somewhere, and once they are built, the marginal cost of running a higher speed S-Bahn style service between Vancouver WA and Wilsonville becomes small enough to potentially justify it. Hillsboro-Beaverton-Portland-Gresham doesn’t really exist in the same space since it’s not located on a similar higher priority regional/interregional axis.
This is the same logic that interstate freeways and transcontinental railways were built on. The interregional connections were used to justify the investment, then once they were built the cost of adding a flag stop for a farming town, or a freeway exit for a new suburb were trivial compared to the benefits.
You’re talking about intercity regional rail, I’m talking about local transit that makes lots of stops (which is the unavoidably slow part, even in Germany). They’re very different beasts. There’s no reason (besides money) regional rail can’t be faster than driving, especially in specific geographies, even in the US.
I’m looking forward to taking the new rail line between SF and LA, which I expect to be finished up sometime in the near future. That will be much faster than driving (though it might be cheaper to fund a hot air balloon service powered by burning $100 bills).
The RE regional trains make the run in about the same amount of time as the ICE ones, though they run slightly less frequently (the RE2 runs about hourly for example). My point is that having actual regional transit is important for regional trips, and relying on essentially local modes to do regional trips is bad policy. We shouldn’t expect the MAX to be able to out compete even majorly congested freeways, we should build regional transit options which are frequent enough to actually attract every day travel.
I know supporting CAHSR makes me a sucker, but the part of the project that is operational is the electrified section of Caltrain from SF to San Jose and that project has been successful in reducing travel times and increasing ridership (even if it’s also been so so unreasonably expensive).
Absolutely. I’ll support any regional rail project that can attract enough riders to make it make sense.
I listened to a long presentation about why CAHSR is so slow and so expensive, and came to the conclusion that deciding not to follow I-5 and instead blaze a new trail through the Central Valley was quite possibly fatal.
See you on the Bakersfield run!
Look at us, in full agreement about things. Miracles do happen.
I think the choice to directly serve Fresno and Bakersfield is excusable in some ways (they are major cities in their own right), but I agree that not following I5 was foolish. More foolish was not starting construction with the part of the line connecting LA to Bakersfield – since having any passenger service from LA to the southern Central Valley is almost certainly more important for ridership than speeding up Bakersfield – Fresno (already served by the good-for-Amtrak San Joaquins).
And most foolish was choosing Pacheco Pass rather than Altamont/Niles Canyon to directly serve San Jose (rather than using the abandoned Dumbarton rail bridge). The route over Altamont and through Niles Canyon would have required far less tunneling and would have allowed easier future connections to Oakland (via either the existing UP Niles or Coast subdivisions or I-880), and it still would have had easy direct connections to Silicon Valley via Redwood City. Spending an extra $20B to directly serve San Jose was very stupid, especially since a timed connection in Redwood City via Caltrain or a BART interchange in Fremont would have been far less expensive.
And don’t get me started on the stupid downtown San Francisco terminus. A very sharp double S curve underground to connect to the world’s most overbuilt bus terminal rather than any other option (following Embarcadero to the Ferry Building, following 7th to a new station near City Hall, making 4th/King work, etc.) is just pure hubris.
Ezra Klein keeps asking why we can’t build things, but I ask why we keep designing unbuildable projects.
What bugs me, though, is that in terms of distances covered and the size of the region served, the MAX is a regional rail service.
Other than a line into Vancouver, a N/S connection of the towns on the west side (and upgrading/maybe extending the WES to Salem), the MAX already connects every satellite town of Portland. It’s just not fast or frequent enough to be a useful alternative to driving…never even mind the appalling land use around most of the stations, and that we keep building almost everything to accommodate car traffic at the expense of pedestrian/cyclist accessibility.
Yes, Max is a regional service, in the sense that it connects to many parts of the region, but not in the sense that it will get you to the next region. And, as you say, it sucks for traveling regional distances — for that you need something a bit more direct and point to point that doesn’t make dozens of stops to let someone on or off (or not) along the way, or require you to change vehicles mid-trip in order to change direction. In other words, it’s not the right tool for the task.
It may be a bold prediction, but I think that it’s not going to change anytime soon.
I have spent an hour on the subway from JFK into NYC. I have also spent 45 minutes just in LAX when trying to get to or from a particular terminal by motor vehicle. So the idea that drivers “deserve” to drive to the airport to get their quickly presumes that motor vehicles are the norm and that motor vehicle traffic doesn’t slow anyone down. Neither of these is inherently true. Especially not when our measure of “success” as a city is increased population growth and increased tourism (neither of which is inherently a measure of “success” for an urban environment, either).
