Portland's Light Rail Has a Problem 

The MAX is poised to become one of the best networks in the region if they build a tunnel. It would improve reliability so significantly and speed up trains so much, it would basically start to work more like a light metro than a streetcar like it does now. Interestingly, Portland's system seems to have really similar constraints that Dallas's DART network has. Pretty sure they were built around the same time too. It's the next step for the evolution of the system to get healthy grade separation for the busiest lines.

Portland resident here. There have been a couple proposals for a tunnel downtown, so it's definitely on people's minds. The main proposal even goes a step further, having the tunnel extend a bit past Lloyd Center station so that trains can be completely grade-separated from Gateway to Goose Hollow (if not Gateway to Beaverton TC). They also propose leaning into the Blue Line specifically, keeping the Red Line on the surface tracks, to focus on the Blue as the central artery of Portland's transit.

What a dream it'd be to have the awful Rose Quarter freeway expansion's funding directed right to a downtown MAX tunnel. It's the next leap Portland needs to make to become an actual transit city.

The downtown slowdown was apparent 20 years ago when I first rode the Max. I'm glad Seattle had the foresight to equip the downtown bus tunnel for eventual light rail use.

Portland did an okay job at putting together a light rail and tram system for a medium size city in North America. That is, until you compare it to its northern neighbour: Vancouver (BC, not WA). The main differences between the system are not length nor stations, but in speed and grade separation. Whereas the entirety of the SkyTrain network is grade separated (a mix of at-grade, below-grade, tunnelled, and elevated), Portland’s system is a hybrid of grade separated and street running service. This was intentional and not some “mistake” and was why light rail was chosen over metro (e.g. BART, SkyTrain, etc…). But Portland has doubled in size since MAX was built and needs a different system now. The question then, is not whether Portland builds a tunnel for MAX - which it really must do - but what service runs through that tunnel? If they are spending the money to build a subway, they should increase the capacity in the line to a full metro to increase capacity, speed, and serve an ever growing population in an era of climate change. Spending billions to run the same small trains through the tunnels would be rather silly.

The Tempe streetcar faced similar issues. One of the main problems is the frequent closure of Mill Avenue, which is like the Main Street for Tempe for events like a marathon or something else.

I’d like to see you do either a “Rocky Mountain” or “Southwestern” city tier list next!

Tunnels are the best option but I love seeing trains running through streets. In Dallas, all 4 lines converge in a central trunk through downtown and they made it a beautiful brick-paved pedestrian-and-rail only street that functions nicely

I love light rail. We have the Lynx system in Charlotte. I would love to see it expand.

Salt Lake's TRAX is in the very beginning stages of looking at submerging a portion of the light rail, commuter rail and freight rail to bring the Rio Grande station back to operation. I hope it happens. Between that and the Delta Center entertainment district, the downtown there would be bustling way more than it is now.

Calgary should definitely also build a downtown light rail tunnel! Edmonton already had one so it wouldn't even be that out there for Calgary to do. They currently have the at grade transitway but it's still quite slow and acts more like a led accelerator than rapid transit downtown. There's already many future provisions for the downtown tunnel too! Lots of future planning should help this be cheaper and faster than usual.

A downtown tunnel or tunnels should be the highest transit priority for the region. It would massively speed up service, allow for higher frequency throughout the system (every 10 minutes assuming the interlining remains the same), and massively improved reliability by eliminating the worst flat junctions and grade crossings.

Please build high floor platforms in the tunnel. We don't need a repeat of Seattle.

At grade is a highly underrated option. It is often better for users, because they don't need to take the time to descend and climb in and out of stations. It also provides good visibility and low friction for users to use the system. It's also something that shouldn't be slower. Yes, you'll need to implement signal priority and restrict drivers, and yes, drivers will get upset...IDGAF...we should stop letting drivers harm our cities. I think at grade is wildly underrated in general. The main reason we should build tunnels and elevated transit is when the density of an area is so high that it justifies using a very expensive option to increase the space available, and this is a situation that doesn't exist in most US cities.

The MAX tunnel is an absolute game changer. Just getting to downtown is mind-numbingly slow once you exit the West Hills tunnel. Imagine how fast getting to Pioneer Square would be if MAX ran at the same speed as it does in the Robertson Tunnel with two fewer stops.

As a frequent visitor and user of the PDX light rail, I fully agree. I stay right in the center of downtown when I’m there. I can attest that the system is painfully slow in downtown. “Subwaying” the system would greatly improve through running speed while clearing up the streets for peds, bikes, busses, an grrrr, cars. Another advantage is that Portland would be able to increase the length of its trains. PDX has very small downtown blocks. While this is great for urban fabric and walkability, it means the trains can only be 2 cars long. If trains could avoid the downtown grid, they could be longer.

