The MT Position

I grew up on the east side of Portland and in Gresham. Portland’s MAX (http://trimet.org/schedules/maxblueline.htm) blue line begins its westbound trip to Hillsboro in Gresham. On the way, it passes through downtown Portland and Beaverton Transit Center along the way. I have taken this trip. The MAX is, in my view, an outstanding part of Portland’s transportation system. The MAX system has been many years in the making. And there have been growing pains along the way. But it has certainly been a success.

My latest trip on TriMet’s system began in an area I am less familiar with than Gresham – Wilsonville WES Station. Wilsonville Station is the southern terminal for TriMet’s Westside Express Service (WES) (http://trimet.org/wes/index.htm). The station also serves as a transit center for SMART (http://www.ridesmart.com/ ), Canby Area Transit (CAT) ( http://www.ci.canby.or.us/transportation/CAThomepage.htm ) and Salem-Keizer “Cherriots” ( http://cherriots.org/ ). The facility has 399 parking spaces and 48 bike lockers. When I arrived for the last morning commuter trip to Beaverton, parking was easy to find.

The WES line is a commuter rail line traveling from Wilsonville Station to Beaverton Transit Center with three stops along the way – Tualatin, Tigard and Hall/Nimbus. In addition to the parking at Wilsonville Station, there are 129 parking spaces in Tualatin, 103 spaces in Tigard and 50 spaces at the Hall/Nimbus stop. There are surprisingly no parking facilities at the Beaverton Transit Center – a very busy hub that includes the MAX and a number of bus lines.

The Wilsonville Station is very nice. It is well-designed, clean with nice artwork. I purchased a single-day ticket for $4.75. A discount applies, if a multiple day pass (14 days, one month, one year, etc.) is purchased (http://trimet.org/fares/index.htm#farechart ). The train was a single car with twin diesel engines. I boarded by one of two doors. There were bike racks on board for travelers taking their bikes to work. The interior was nicely designed with comfortable cloth seats. The ride was smooth and the scenery was beautiful. I opened my laptop to test the free Wi-Fi. I logged in without trouble. As we traveled along, the wireless connection worked flawlessly. I sent a brief email to Mass Transit magazine about my trip – just to check the connection. It worked great. The train car, like the Wilsonville Station, was not very full. I decided to talk with the conductor – after all he might know how ridership was going. Since the conductor, had not checked my ticket the entire trip, I approached him. He was cordial but non-committal about any information on the line. He did say that he was forbidden to give any information on ridership – a sensitive issue apparently.

According to an online Oregonian article (http://www.oregonlive.com/washingtoncounty/index.ssf/2010/03/when_will_wes_prove_itself_tri.html ), the WES line took 13 years of negotiation and planning, cost more than $160 million to build and costs 10 times the cost of the MAX per passenger to run. It suffered mechanical breakdowns early in its implementation (http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/12/company_behind_trimet_wes_rail.html ), which might have damaged credibility early on. Additionally, the per-train-mile cost is about $50.47 compared with the MAX cost of $16.20. The article goes on to say that TriMet may have overstated its projected ridership in order to get federal funds. WES ridership (boardings) was reported up by 13.8 percent for June 2010 (http://trimet.org/pdfs/publications/performance-statistics/June2010.pdf). The numbers are still below earlier projections by TriMet.

For my part, I only visit Portland now. I have family there and like the area very much. But I’m otherwise an outside observer. From where I sit, I think the greater Portland area is fortunate to have a well-established and well-planned light rail system. Whether the WES will be economically viable is for the local residents to judge. I can say I enjoyed the ride. I think connecting smaller communities with the economic vitality of larger cities is good. If I were to move to the area with a job in Beaverton or Portland, I would look for my home somewhere along the WES line. The area is beautiful. And riding the train beats the stress of traffic.