**** this boondoggle. We should be discouraging air travel, not making it easier for people to drive their greenhouse-gas pollution-spewing mega-SUVs in order to fly climate-destroying jets.
Oh no, I totally agree with this.
Me too, I guess we all agree with soren from time to time 🙂
I am going to Eastern Europe next week because I like to expose myself to other
cultures. I suppose I could take a boat or something or just stay home and read about other countries and political systems and then pretend I am a socialist or whatever you do on the internet, but
I prefer to fly there and actually experience other countries culture.
Sorry for living in the real world, you can stay in your basement.
It’s better to stay home and fantasize about the bike infrastructure elsewhere than it is to actually experience it yourself. You might find that it’s not as amazing as you were led to believe! This can be traumatic and damaging to the psyche of someone who’s been fed a constant stream of America Sucks propaganda for their entire adult lives.
Imagine the disappointment of finding out that people in Amsterdam love to drive cars! Even downtown!
It’s best to stay home and rely on what pundits tell you. Well, unless taxpayers are funding your trip…
I fantasize about the hoarded wealth of economically-comfortable people being re-distributed. Cycling infrastructure is just one natural consequence of this process.
Perhaps we should donate some of our unloved bike lanes to developing nations!
After all, the activists keep telling me that “paint does nothing!”
That doesn’t make sense… The new reciprocal bike lane tariffs would be too punishing.
What?!? Not again! I agree with this dream as well.
I also (believe it or not) share that dream as long as we do away with the stock market so wealth is real and centered on brain and/or muscle sweat (figuratively). I disagree with many of the socialist cravings here because there is no realistic way for actual wealth to be redistributed fairly and/or equitibly and little incentive for enough people to keep producing food or clothing, let alone anything else once wealth is available without effort.
As a fantasy though I am all for it!
So I can’t buy a piece of my neighbor’s business at a price set by public auction? (which is what the stock market essentially is, scaled up by a zillion)
Though I suppose if the state owns everything it would no longer serve a purpose.
Exactly!! And we will all be happy.
But seriously, that may have been the original aim and reality of the stock market, but that’s not all it is anymore and I think you know that. Many things should be abolished and reset to better deal with the technology and abilities of a new era. The current stock market simply acts as a profit driver for the rich and/or connected to get richer without labor or ability, but offers just a hint of that wealth to everyone else to keep the myth going.
The poorest countries on the earth don’t have a stock market (about 20 countries most of which you can’t name.)
A sure fire way to ensure complete poverty is to Not have a stock exchange.
Even Cuba has one.
The poorest countries on Earth don’t have a lot of things. Correlation is not causation.
Re-distribute the wealth and everyone can afford an F150. I don’t think it would turn out the way you think in America.
I sure hope you don’t have children – their carbon footprints are astounding.
Not completely unfair, but insofar as you consider travel to be ceteris paribus a good thing, there’s no real replacement for it for very long distances. We already have a negligibly-impactful travel mode to the airport (the MAX), and flying remains an infrequent luxury for most people, in contrast to driving, which we’ve made a daily near-necessity.
Maybe PDX can (in our fantasy) ban private jet travel outside of e.g., medical emergencies, etc.?
Please re-read the above and consider whether I meant “Maybe PDX can … ban private jet travel”. The subtext of my comment is that we should discourage AND gradually provide alternatives.
Well, that’s the thing: there is currently meaningfully no alternative to flight for travel over ~1000km, and that’s assuming you have high speed rail to get you those first 1000km.
Discouraging flight is already accomplished by it being often inconvenient, uncomfortable, expensive, and–most significantly–unnecessary for the vast majority of travel people do. By contrast, we continue to do almost everything we can to incentivize driving and arguably excessive consumption, by allowing sprawl into bigger and more distant housing units, building more and wider roads for bigger and heavier cars, underpricing road usage and fuel, etc.
It’s a much longer road to hoe to get people to drive less because our country’s default lifestyle is built on doing it multiple times on a daily basis. I think that for almost anyone, a flight to somewhere remains remarkably unusual.
I think you should reconsider your thoughts on air travel. Americans do an astounding amount of it. I’m sure all your personal travel is really worthwhile, but I personally think people take a lot of unnecessary air trips. Way more than we used to. This is one way in which we have really increased per capita emissions in the last 50 years. Has it made us happier?
We should tax air travel to/from PDX.
