Hey guys, welcome back to the channel! Since you all enjoyed our recent videos on Seattle
and Vancouver, we’re travelling down the west coast yet again to complete the Pacific
Northwest Trifecta, and checking out the past, present, and future of rapid transit in Portland,
Oregon. Portland is the largest and most populous city in the state of Oregon, and with around
3 million residents in the Portland metropolitan area, the region needs a great transit system
to transport its residents safely to every corner of the area. Let’s get started!
[Intro]
Before we get to the video, we want to give a quick shoutout to our newest patrons Raymond
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Alright, time to get back to the main content of the day.
We’ll first take a look at the intercity rail services available here in Portland.
Amtrak provides somewhat limited service to the city’s Union Station, an intermodal
transit hub in the Old Town Chinatown area of the city, on the west bank of the Willamette
river. Three Amtrak lines pass through the city: Cascades, which runs from Vancouver,
British Columbia down to Eugene, Oregon; Coast Starlight, which runs from Seattle down to
Los Angeles; as well as the Empire Builder, which runs from Portland over to Chicago.
These services may not be the most frequent, but there is also a well-connected intercity
bus network, offering services to nearby cities in the region.
The public transit here in the Portland metropolitan area is managed by TriMet. Short for the Tri-County
Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon, the agency was formed in 1969 to replace existing
bus companies in the region, and has since grown to have 85 bus lines, 5 light rail lines,
and one commuter rail line. The different systems serve more than 300 thousand riders
daily, and although ridership growth has slowed down in the recent years, there’s still
lots of extensions planned for the systems that will connect more and more people within
the region. We’ll start by looking at the lines currently in the system.
First up is WES Commuter Rail. Short for Westside Express Service, this is the lone commuter
rail service in the region, serving a north-south corridor parallel to Oregon Highway 217 and
Interstate 5. The line has 5 stations along its 14.7 mile, or 23.7 kilometer route, with
termini located in Beaverton and Wilsonville, and it receives a very modest number of riders
at around 1600 daily. Riders are able to transfer onto Portland’s light rail system at Beaverton,
while bus routes and parking facilities are available at other stations.
Speaking of light rail, it’s finally time to talk about the highlight of rapid transit
here in Portland, the MAX Light Rail system. First opened in 1986, the system started from
one single line and has now developed into 5 whole lines of light rail service, with
around 95 stations in total, and 59.7 miles, or 96.1 kilometers of trackage, serving more
than 120 thousand riders per day. Many of the lines do overlap in the centre of the
city, especially near Pioneer Square, the centre of the system, as well as the Portland
Transit Mall, a transit-priority corridor that serves light rail and buses.
The first line in the system to be built was the Blue Line, a 33 mile, or 53 kilometer
long line that cuts across the region horizontally. This line is definitely one of the main services
of the system, with its 49 stations serving more than 55000 riders daily, as well as connecting
nearby cities and neighbourhoods of Hillsboro, Beaverton, and Gresham, with a transfer at
Beaverton Transit Centre to the WES commuter rail line.
The next line that started service is the Red Line, which shares a lot of its tracks
with the Blue Line, although diverting north at Gateway Transit Center
to travel to Portland International Airport in an odd single tracked looping route.
Opened in 2001, this route has 26 stations, with 5.5 miles, or 8.9 kilometers of extra
trackage for the airport segment, and it serves around 22500 passengers daily.
Next up, we have the Yellow Line, which runs down the middle of the city through the Transit
Mall. Opened in 2004, this line has 14 stations, and it serves about 13000 passengers daily,
connecting Portland State University through downtown to the Expo Center.
The next line we’ll look at shares trackage with the yellow line, the red line, and the
blue line. The Green line is shaped like a U, and it diverts from the red and blue line
trackage to head south, terminating at Clackamas Town Center. The line has 30 stations over
15 miles, or 24.1 kilometers of track, and serves more than 20000 riders daily.
Finally, we have the Orange Line. This line extends further south from where the yellow
line terminates, lengthening service from downtown Portland to the city of Milwaukie.
This is the newest line in the system opened in 2015, with 7.5 miles and 11.7 kilometers
of track and 17 stations serving around 12000 riders daily. The Orange Line also shares
a major transit only bridge called the Tillicum crossing with the Portland streetcar in a
very interesting service pattern.
Alright, so these are the current rail rapid transit services owned and operated by TriMet
in the Portland area. We’ll now move onto taking a look at the future extensions these
systems are getting, so you guys will be able to get an idea of what’s to come in the
near future.
First up, we’ll take a look at a possible extension of the WES commuter rail line down
to Salem. There’s been a few proposals to extend the service along existing P&W tracks
down to Salem in order to help with congestion along the I-5, but due to the low ridership
of the line, none of these proposals were able to be passed and actually put on the
roadmap. Salem is the second-largest city in Oregon, and this extension will no doubt
help increase ridership of the line and help spur transit-oriented development along the
route, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon despite the persistent
lobbying from Rep. Mitch Greenlick. Hats off to you, Mr. Greenlick.
Now, we’ll move onto looking at the future of the MAX system. Although none of the extensions
we will be talking about are currently under construction, a few of them are already underway
in being designed and studied, with the rest on the table as proposals. As the MAX system
is used quite extensively, the case for expansion of the system is strong, and we look forward
to seeing all of these implemented in the future in some form or another.
