TriMet says a lack of funding will lead to a reduction of service starting in November of this year.
“More cuts are being planned for March 2026 and after, with at least a 10% overall cut to service expected by August 2027,” the agency said in a statement today.
TriMet blamed their decision on the recent failure of the Oregon Legislature to pass a transportation funding package. One version of House Bill 2025 would have pumped $250 million into transit statewide in the coming years. TriMet’s approved 2026 budget includes $83.7 million in funding from the Statewide Transportation Improvement Fund (STIF), a revenue source with a very uncertain future*. (*See update at end of story.)
TriMet also blamed years of budget reductions and, “staggering cost increases in almost everything related to running the transit system, including labor, vehicles, facilities, contractors, equipment and software.”
The cuts announced today are being made to stave off more severe service cuts down the road, TriMet said, as they look to close a $300 million gap between their annual expenses and revenues.
The first cuts beginning in November will reduce frequencies on some lines. Then entire bus lines will be eliminated. If TriMet doesn’t find more revenue by fall 2027, further cuts will be coming.
A new TriMet webpage says starting November 30th, they’ll reduce some frequent service lines during evenings and mornings, cut nighttime service on the FX-2 Division line, and trim service on up to eight other lines.
TriMet will then propose further cuts starting in March 2026. Those cuts haven’t been made and the agency will ask for public feedback on how best to make them. Current proposals include:
- Eliminating some low ridership bus lines
- Eliminating evening service on lower ridership bus lines
- Changing routes on some bus lines to increase efficiency
- Reducing the MAX Green Line route. Green Line trains would only serve stations between Clackamas Town Center and Gateway Transit Center. Riders would need to transfer to other trains at Gateway Transit Center.
In total, if new funding is not found, TriMet says the system faces about an 18% overall reduction in MAX service — the largest light rail cut in TriMet history — and an 8% reduction in bus service — the third largest cut since 1986.
Oregon Governor Tina Kotek will reconvene the legislature for a special session next month in order to pass transportation funding. Details of the plan aren’t out yet, but there’s a chance TriMet could see new revenue.
Without it, Portland faces a significant transit service reduction.
In a post on social media Tuesday, Portland-based transit consultant Jarrett Walker predicted cuts like this are likely in cities across America. He said the best way to navigate these difficult times is for agencies to be clear and transparent with riders about how the cuts will impact them. “It’s understandable not to want to think about it,” Walker wrote, “But that has to be done now… To really motivate support, we must be very specific about consequences, and also name who has the power.”
With details about cuts coming to light and the legislature prepping for another session, transit riders and their advocates should have all the ammunition necessary for the coming battle.
UPDATE, 1:44 pm: TriMet has issued a clarification, saying that these cuts are needed even if the state legislature passes a proposed doubling of the payroll tax to fund transit. TriMet said they are planning for increased revenue through an upcoming fare increase and from state funding. “If those two actions do not happen, or do not equate to $48 million in increased revenue, we will need to make $48 million in additional spending/service cuts in fall 2027,” the agency said.
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Im going to reach out to my state representatives every day until I see that not only funding for transit is maintained, but substantially increased to continue in expanding service. Everyone here should do the same!!
Ridership is flat. Our pandemic recovery faltered and like it or not, this seems to be the ridership that we’re stuck with.
So why would we build more? Who uses it? The press release specifically mentions low ridership lines. Are these bus lines to nowhere?
Famously, reducing service generates more ridership. “low ridership” bus lines are infrequent neighborhood connector routes; those are lines that old/disabled folks use to get around, and that high school kids use to get to school. Cutting those lines means an uptick in paratransit – which is VERY expensive to run – and additional pressure on school district transportation departments.
Famously? I would like to see some context or examples if that is to be true.
I think that dw is referring to how ridership is reported by transit agencies, usually by trips taken per route or per linear mile. Ridership is the total number of trips taken, including transfers. Usage usually refers to how many people you actually moved. The more transfers you have, the higher your ridership, even as usage remains the same. If you remove routes that have very few transfers or those with very few trips taken every day, your ridership will usually rise relative to your usage, which will probably drop. It’s all about juggling numbers rather than moving people or providing convenience – transit is generally subsidized by how many trips are taken rather than how many people are moved – the more transfers, the better the numbers look.
I was being sarcastic lol. Of course fewer people are going to use transit if it is less frequent.
Not exactly true. Paratransit must be provided as an ADA alternative only for areas that have fixed-route transit. By eliminating some low ridership suburban routes, the paratransit could decline, depending on whether TriMet limits paratransit to the bare minimum required by ADA.