“ Well, that’s the thing: there is currently meaningfully no alternative to flight for travel over ~1000km, ”
Is this really a problem worth the toxic waste spewed out by commuter and private aircraft? Not trying to be snarky, I just see people defending air travel who at the same time mock people who use a car for grocery trips to Costco.
There’s very little need for a person to go cross country in a few hours. If it’s about your personal convenience as a first world person I don’t know what else to say as Im guessing you think it’s your right to travel that way.
So we should make it more difficult for drivers to get to the airport? Sounds like a real crowd pleaser, for both the Port and their patrons /s
It would fit the PBOT playbook, though: make life more difficult for the greatest number of Portlanders for the benefit of the very few
I’m planning to really savor the delicious cognitive dissonance and inchoate angst of ecocide deniers as they increasingly experience the consequences of their narcissism.
To the contrary, what we’re experiencing is the narcissism of a handful of eco-class-warriors obsessed with punishing anyone who expects to move freely in their own community and, apparently, the world abroad.
Misery loves company, I guess.
I think they aren’t the only ones with cognitive dissonance.
…and then cut down all their trees.
Not spending $100,000,000.00 to improve a problem-free route is making it difficult for drivers?
And of course those millions of people who fly out of Portland will just hop in their vehicles and drive. Yeah, that’s the much better solution.
I too agree this is a total waste of money.
I’ve never been stuck in traffic going to the airport. It’s always fast. Want to see pain, look at car traffic going to LAX. It’s horrible because they built the entire environment for personal cars. They even deprioritize car shares and taxis to some out of the way parking lot near Inglewood only accessible by a shuttle bus. All in the name of the personal vehicle
This is pure fantasy. Like many airports (including PDX) they added the separate waiting area because the process of hailing a “rideshare” is fundamentally different from how a traditional taxi queue works.
It has nothing to do with the “personal vehicle”, it simply gives app drivers a more appropriate place to idle while they await their assignment.
The anti-car victimhood around here never ceases to amaze me.
Taxis are in the same place far away with the ride share. LAX is 100% private vehicle traffic only with the exception of the shuttle buses.
Want to hear victimhood? Listen to drivers moan anytime they lower a speed limit, take away even one spot of parking, add a bike lane, install speed and red light cameras, targeted traffic enforcement… the list goes on and on
LAX has horrible traffic, but I’m fairly sure the current rideshare/taxi situation is a temporary construction measure. The construction in question is being done purposefully to reduce the need for personal cars en route to the airport, though I generally question the logic of their $5B people mover to a fairly slow/indirect light rail line. But I dunno, LA is weird.
In isolation, I think the project has some merit. However, in the context of Federal, State, and local budget issues, $100 is a TON of money to spend to fix a relatively low-impact problem. I can think about a bunch of other projects that would have much greater ROI for the taxpayer at large.
I don’t blame the Port for advocating for its own interests, but, to the extent that this project would use public funds, I think it would be a waste of our money.
Honestly, everything sounded pretty reasonable until you got to the part about the tunnel. At best, these things are open toilets full of broken glass even in my Norman Rockwell hometown, much less industrial-zoned Portland.
The current crossing is awful, but this is not an upgrade.
I don’t see anyone mentioning a crucial concern: people flying are usually carrying suitcases. How well does that work on MAX or Trimet? Don’t bother responding; it is a non-starter for 90% of the public. btw I have done it, but I use a big backpack and am a pretty sturdy guy. Most folks would not want to schlep a 35 lb bag or backpack on public transit.
I do it on international trips all the time, and the circumstances are often less convenient than what I deal with in Portland. A large backpack on a packed London tube car on a hot afternoon is misery. But it gets you across town for cheap.
Back in Portland, I live within easy walking distance of a Green Line station. But to be honest it’s the last thing I want to deal with at the beginning or end of a trip: schlepping my stuff a half mile on foot, hoping the train shows up, hoping my transfer to the Red Line goes smoothly at Gateway, etc. Realistically this can easily take an hour or more longer than a Lyft.
It’s not at all appealing at the beginning of a trip, and especially not when I return and just want to get home.
My airport trips often involve passing through Hollywood, which is a terrible place to schlep a suitcase; long distances, high ramps, and stairs, unless you’re willing to brave the elevator, which, frankly, I’m not.
Replying to myself on the topic of elevators… I was in Boston a few months ago, and passed through the South Station MBTA station with luggage. I took the elevator there, and it was clean and well maintained and looked like it had never been used as a toilet (amazing, right?).
Boston has plenty of their own transit issues (including an extension to the Green Line that was slower than walking), but they have managed to keep their elevators (and rail cars) clean and working and largely sane.