The first expansion project we’ll look at is the Red Line Improvements project. This
project will extend the red line along the current blue line trackage all the way west
to Hillsboro, so that a fast rail link can be created between the airports in the two
cities. Existing parts of the route on the Portland Airport branch that are currently
single-tracked are also getting a second track to help with more ridership growth, and TriMet
is planning to purchase up to 8 more light rail vehicles to accommodate that along with
increased frequency. The project is currently in the preliminary design stage, and the expected
completion date is 2023 to 2024.
Next up, we have the Southwest Corridor project, an extension to the Green Line. This 12 mile,
or 19 kilometer extension will bring the green line from its western terminus southwest to
connect with WES at Tigard station, and then turning to terminate at Bridgeport Village,
with 12 new stations added to the route. Although there is still a shortfall in the budget,
a new budget measure will be voted on this year to cover that gap, and if approved the
extension could open as early as 2027.
The next project currently in the works is the Downtown Tunnel project. This project
aims to convert the current at-grade corridor between Goose Hollow and Lloyd Center into
a tunnel, in order to facilitate a grade separated fast rail connection through downtown, as
well as to provide a much better solution to cross the Willamette river than the current
100-year old steel bridge. The exact routing of the project has not been determined, but
it will be around 3.5 miles, or 5.6 kilometers long, and it’ll cost around 4 billion dollars.
Currently, the project is still at the feasibility study stage, but we think this is a really
important project for the city, as it’ll cut down travel times, improve ridership,
and bring more possibilities of growth to the system as well as giving trains more options
to get through the congested core of the city where trains currently hum along at a charming
pace.
There’s also quite a few other extensions that have been proposed, but these have not
been put on the schedule to be developed just yet, and we’re not sure if they’ll be
light rail or some other form of transit such as bus rapid transit. Nonetheless, these will
be valuable additions to the system, and we hope to see them sometime in the future. These
other extensions will connect forest Grove, Oregon City, Bridgeport Village, Hillsboro,
and Vancouver Washington to the system.
Alright, so this is what the future of the TriMet rail rapid transit systems will look
like. Lots of improved connectivity in the works right now, with even more potentially
coming in the future.
The next part of this video will focus on more local rail transit within the city of
Portland itself, namely the Portland Streetcar. Owned by the city of Portland and managed
by TriMet, the streetcar system serves the city centre as a more local and lighter alternative
to MAX. There are three different routes in the system, namely the A Loop, B Loop, and
the North-South Line, and they have served the areas surrounding downtown Portland since
2001.
The Portland Streetcar is by far the largest new streetcar system in the US.
That being said though, it does pale in comparison to our favourite streetcar system.
The two loop lines combine to become a circle line, with the A loop travelling clockwise
and the B loop travelling counterclockwise, surrounding the urban core of Portland and
connecting the neighbourhoods of Pearl District, South Waterfront, and Lloyd District. This
service is roughly 4.4 miles, or 7.1 kilometers long, serving 52 stations along the way, and
around 3500 riders daily for each direction. The Portland streetcar is by far the largest
new streetcar system in the US. That being said the system pales in comparison to our
favorite streetcar system.
The other line is the north south line, which travels along the western border of the loop
service, heading a bit further to Northwest 23rd & Marshall as well as Southwest Lowell
& Bond at either end. With 39 stations on the route over 4 miles or 6.4 kilometers of
track, the line serves around 9000 riders daily, with the numbers slowly rising.
And finally, one last bit of rapid transit in Portland is the Aerial Tram. One of only
two commuter aerial tramways in the whole country, this cute little aerial tram service
connects the Oregon Health and Science University campus with the south waterfront, where riders
can connect with the North South Line of the streetcar to their final destinations. Opened
in 2006, the service receives nearly 10000 riders every weekday, and a ride will take
about 3 minutes over 3300 feet or 1 kilometer of horizontal distance, and 500 feet or 152
meters of vertical distance. A very similar connection is proposed in Vancouver British Columbia
for Simon Fraser University.
We’ll now take a look at the extensions coming to the streetcar system, as our final
topic in this video. These are more for the longer term and nothing is in stone yet, but
it’s still exciting to see what could be coming to the streetcar system in the future.
The first project in the works right now is the Lake Oswego project. This project has
been considered since 2004, and would have extended the streetcar south by 6 miles or
10 kilometers, but unfortunately the city officials in Lake Oswego ended up changing
their mind about the extension, and the project was officially shelved in 2012. The project
would have had 10 or 11 stations, and would have terminated near a shopping center at
N State Street and North Shore Blvd. Hopefully, with some more time, the city would change
its mind and we’ll see the extension officially happening.
Next up, we have an extension to Montgomery Park in Northwest Industrial District, west
of the northern terminus on the river shore. Currently, two different alignments have been
proposed, and the Federal Transit Administration has recently approved a one million dollar
fund to continue studies into the extension.
And finally, the last possible project in the works is the Hollywood District project.
This project will extend the streetcar system into the Hollywood District in Northeast Portland,
just east of where the system currently reaches at the north end. This probably won’t materialize
for a while, but will be a worthwhile addition to the system, extending service to a busy
neighbourhood of the city.
Alright guys, so this is what the future of rail rapid transit in Portland looks like.
Portland’s current systems are already quite good in serving different parts of the city,
and we can’t wait to see where it’ll be able to reach in the future, with perhaps
even more commuter rail possibilities as well.
Like, subscribe, and comment down below to tell us what you are most excited for in Portland’s
transit future. Follow us on twitter and Instagram, and support us on Patreon and Ko-fi if you
would like to help us keep making great videos for you guys. Thanks for watching, and we’ll
see you in the next one!
[Music]