Induced demand isn’t something that only applies to highway use. To quote the voices in Ray Kinsella’s head, “If you build it [well], they will come.”
Where are they?
Under TriMet’s accountability and transparency, data shows ridership has steadily increased or recovered month over month. Especially on frequent bus service. Frequency=Freedom.
Are more people using transit? Or are more people having to transfer during their trips thus raising ridership numbers? Have ticket sales increased? Has the duration of each ticket remained the same year-by-year or has it shrunk, thus requiring more transfers? Has the cost of each ticket remained the same year-by-year or has it increased, thus making transfers more expensive and yet more necessary?
The future is hard to predict. Who knew a pandemic would hit and who knew work from home would grow as dramatically as it has? Who knows if back-to-work requirements are amped up? Ridership has been growing ever since 2021, but while it grew 10% a year or so initially, it’s growing only 3-5% now. That’s not nothing. We need transit to support the land use policies and development trends in place. I think most people are on board with this approach, despite the hiccups along the way. This is a long-term vision.
Portlanders: we refuse to return to the office!
Also Portlanders: we’re outraged that you’re cutting the public transportation that we’re not using!
Every single one of us?
There’s nothing here to have a “gotcha” about.
I want to be able to take the bus/max to friends and family, go shopping, go to parks, etc. Plenty of people are still using trimet to get to work and such. 30% of people can’t or don’t drive.
Public transit isn’t just a tool for commuting to/from the office M-F. It’s something that’s used at all hours of the day, for both work and fun. I work from home, but still use TriMet nearly every day at various times that don’t line up with traditional commuting hours.
Ok, but like, where did you go today? Where do you live? TriMet is so goddamn slow and forget about it if you need to transfer. I’m sure you take the bus, but you’re taking it “nearly every day”?? When?? I feel like a bus trip to do what I do on bike would add *at least* an extra hour of transit time, but probably closer to two sometimes. I’m not trying to really target you, Tyler, but I’m sorta targeting you here. Sorry. It’s just I see this in comments, I think here sometimes, “I WFH but I’m actually more social/go out for lunch more often/take transit more than ever/some other thing that I/PTB can’t understand since your job situation now requires you, presumably, do it from home“.
Trimet being too slow to be useful is a problem where part of the solution is to increase service, not cut it. Ridership follows convenience, which largely is a product of frequency and speed. The more inconvenient the system, the more riders will decide that it’s better to use another mode, which will only leave the people who are in some way unable to use another mode, mostly the impoverished or disabled, to use the worst option.
I’m not advocating for cutting service. I started riding C-Tran in 1990, ninth grade for me, and the freedom I got from that blew me away. Didn’t have to wait for dad to give me a ride! I’ve been a fan of public transit since. I take TriMet often but I’m not a daily user because for me, cycling is quicker 99% of the time. When we travel my wife and I love taking transit so we can see more of a city. I keep an Oyster card in my wallet just in case I happen to find myself in London later today (dreams…)
“Ridership follows convenience, which largely is a product of frequency and speed.”
TriMet will always be be slower than the modes with it which it competes. Neither my car nor my bike require me to walk to a stop, wait for a vehicle to arrive, then wait while the vehicle stops every couple of blocks to let someone on our off, then, when I finally arrive, I still have to walk to my destination. This is assuming my trip requires no transfers.
If I care about convenience, I’m not taking the bus, period. I’ll ride my bike, drive, or call an Uber. Hell, sometimes I can get there faster by walking. TriMet can’t fix that. It’s a structural problem.
No, people don’t want to have to go back to an office that there’s no good reason to.
People that interface with customers, sure. But the people that pay bills, do the payroll, manage the servers don’t need to be in the office.
Just think how much tax payer money would be saved if the City wouldn’t buckle under to the demands of the rich land owners downtown.
Just think if those customer service people were spread out in satellite offices all over town and not just concentrated downtown. Seems that serve a wider selection of the tax payers of Portland, not just the rich land owners.
Most private business have had their employees return to the office.
As a city employee, it is not up to you to decide to go into work or not.
Find another job.
The “rich” land owners are going broke downtown if you haven’t noticed.
I can’t think of any city anywhere I go throughout the world where the downtown has died and the city remains vibrant.
Portland has a bunch of struggles now and having people who get paid by taxpayers to go to an office to work is not an unreasonable demand.
I upvote this comment a thousand times.