A better world is possible, folks!
The MBTA has done a lot of great work recently, including eliminating all of the slow zones on the subway. I’m not sure on the Green Line Extension rebuild progress, but that slowness was a result of some poor work done by contractors and politicians covering it up to get the opening on time by the end of a term.
Now they just need to buy some EMUs so they can stop running diesel commuter trains under wires on the Northeast Corridor…
It’s been completed. They’re even phasing out their Charlie Card/Charlie Tickets, which were parts of one of the most baffling payment schemes ever devised (including cable TV deals). Now if they can just keep chunks of concrete from falling on people, and fix the bumps in the Silver Line tunnel (probably build by the same doofuses who got the rail spacing wrong on the Green Line), they’d be back in business!
I see lots of people using the Red Line with luggage, and I can’t recall any specific luggage related issues. When I travel for more than a week, the limiting factor for my luggage size is usually “how much can I comfortably carry?”, and since I tend to use public transit to get around, I probably end up taking slightly less than I would if I was taking a cab to the airport. I don’t mind this constraint, especially since I often am traveling to places with better public transit than Portland.
The golden rule of using TriMet, if you need to be somewhere on time, don’t take TriMet.
It has changed so much since I commuted from Hawthorne District to Tualatin back in the 90s. I had a good car, but, in principle, I wanted to take Trimet. Yes, it took about 45 minutes for a drive that I could have done in 15. But, I could relax, look out the window, and wind down in the evening from my very stressful job. The schedule was totally predictable and the bus was always clean and orderly. I can only guess how much it has changed in almost 30 years.
You can’t completely relax on the bus or train anymore because people often get on (without paying) and act out in anti-social ways that are not welcome.
As for clean, years ago TriMet got rid of the nightly cleaning staff so they could give management staff a raise. So often I’ll see the same garbage/mess on the bus day after day as they aren’t cleaned at all. TriMet claims to put a large vacuum on the door of the bus to suck everything out, but that doesn’t get it all and doesn’t do anything for sticky spills.
The once celebrated Portland Transit has fallen very very far and should be held up as a lesson in how NOT to run a transit system.
I drive my car to the airport almost exclusively. I have never been overly inconvenienced by the traffic light at 82nd.
So, while I would agree with you that the airport should maintain auto-accessibility, if you’re arguing that we need to spend $100 million on this traffic light plan because people have luggage, then I’d have to disagree strongly!
American exceptionalism at its finest. Yet again, we double, triple and quadruple down on our car-centric infrastructure while neglecting and underfunding every other option, then bemoan the fact that it’s just damn-near impossible to get to the airport using modes we refuse to fund/build/improve, because one sad little MAX red line didn’t solve the entire problem. The rest of the developed world–and much of the developing world–has figured out how to get at least a good chunk of their population and visitors to their airports on buses and trains–you know, by investing in them. But we just can’t afford it or figure it out.
Insert excuse for why it just won’t work here… “Some people don’t live close to a station! People have to carry bags! It takes too long!” As if every non-US city with a great public transit system has 100% of their population living right next to a station, a population that never carries suitcases, and somehow stumbles into trains that mystically run more frequently during peak travel times (as opposed to, idk, planning for it and charging fares high enough to offset the added costs, but still far cheaper for the traveler than parking a car at the airport for a week or two).
If we can’t fix the entire problem with one quick, easy and dirt-cheap solution, the next best thing is to light another $100m on fire by laying more concrete and kicking the congestion can a bit further down the road, amirite? And if anyone points out that public transit actually can work quite well if we invest in it, let’s make sure we scream a little louder “we’re not Amsterdam!” I mean, clearly not, because the Netherlands–along with all their European neighbors–decided to fix their creeping post WWII congestion by funding/building/maintaining other options. Worth noting that they did it bit by bit, project by project, over decades. They’re still doing it now.
Sorry for the negativity. I’m just losing my damn mind watching our country double down on this stupidity, then sit back and wait for better results, while other parts of the world sit comfortably on their high-quality trains, suitcases and all.
COTW. I completely agree.
Or the port could include a free day pass transit ticket of the day your departure or arrival and get more people to ride the max and not have to spend $100 million for a new road
I think this is a great idea. I don’t think it would impact ridership much (as transit is already significantly cheaper than any of the alternatives), but they should do it anyway.
