As I reported last week, the decision from TriMet to build semi-dedicated bus lanes on 82nd Avenue isn’t a done deal. General Manager Sam Desue made it clear that adding these “business access and transit,” or BAT lanes to the project would require a financial commitment from project partners that goes above and beyond what the agency is prepared to pony up themselves.
In total, TriMet is about $8-10 million short on funding needed to implement the BAT lanes.
Today we found out that about one-third of that total might come from the state’s general fund. House Representative Thuy Tran wants lawmakers to allocate $3 million to the cause. Rep. Tran represents House District 45, which includes a section of 82nd Avenue from SE Stark to NE Lombard. Tran’s request is supported by Senator Khanh Pham, another vocal supporter of transit in East Portland.
In an action alert emailed from Sen. Pham’s office today, she called 82nd Avenue “East Portland’s main street” and said the $3 million is necessary to make good on TriMet’s plans and to, “ensure that our community gets the transit investment necessary to make 82nd Avenue a safe, walkable, vibrant corridor.”
The total estimated cost of the 82nd Avenue Transit Project is $350 million, with $150 million expected to come from a federal grant. The base project (even without the BAT lanes) will include longer (articulated) buses, station upgrades, bus priority signals, and more. Pham and Tran say BAT lanes are essential to help the Line 72 service reach its full potential along the corridor. The line is already the busiest in Portland with about 10,000 daily boardings — but it also has the most delays.
“This $3 million commitment from the state legislature will help close the gap to fully fund the comprehensive plan to transform a car-centered, dangerous state highway to a safe and welcoming neighborhood street,” reads the action alert.
The request will be part of House Bill 5204, an omnibus bill that includes all requested general fund appropriations. Stay tuned for more details and check out the action alert for more info.
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.
Hope they can come through on this. 72 upgrades can’t come soon enough!
I strongly support better transit on 82nd, and East Portland absolutely deserves safer streets and faster service. Line 72 is busy, and improvements would make a real difference.
But this $3 million would come from the state general fund — dollars that belong to the entire state. At a time when rural and small-city transit systems are struggling just to maintain basic service, it’s hard to argue that closing a small funding gap in a $350 million capital project in Portland should be the priority.
If we believe in equity, it has to be statewide equity. Directing flexible state funds to a corridor already receiving major federal and local investment through TriMet reinforces the perception that big transportation dollars flow primarily to Portland.
Even if the project itself has merit, this isn’t the wisest use of scarce state general fund dollars
The general fund is $37.3 billion. This is 0.008% of that fund. How much of that fund is spent in other parts of the state that take more then they contribute? I think we can throw the already beleaguered TriMet a bone for the busiest bus line in the entire state.
Portland is in Oregon. The vast majority of people who use our transit are Oregon residents. They pay taxes to the state. Its weird to me to argue that Oregon taxpayers shouldnt benefit from the taxes they pay.
We all pay state taxes, and some of those taxes go to projects not all of us will ever use or benefit from. So does that mean none of those projects should be done because not everyone will benefit from it? You want statewide equity, right?
I’m sorry, but this is silly. $8-10M could be found after 5 minutes of value engineering on this $350M 7-mile-long project. Especially now the most complex and expensive widget from the project (the intersection of and approaches to Powell Blvd) has been removed. I recall Desue asking for this amount of money BEFORE the decision to remove Powell from the project was made. Why make this a big deal – a separate ORLeg ask, another opportunity for folks to make a big noise about something that was already settled with an unnecessary amount of consternation and political oopsies?