As a taxpayer, ratepayer, and customer, I do not want gov’t agencies, utilities, and businesses to force their employees to commute long hours to and from expensive offices that drive up the cost of everything and hasten the destruction of our planet.
Smart leaders of organizations know that WFH is a competitive advantage; dumb leaders will continue doing what they have always done.
I want the State/City to start sending all these office jobs to India like all the private companies are doing–the case will be very easy if everyone remains remote.
Of course the unions will never allow that because the Oregon government’s raison d’etre is to provide its workers with a comfortable life.
People on this blog are right about one thing, we don’t need all these people who work 3 hours a day going downtown–we need them swapped out with Indians and Phillipinos.
The inneficiency there can only favorably compare with the entitlement and sloth in the city of Portland back offices. Why does it take 3 months to get an approval to remove a dangerous dead tree from my yard? India can do better than this.
*Filipinos
Why does it feel like nobody in charge actually wants things to get better?
Because they really don’t. And Portlanders keep voting for more of it.
That would be a fun comment to unpack someday.
Trimet certainly has its challenges, but it is one of the best things about Portland. Those who represent me in government will definately be hearing from me that Trimet is a funding priority. Transit does seem to be pretty expensive, but I think ‘the people’ value transit enough to support it. I would urge everybody involved with Trimet to work hard to deliver value with whatever funding is available. Basic competence and dependability (including clean and safe busses and trains) will yield political support.
I’m curious if anybody knows what kind of software is being referenced here. Is software a large part of Trimet’s expenditures? If so is it their own software, licensed commercial software, or what?? I expect things like labor, fuel, vehicles. But software?
Software that does financials.
Software that allows collaborative work.
Software that allows for document archiving.
Software that interfaces with the tap-n-pay devices.
Software that does scheduling.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
Thanks for the list. Do you know how much each of these is costing trimet?
Also modeling software
It usually relates to software for dispatching and scheduling (including driver breaks that are required by law), fare collection, vehicle diagnostic tools, and so on, usually provided by highly specialized vendors, along with updates, training, debugging, and much more.
What I was obliquely suggesting is that if Trimet is spending a lot on some monster special-purpose legacy codebase via sweetheart contracts to management heavy software development companies, modernizing the software might save money.
I work in transit so I can say confidently that there are very few options for the specialized software you need when you’re TriMet size. I wouldn’t bet that the scheduling software is what’s driving that big of a deficit. There’s also all of the stuff that’s managing the on board hardware for buses and trains. Plus then all of the data infrastructure to store and analyze the data.
Often agencies have two real options. Smaller agencies have a few choices of start ups but TriMet wouldn’t be able to use those because of how complicated the system is.
It’s probably an accumulation of software that has been added on over time and needs to be maintained for some specialized reporting function. If they were willing to invest in IT staff they could probably untangle some of the mess and ditch some of the software licenses.
Thanks for the insight. Trimet seems like just the kind of organization that could find itself overmatched by its own software that has ossified over decades.
Careful Micah :-),
I am told quite often that suspecting the existence of sweetheart contracts or any other form of money flow corruption is akin to wearing a maga hat with matching bodypaint. It was very odd they they would use software as part of the money pit unless they characteristically went it alone and tried to develop their own systems and are now stuck with a poorly performing and legally bound legacy system.
Haha! I do tell my partner sometimes that I’m getting more conservative as I age, but, as you know, I still have a fair stretch to go before I would consider the red hat. I wouldn’t classify it as corruption as much as aging pains. It seems pretty easy to me to end up with software that is difficult to maintain, and, conversely, it seems pretty difficult to build large software systems that ages well — computing looked a lot different when Trimet started. I doubt they’ve ever done a complete ‘from scratch’ redesign, because it would be very disruptive to operations. So I would not be surprised if they are ‘stuck’ with something suboptimal, but I have no knowledge.
Increase the gas tax and parking fees. Toll Washington drivers coming into our state.
They are already tolled by paying Oregon income tax and going home to Washington each night. Oregon benefits greatly from this money.
Let’s be real: this is entirely political. Ridership is flat? Fine. Maintain funding; don’t cut it.
There are a litany of issues around TriMet and transit is Metro Portland, generally–ultimately, land use and economic decentralization chief among them. However, this is immediate situation Republicans hating the idea of a public anything that does any good, Democrats in this (and basically every U.S.) state not understanding the role that transit has in environmentalism, equity, and economic development, and TriMet being about as well-run as most other American transit agencies (not very).
The U.S. has been trailing global developments in transportation for probably about 30 years now. There’s no reason to expect a place as dysfunctional as Portland seems to be to take the lead in catching up.
