Trolley Tuesday 1/28/20 - Portland TriMet MAX

Ever since it first operated in 1986, the Portland TriMet light rail has been one of the most well-developed and accessible transit services in the United States with frequent services, useful accessibility to local attractions in and out of the city, and immediate connectivity with the eventual Portland Streetcar and WES services that came after. Now ranked as the fourth busiest light rail system in the United States, behind Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Boston, the story of the Trimet really begins by doing the exact opposite of what LA, SF, and Boston all did: bucking the freeways.

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Robert Moses' plan to criss-cross Portland with a bunch
of freeways, 1955
(BikePortland.org)

The Minnesota Freeway from Morrison Bridge, 1964
(Vintage Portland)

Following World War II, city transportation planner Robert Moses was commissioned by the Portland City Council to design new freeway systems to help the city grow in the wake of shrinking rail transit services. Fed by the allure of cars and the possibilities of unchecked suburbanization, Moses proposed fourteen freeways in 1955, but only four would eventually be built. Two of them, the Mount Hood Freeway and the Interstate 505, were routed to cut through over 1,500 homes down Powell Street. To say the city rioted would be an understatement.

By 1970s, freeways were socially taboo in the Rose City, but the council was still shacked with funds provided by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. So, to allocate those funds for better use, the city's Trimet public transit agency began studies to expand public transit. The highway division pushed for more bus services, but then-governor Tom McCall sided with light rail following a damning environmental impact statement that was later released. Five years later, in 1978, Trimet approved of the new "Banfield Light Rail Project" with a 15 mile section between 11th Avenue in Portland and Cleveland Avenue in Gresham slated for construction in 1982.

The MAX opens for operation, 1982
(Portland Trimet)

The Banfield Light Rail would follow the alignment of one of the original freeways proposed by Moses, that being the I-84 and would eventually open on September 5, 1986 using 25 Bombardier "Type 1" Light Rail cars (also known as "high-floors"). Less then two months before opening, Trimet branded the new service as "MAX" (Metropolitan Area Express) and plans were already drawn up for an extension west across the Willamette River between Beaverton and Hillsboro. This split the MAX into the "Eastside" (to Gresham) and "Westside" (to Beaverton).

At the same time, Oregon Metro (under the city of Portland) noted the East-West corridor opened by the MAX and decided it would be a good idea to introduce light rail to Clackamas County. These routes would either go from downtown Portland to Oregon City via Milwaukie (utilizing some original sections of the Oregon Electric) or from Clackamas Town Center to the Portland Airport. The studies of both routes were completed in 1993, but unfortunately a tax proposal to extend the line to Washington state had failed. (This is, in my opinion, the biggest shortcoming of the line considering Vancouver, Washington is a suburb of Portland in all but status and name.)

Robertson Tunnel's East end under construction
at Washington Park
(Portland Trimet)

1993 also facilitated the building of the MAX's biggest piece of infrastructure yet: the 18-mile, volcano-punching Robertson Tunnel under the West Hills volcanic chain. Boring started from Kings Hill and Salmon Street on the West Hills' east side, then out to the current Hatfield Government center. With the line from Gresham to Hillsboro stretching 33 miles, the complete line opened as a through service in 1998.  

The MAX Red Line to PDX opens on Sept. 10, 2001
(Portland Trimet)

The rapid expansion of Portland International Airport (PDX) spurred its owner, the Port of Portland, to satisfy the worsening congestion and turned to the MAX for their answers. The Airport MAX line (colored Red) began construction in 1999 quite uniquely for a US transit line: utilizing no government funding and already having secured a right-of-way to use. Unfortunately, the timing of the Airport Line could not have been more unfortunate, as the line's opening ceremony was held on September 10, 2001. 

The Airport Line would eventually be routed onto the Blue Line to alleviate overcrowding on the mainline, also creating a one-seat commute for people West of the West Hills to get to the airport from Beaverton Town Center. The "North-South" proposal from 1993 was also revisited, becoming the "Interstate MAX" project in 2001 and planned to run just in North Portland only: from the Rose Quarter to the Portland Expo Center. Urban renewal support (real estate for hipsters) was drummed up to minimize costs and in 2004, the Yellow Line officially opened, also being the third line to run across the Steel Bridge (along with the Red and Blue Lines).

A MAX train to Hillsboro crosses the Steel Bridge
(Wikipedia)

A MAX Type 1 leads a Type 2 over the Tilikum Crossing in
2016, bound for Milwaukie
(Steve Morgan)

The current final pieces of the Trimet MAX were opened in 2003, starting with the completion of the Yellow Line, that being the Green Line from Clackamas Town Center and the Orange Line from Portland to Milwaukie via Hawthorne Bridge. The Green Line opened on September 12, 2009, sharing alignments with the other four lines above, and brought about a revitilization of the Portland Transit Mall, a pair of one-way transit corridors that were originally operated by just buses. The Orange Line would make use of the Tilikum Crossing, a bridge over the Willamette that would open only to bus, light rail, bicycle, and pedestrian traffic between Portland State Universty (PSU) and the Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation (ORHF) and Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) just north of the former.

Siemens Type 2 245 shares the Portland Mall with a bus,
bound for Clackamas
(Steve Morgan)

For the rolling stock on the MAX, the first cars were constructed by Bombardier and are known as "Type 1" or "High-Floor" cars owing to the steep, 3-foot rise steps indicative of classic high-floor streetcars. The later Types 2-5 were constructed by Siemens, with the Type 2s sharing the exact same appearance as the Type 1s but having low floors. The Type 3s that followed the Yellow Line in 2003 would keep the same box look but would be composed of two sections rather than three, and the following Types 4 and 5 would have a more contemporary, "wormy" look with three-section trains. 

(The Oregonian)

Currently, the MAX is looking to improve the Red Line by using the Westside Extension to reach Hillsboro airport from Beaverton Transit Center that would put 10 more stations on the line. Tualatin and Tigard are also planned to get extensions from PSU, following Oregon Route 99. Three stations are also set to close in the Rose Quarter by this year, with two Mall stations being shut down in order to speed up service and Kings Hill/Salmon Street facing a one-year pilot closure by March 2020. Anything for efficiency in America's fourth-busiest transit system.

And finally, the Portland MAX's biggest claim to fame came in February 13, 2001, when an errant coyote boarded an Airport Service on the Red Line much to the bewilderment of the passengers. Eventually he was shooed away by Animal Services, but the event was significant enough that Modest Mouse (themselves from across the river in Washington State) immortalised the event in 2015 by making a music video where a coyote takes a couple MAX trains in the wee hours of the morning to the Rose Quarter. Watch it here if you are interested.

Obviously, coyotes take priority.
(Modest Mouse)

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Thank you for reading this delayed Trolley Tuesday installment! Come back tomorrow where we finish the month off with a report on the history of the Oregon Electric Railway Museum, then check back Friday where the first "From the Archives" episode will be posted here! Now ride safe out there, and save the coyotes.