In a move that has stunned transit advocates, TriMet 82nd Avenue Transit Project staff have recommended just three miles of semi-dedicated bus lanes along the entire 10-mile project corridor. In a memo shared with members of the project’s Community Advisory Committee (CAC) Wednesday night, the staff recommendation for 60% design scope clarified the intention to move forward with BAT lanes in just two sections: between NE Lombard and Tillamook, and between SE Foster and Clatsop.
The decision comes after advocates publicly aired concerns that TriMet might cave to 82nd Avenue business owners who oppose BAT lanes in the most dense commercial areas of the project. It turns out those concerns were valid.
The Line 72 that runs north-south on 82nd Avenue is the busiest bus line in the entire state of Oregon and has around 10,000 daily boardings. Back in 2023, TriMet launched a $350 million project to upgrade transit service on a 10-mile section of the corridor between Clackamas County and Northeast Portland. The project is part of a massive effort from the City of Portland, Metro and TriMet to remake what was once a highway into a local street that reflects local visions and values following its transition away from state ownership that became official in 2022.
At issue for TriMet is how much of the 10-mile project length would get its “Business Access and Transit” or “BAT” lane treatment. BAT lanes are TriMet’s version of high frequency bus service. They come with signal priority, major stop upgrades, and other improvements aimed at speeding up buses. Essential to the BAT concept is that car users are not allowed in the (usually red-colored lanes) unless they’re turning right and/or access driveways. In May TriMet released results of a survey showing that, despite its higher price tag, 70% of the 1,400 respondents said the agency should build seven miles of BAT lanes along the corridor. An option to build just three miles of BAT lanes received 58% support.
Transit advocates supported the option to implement BAT lanes along the entire corridor. Back in June The Street Trust submitted a letter to TriMet that read: “We strongly urge TriMet… to prioritize Business Access and Transit (BAT) lanes along the entire corridor, not as an isolated goal but as a means to make alternatives to driving faster, more reliable, and more appealing.”
Last month BikePortland reported heartburn among some advocates who felt TriMet was setting the stage for this recommendation. In slides presented to the CAC last month project staff said they’ve heard “significant concerns” to BAT lanes from businesses, specifically around “customer access,” “construction impact,” and “traffic and vehicle diversion.”
In the official recommendation issued last night, TriMet says budget constraints were mostly to blame. The seven-mile BAT lane option (known as “More BAT” in project documents, which also includes widening one intersection) costs $10.8 million while the three-mile option (known as “Some BAT”) is just $2.8 million — a difference of $8 million, or just 2% of the total project cost.
While cost figured into their calculation, it’s likely that intense pushback from some business owners along the route also influenced this decision.
Through a public records request, BikePortland has obtained two letters submitted to TriMet that strongly oppose BAT lanes. Both letters come from law firms who represent business owners on 82nd Avenue and make it clear legal action would be taken if TriMet didn’t change their proposal.
On September 22nd, Wendie Kellington of Lake Oswego-based Kellington Law Group, sent a letter to TriMet on behalf of her clients Washman and Fubonn. Washman has two car wash locations where BAT lanes were proposed — one at NE Glisan and another at SE Raymond. Fubonn is located in a large shopping center on SE Woodward.
In the letter, Kellington described the “More BAT” option as, “an extreme proposal” that “should simply be a nonstarter” and complained that, “the voice of business is simply not being heard.” Here’s more from the letter:
“The proposal is that two entire lanes of 82nd Ave (both northbound and southbound), will be closed to motor vehicles and that “bus lanes” will take their place, dedicated to 4-5 buses every hour, creating serious additional congestion – taking away 50% of 82nd Ave.’s capacity to speed up transit times by an just a few minutes, but causing the same or worse corresponding delays for motor vehicle traffic.”
Kellington says her client’s opposition to the proposal is rooted in their claim that busses represent less than 1% of the vehicles traveling on 82nd Avenue, but would get half the lane capacity. This proposal would, “add serious impediments to the 99% of vehicles trying to get to 82nd Ave. business destinations,” and would lead to frustrated drivers, empty bus-only lanes, and more traffic diversion into local streets.