Want ridership to improve? The City needs to clean up downtown. Don’t care what people with rose colored glasses see, but I work in Old Town and it is quite sad that the City and County, after all these years and money, have made little progress.
I still see that same number of tents, people yelling at whatever, and open drug use that I did before COVID.
Oh and as for the stats that the Mayor rolled out months ago on how the City is doing . . . one of the people that helped generate those stats said, and I quote “we had to massage, and cherry pick the data so that the City would look better than it really is.” Yeah, truth in government . . .never
Kind of agree with you there. Lots of people will tie themselves into pretzels to pretend like the homeless situation isn’t what’s holding back downtown. Surprise, people who have a choice don’t choose to hang out somewhere near violent drug addicts flinging every racist and homophobic slur under the sun.
My wife worked in Old Town and was almost hit in the head by a bottle thrown by a mentally unstable person. A few weeks later one of her co-workers was punched in the face at the MAX stop outside their building, again by a MUSP.
Her company moved out of Old Town. Can you blame them?
I’m out on the streets every week doing deliveries. I still see plenty of homeless, and it is still a problem in need of a productive solution, but I am seeing much better cleanup efforts by the city at keeping trash from encampments and abandoned cars once used as homes minimized (especially compared to just a few years ago).
I mean, ridership improvements could also come from speeding up lines and making them more convenient. How many people ride the 72 or 20 only to have their bus pass them by because it’s 18 minutes delayed and in drop off only, so they have to wait for the next one? How many do you think want to keep riding a bus that doesn’t feel reliable? The way to ridership is reliability and reliability comes from giving transit priority through street design.
Maybe force fare collection to increase revenue and when those without fares are removed the trains and buses also suddenly feel safer for.. some… reason….
Still see people get on buses and not pay even when asked by the bus driver to pay. Bus driver does nothing after that.
On Max, for 2nd time in less than a month, at Rose Quarter about 2 dozen TriMet fare checkers swarmed on train. I got off at that stop so I couldn’t say what transpired to the people that didn’t pay fares (there were several on my train).
If only they will keep it up, but I bet with the budget issues that’ll be one of the first things to go.
I’ve seen the same thing for the past couple of years: people who appear to be homeless not paying to ride the bus. I think bus drivers have been instructed by Trimet not to engage with these people, many of whom are mentally unstable and will “kick up a fuss,” as my Louisiana grandmother used to say. I really can’t blame them, since each driver is all alone and a mentally ill person could pull a knife or a gun.
I’ve also seen many angry and unstable people abuse drivers verbally, even after riding for free. As long as Portland continues to welcome these people on the streets AND doesn’t have law enforcement and helping services for them, Trimet’s drivers will continue to be overwhelmed.
Right up until I moved and stopped riding it, the 2nd red line of the day headed to the airport had fare inspectors every morning at Rose Qtr.
They absolutely remove people without fares, no matter how long it delays the train. Since I had a 13minute window to get my next transfer the delays didn’t impact me and the improved climate on the train was welcome.
I used to see a guy regularly get up as we approached, hop off then get back on at the Convention Center ……..
When you have a fixed place for the inspection, the people who ride without paying just get used to avoiding it.
Now, I live 8.9mi from work. It was 32min from home to the intersection of 212 & 224 on a gravel bike with Marathon+ tires by a 58 year old just coming back from 5 months off the bike/trike. The same trip via Trimet would require a 1.3mi walk to 82nd, 72 to CTC and the CCC industrial shuttle to work. Total trip time 1:15.
Buses will be an occasional thing now and trains even more infrequent.
Here in Greensboro NC we have a system for our students whereby they never have to pay directly to use the city bus – they board and an automatic scanner reads their student ID card whether they get it out or not – it’s a lot like the EZ-Pass system for car drivers using toll highways. Our transit system then records the boardings and immediately gets reimbursed by the respective university (we have 2 public universities in town) electronically, paid for with annual student fees. Apparently our homeless services are using a similar system, paid for by our county. It was implemented by our service contractor, RAT-P, which owns and runs the Paris Metro among other systems worldwide.
Of course we are just a poor small bucolic East Coast community of 300,000 – nothing like advanced mighty Portland with its home-grown organic in-house transit agency Trimet – so I’m not saying that Trimet could be doing the same thing without telling anyone about it…
Tri-Met is worthless to me. I live in SW Portland, about half way between L&C College and PCC Synvania. There is no bus stop within .7 miles of my house. And that one gets very infrequent service.
I walk over 2 miles to mine.