We should get rid of the fares altogether throughout the system. See a bus you want to take? Get on it! It would make riding trimet simpler and faster. Fareless square used to be awesome. Once you realize how much of the ride is subsidized, it seems weird to keep collecting the fare. I think we keep doing it to provide a barrier to street people using the transit, but I don’t think that is working. I think the amount of subsidy per trip would go down if the fare was eliminated due to increased ridership, but I could be wrong.
Free fares would likely degrade the system performance for everyone, encouraging super short trips (replacing walking) and slowing travel times for passengers making longer trips (more likely to replace driving). I see this in my own life; sometimes I’m walking, and a bus going my direction passes, and if it were free, I’d be tempted to hop on rather than walk the 5 blocks I’m going.
I think fareless is unlikely to improve the system.
And since you remember the fareless square, you probably remember folks riding Max between Lloyd Center and downtown doing their drug deals on the trains, out of sight of the cops. That wasn’t something most people found welcoming.
We should design the transit so people don’t use it?? “I’m sorry sir, but the bus is only for people who would otherwise drive….” I understand where you’re coming from, but this thinking strikes me as backwards. I think we should encourage people to ride the bus …. they will get more acculturated to it and become more likely to see the bus as a reasonable option to get around. Lots of folks have a monthly pass, so they experience no marginal cost for a short ride in the status quo. Sometimes I do roll my eyes when we stop to let a recent boarder off, but then I tell myself not to be such a dick.
If max is good place for dealing drugs, I don’t see how a ~$3 fare will deter the activity. I did not notice a lot of people dealing drugs back in the day, and max is still pretty easy to poach…. If I wanted to see people dealing drugs, I’d go the greyhound station. Same as now.
No, we should design it so people use it efficiently. Transit is already slow, and that deters riders. Your proposal would make that problem worse, making it less of a reasonable option to get around.
To what extent it was actually a problem I don’t know, but drug dealing was one of the reasons the fareless square went away.
I don’t have any evidence, but my intuition is that the time cost of the additional stops would be offset by faster boarding. If we are running the bus anyway, people might as well use it.
Here’s what Estonia learned by making their transit free:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sJFRQbb6g2E#
TL;DW Ridership increased, walking and biking decreased, and driving stayed the same.
One question: is our money better spent making transit free, or improving service?
That’s an interesting utube, but I think the analysis is a bit narrow. I’d side with the 90% of Estonians who think free transit is a good idea.
This judgment clearly depends on the cost of “free” transit and the service improvements on offer. I claim that eliminating fare collection would improve service with no other changes made. I also believe the cost would be small or negative because the considerable trouble of fare collection and enforcement would be obviated. I’m not claiming that people will stop using cars because the bus is free (or that climate change will be avoided). If you have a workable way to significantly improve service by raising fares, I would support that. Right now, I believe fares are being raised as a gatekeeping measure, which strikes me as morally distasteful.
Being popular is different than being good policy. If charging fares let the Estonian system better meet its goals, they should do that. By making the service free, fewer people are walking and riding bikes. Is that a good outcome? Maybe.
Back in Portland, if the costs of eliminating fares would be negative, TriMet would have done it long ago. In 2024, TriMet expected to collect $56.3 million in fares. Do you really think fare collection costs more cash than that?
You’ve read enough of my comments to know that I don’t think there are many ways of improving transit in Portland that are politically, economically, and environmentally feasible. So no, I don’t think raising fares would allow us to make the service significantly better. I think the TriMet model is inherently limited, and while I’m sure there are ways to make improvements at the margin, the system isn’t going to make any huge leaps in the foreseeable future. It simply can’t.
This is one reason I think the system is vulnerable to new services like automated taxis that will take chunks of the ridership from TriMet. This could be a positive thing, if it allows TriMet to focus on their most popular lines, with automated taxis dealing with the less popular routes that TriMet is unable to serve well.
Your points are well taken. Thanks for the debate!
Trimet already is fare free. People board the trains and buses all the time without having to pay. The bus driver can ask, but the passengers can and do ignore.
“Security” on the trains never check.
Yep! It makes those that do pay feel like chumps…. If there was no fare, it would not be an issue. Neither would there have to be fare boxes on the bus, and boarding could occur more quickly without people serially waving their phones ineffectively at the reader for~5-20 sec./person. The “security” on the trains could assume a collaborative rather than adversarial relationship with the ridership. Lots of upsides.
Sadly most of the max network serves windswept freeways instead of busy corridors near dense neighborhoods. Heck, I’m only a few blocks from the tracks at NE 28th, but a mile from an actual station. I’d take the train on most trips if that wasn’t the case.
$100m does seem like a lot to dump tho…