TriMet’s plan for BAT lanes in the central portion of the project is, “dangerous and poses an existential threat to 82nd Ave businesses,” Kellington contends in her letter.
Lawrence Wagner, an attorney from Portland-based law firm Sokol Larkin, who represents the owner of the Peterson Crossing shopping center on the corner of SE Foster and 82nd (at 8136 SE Foster Rd), sent a letter of opposition to TriMet on October 1st. The letter, which threatens legal action if the project moves forward, came after the business owner met with a Portland Bureau of Transportation staffer and learned about the BAT lane proposal. Wagner says his client was told the project would “completely take away” the shopping center’s “critical driveway access to 82nd Ave.”
“Peterson cannot lose that access,” the letter warned (emphasis Wagner).
Here’s more from Wagner’s letter:
“Tenants have indicated that their businesses will not survive without the 82nd Access. Given the various other issues along 82nd Avenue, we cannot imagine that TriMet wants another shopping center to go dark, and we assume that TriMet has no interest in seeing these local businesses fail. If these businesses need to close or move due to loss of the 82nd Access, then Peterson will also suffer significant financial hardship, and it may be left with a valueless property.”
The businesses have another driveway entrance along SE Foster, but Wagner says having only that one driveway isn’t feasible for his clients due to space constraints and access issues.
Reached for comment about TriMet’s decision, CAC member and local resident who uses Line 72 regularly, Meghan Humphreys, told BikePortland she is “disappointed”. The decision, “Runs counter to what we heard support for in community surveys, especially from transit riders and residents,” Humphreys said. “The ‘more BAT lanes’ option is what would actually make the 72 bus run reliably and be a real asset for the neighborhood and its residents like me.”
Zachary Lauritzen, a CAC member of executive director of nonprofit Oregon Walks, said he was caught off guard by TriMet’s decision. “PBOT did their analysis and said full BAT lanes were possible. Amazing! To have Trimet, our transit agency, the folks who should be the biggest advocates for excellent transit, choose to recommend this half-measure is mind boggling,” Lauritzen shared with BikePortland this morning. “The project team has moved further and further away from BRT and should call it what it is: a nice transit improvement. It’s not BRT and it’s not going to transform 82nd Avenue as people have asked for and been expecting from half a billion dollars in investments.”
Lauritzen is calling on TriMet to live their own values. “You can’t say, ‘We think transit is a priority. We want to give people the best transit experience. We think transit is a climate solution,’ and then choose to give all the space to cars where it matters most,” he said.
TriMet says there’s still a chance more BAT lanes could be built; but only if additional funds become available.
Given the hints coming from TriMet in recent weeks, advocates were already ramping-up organizing efforts. There’s a rally to push for more BAT lanes planned for 1:00 pm on Sunday at Montavilla Park. Some activists are planning to attend a meeting of the SE Uplift Neighborhood Coalition Land Use & Transportation Committee meeting on Monday (10/20) at 7:00 pm (via Zoom or in person at 3534 SE Main St.). where PBOT and TriMet are expected to make a presentation about the project. The project’s next CAC meeting is Wednesday, October 22nd from 6:00 to 7:30 pm at Portland Community College Southeast Campus.
TriMet’s staff recommendation will now be forwarded to the project’s Policy and Budget Committee meeting on November 7th where the final decision will be made. That meeting is set for 9:00 am at TriMet offices on 101 SW Main Street. You can sign up to attend by emailing salgadop@trimet.org.
For transit riders who rely on 82nd Ave, all they can do is hope there’s still a chance to salvage this project. “This is our city’s opportunity to make 82nd Avenue safer for more than just cars only,” Humphreys said. “And I would hate to see us lose this chance.”
Thanks for reading.
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This sucks so much, and the fact that TriMet is folding on this rather than pushing forward makes me deeply sad. Especially this part:
Wow, I wonder if more people can ride in a bus than in a car? Do vehicles make a lively commercial district, or do people? The fact that TriMet is unwilling to publicly push back on this is outlandish. They are the public transit provider in the region, why aren’t they emphasizing transit riders needs? Why can’t they point out that a ton of people riding the 72 are in fact patronizing business on 82nd, or working on 82nd? And no sane person is diverting from 82nd to local streets. As any seasoned bike rider knows, the local street network in the area is hopelessly broken and incomplete. These claims are so easily refuted, it boggles the mind that TriMet takes them more seriously than 75% of survey respondents who are saying they prefer more bus lanes.
TriMet will never move the needle without institutional willingness to challenge the status quo, and they so clearly lack this. Just a bummer all around.
MATH CALCULATED BY LAWYERS REPRESENTING BUSINESS OWNERS IS NONSENSE.
No calculations for safety, no calculations for speed, no calculations for mode shift, for bicycling, for walking.
It’s just NIMBY NIMBY NIMBY
ENTITLED ENTITLED ENTITLED
PRIVILEGE PRIVILEGE PRIVILEGE
82nd Ave will never be safe because of lawyers doing anything for money
oh yeah and people can still use the BAT lane to make right turns into FUBONN and other businesses along 82nd.
Is this an admission that 99% of drivers do not go into businesses along 82nd?
WEAK TRIMET, SO WEAK !!
82nd is seen as a cut through by these villain lawyers
Each member of Trimet leadership should be on record regarding their failure to adequately support BRT.
I guess it’s time for protected bike lanes- since transit is relegated to sit behind single occupancy cars and remain an inferior transportation choice.
I once upon a time had a clever planning boss in the Midwest who said that the first thing you need to do in the suburbs (Phase 1) is consolidate the number of driveways – move shoppers onto off-street parking lots and have them intersect your street on as few driveways as possible. Then (Phase 2) add a long median, to prevent left turns and the need for more driveways. Then (Phase 3) move the remaining driveways so they sit opposite of each other and place stop signs or signals as needed at the intersections. Then afterwards (Phase 4) you can do anything you want – add bike paths, extra lanes, remove lanes, add transit – and property and business owners will simply not care one iota.
This sort of thing seems to happen over and over; a good project gets drafted, then business owners or homeowners start yelling, and the project gets reduced to nothing. While I’d like trimet to stand up against them, I can understand with costly litigation that they aren’t likely to do so or be able to.
It would be great to find some sort of winning strategy against it. We’ve seen in projects across the world that these things tend to be a sort of ‘build it against resistance and afterwards everyone will be in favor of it’ but we seem to be struggling with that. Maybe we should just rebrand projects; instead of ‘less BAT’ and ‘more BAT’ it should have been ‘more (car) traffic’ and ‘less (car) traffic’. We’d have an easier time getting the majority motorists on board if we tell them what it means to them.
I agree Kurt! PBOT and TriMet are so terrible at stating the metrics for success up front. They should have explained at the very what they were trying to do: number of people/hour or day, safety, emissions, trees, stormwater, safety, etc. Then explain the current conditions and the limitations of the current conditions. Into that context, explain how adding BAT lanes allows MORE travelers to use 82nd and safer, more pleasant, tree-shaded sidewalks with crosswalks promotes access to business, and BAT lanes make it easier to access businesses. This is a pathetic response from TriMet and a total abdication of their duty.
“left with a valueless property“
What an utter crock, we need local control over TriMet
Seriously. It’s at the intersection of two major thoroughfares, adjacent to public transit, and with the 82nd driveway removed will have more parking.
It’s sad if the businesses have to relocate due to reduced pass-by visits (which I’m not convinced of), but that property would still be highly valuable for it’s potential to redevelop to higher use.
I’d like to see the city put some pressure on TriMet about this. A stronger transit corridor along 82nd could really support Portland’s housing goals. Would PBOT’s design of 82nd that’s being built right now even look the same if they thought TriMet wasn’t going to follow through on the scale expected? They clearly designed these improvements with transit as the intended beneficiary. PBOT doesn’t just pour millions into repaving dangerous 5-lane car roads without trying to promote some other way of getting around.
Wow, this is pathetic. Line 72 gets 10,000 riders per day. That’s like 1/3 of the total people using 82nd Avenue daily. Washman and Fubonn have lost my business for good.
It’s actually 10,000 daily trips, not riders. So someone riding in one direction in the morning and the other direction in the evening would be one rider, but would count twice in terms of daily trips. If they ride it in the middle of the day, those are also separate trips. I’m also pretty sure this is the number for the entire Line 72, including the segment on Killingsworth St, and includes trips that never touch 82nd Ave. And finally, the car traffic on 82nd Ave is about 25,000 daily automobile trips, but a car can have more than one person in it, so it’s a lot more than that in terms of person-trips. In any case, transit probably accounts for more like one-quarter to one-fifth of the total people accessing the corridor.
There a sort of negative cycle here. 82nd avenue probably does pencil out better if you’re big box retail or used car dealer than does other places in Portland.
But that’s only because no one wants to use the land for anything else due to the giant, stinky, annoying, dangerous street outside.
I mean this ain’t rocket science folks. Just go stand on a street corner somewhere down 82nd. Wanna live there? Wanna sit down for dinner? Wanna pop in to a shop and then walk across the street for a drink? Nah, of course not.
So 82nd will languish while other parts of the city move on.
It’s just a shame this self destructive attitude also has to hold things up for everyone else that wants, or needs, who wants to be able to take a bus and/or cross the street without, like, dying.
This made me think about Atlanta’s equivalent of 82nd and how it had the best restaurant that were so hard to get to.
Here’s a street view of Buford Hwy, complete with a pedestrian crossing with the nearest crosswalk about 2000 ft away and up a hill:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/EUgYBhU3qCSEkvhA7
TriMet didn’t “cave” to business pressure — its board chose to side with drivers over riders. And PBOT once again treated a life-saving street redesign like a PR risk instead of a public responsibility. We need a TriMet board that rides the bus, and PBOT leadership that stands up for the city’s own safety and climate goals.
Just because these businesses got their lawyers to submit comments doesn’t mean that ‘more BAT’ would be grounds for litigation. What precisely is the legal angle here? Takings and damages? Perhaps the remainder of the $350 million budget (after $10 mil for ‘more BAT) could be partially spent compensating businesses if warranted.
Per Portland Maps “Market Value”; Peterson Crossing Property (8130-8136 SE Foster) has a market value under $2.5M. Fubonn (2850 SE 82nd Ave) has a value of ~ $23M. Somehow these properties/businesses can control the fate of a 350M+ project?! They obviously create jobs and bring in tax revenue and such, but doesn’t seem right for such a big and transformational infrastructure project to be subject to their complaints.
Cities are for people not vehicles. Traffic counts on 82nd have most intersections around 20k average daily volume for north and south traffic. The 72 carries 10k people a day meaning it moves about half as many people up and down 82nd as all the single occupancy vehicles do while only being 1% of the vehicles. Sounds like a great deal to me. Less damage to the roads, faster travel times and increased ridership are all wins for full BAT lanes.
So… 50 people per bus, on average?
82nd already fails all of its users – it sucks to walk on, bike on, drive on and take the bus on. This proposal will not change any of that, and thus the corridor will hardly change at all unless something real is actually done.
Also, I call BS on this being a cost-saving strategy. A Shared Bus Bike Lane, which is what folks are actually asking for, can be created using only red paint. No one is asking for hydrogen buses, or median reconstruction or any of that. We want a dedicated lane!
Also, why isn’t TriMet and the City using this as a golden opportunity for transit oriented development? Why are the benefits from the hundreds of millions of investment dollars going to car washes, instead of being recouped by TriMet and the City to fund similar projects on Sandy Blvd, and Powell?
No bike lanes, no BRT … just more cars. We’re spiraling out of control towards 3 degrees of global heating and car oriented businesses are leading the way. Terrible news.
We complain here but has anyone seen Division lately since the bike lanes and medians and FX2 went in?? No one is there, all the businesses have left and cars have literally been abandoned due to the gridlock that ensued so many months ago now. It’s honestly spooky.
>no one is there
>gridlock
which is it?
“…on behalf of her clients Washman…”
Is this the same client that has a location on MLK with signs instructing cyclists that it is illegal to ride on the sidewalk… and customers that repeatedly block that sidewalk as well as the adjacent bike lane on Schuyler as they exit the business?
Of course it is.
Well, there are a few businesses and law firms I won’t be doing business with in the future.