Resident here - folks should importantly focus more on how like 70% of the service length is lazily by the side of a highway due to poor planning of the system. The train doesn't go where people are, it goes where the highway is, because that was the cheapest and easiest land use was. The catchment areas are terrible. The best and most useful stops are the ones NOT highway adjacent by an overpass. That's such a permanent flaw and tragic Look at the map. The whole east side is abandoned except for highway adjacent lines which take you nowhere useful

Across the Steel Bridge the MAX can only go 10-15 MPH depending on the section of track. Across the span its 10 and through the switches to the Glisan Ramp or through the switches to the Interstate Ave Rose Quarter station are also 10mph. The rest is 15.

Also, we could have longer frikken trains without having to keep it below the length of a single downtown block.

Yes, build the tunnel. The Regional Connector was game changing for LA Metro. It elevated the entire system, not just DTLA. Though it did add three new underground stations to areas in DTLA that needed it. So now we have two subway lines and two underground light rail lines that service just about every neighborhood in DTLA.

San Jose has this exact same problem. If the rail was elevated downtown, speeds would be faster and VTA would average close to 55 mph rather that 30 mph, making it more like a regional train than light rail. The max track speed is 60 mph in some areas, and part of the system looks more like mainline passenger rail than light rail.

Elevated light rail doesn't have to consist of two trackways. It could be one trackways per block. With one trackway, light can hit the street better.

This isn’t just a problem in Portland; Calgary CTrain, while quite fast outside downtown, is PAInFULLY slow downtown, despite having its own car free transit only street. The problem is that the trains don’t receive absolsute priority (they have to follow the same light cycle as cars, there aren’t any railroad crossing lights, bells, or gates. There’s also the problem that since the street for the trains looks like any other stroad in Calgary, there isn’t much indication that you shouldn’t drive here (the signage marking the transit mall is very limited and can be hard to see for Calgary drivers doing 80-90 km/h). While I was in Calgary last summer for a few days, I saw drivers turn onto the transit mall illicitly multiple times, and one time witnessed a car nearly get hit by a train (caught it on film too!). One time while riding a train it had to debased because a train DID hit a car. I think Calgary could do a lot for itself by giving trains absolute priority at crossings with railroad crossing signals and maybe gates through downtown and by replacing the pavement with green track (or even Houston style Water track next to intersections , just to make it extra clear to drivers this isn’t a street to drive on). It might also be worth taking a leaf out of Portland’s book and close a station or too downtown, to increase train speed. In the long term, building a downtown tunnel for the red and blue lines, like edmonton, would be ideal (you could retain the transit mall as a cool heritage streetcar with the old CTrain U2 vehicles. This frankly can lead to dangerous situations where

That's interesting. I ❤ trains, trams, take a ride, I have a folder on ''transportation'' (folder 2, in playlists) you will love them too :)

It's not really lack of grade separation that slows it down. The roads it operates on downtown are basically transit only, and it has full priority at all stop lights. The problem is that it makes too many damn stops. Before downtown, the stops are, for example, 82nd, 60th, 40th, ie, 20+ blocks between stops. Then downtown we have stops at Oak st AND Couch St; less than 1000 ft, and 4 small blocks apart. We need to get rid of AT LEAST half the stops downtown.

As someone watching the MAX trundle by out of my window as I watch this, it would be a game changer. I was lucky enough to have a work vehicle and live downtown when I first moved to Portland last year. Trips on MAX are not competitive from downtown elsewhere unless traffic is at its worst, period. Milwaukie? Driving is faster. Hillsboro? Driving is faster most of the day. I'm all for transit, but most Americans are car-brained and need a good reason to get out of their personal rolling mansions. Making the MAX faster with tunnels (and improving safety and cleanliness) would go a long way to reduce suburban Portlander's pearl clutching regarding the MAX.

7:47 “bus rail transit” trying to picture this and having a hard time. Sounds like a Frankenstein creation where a city couldn’t decide on light rail vs BRT.

If you arrive to PDX, you can hop on the MAX Red Line right at the airport and ride it into downtown. I've done it x2 for Kumoricon and it's SO nice.

If you are trying to improve efficiency, there is something I don't hear many people talk about. We all know you need to have dedicated ROW and signal priority, but you also save a lot of time by have your stations in the median instead of curb side. Median stations don't have as many conflicts with parked cars an turning traffic.

Reminds me lots of Toronto's TTC streetcar network over the years. Sure, Toronto has a subway, but Queens Park, Union Station Queen Car (now expanding), St. Clair West etc. have all incorporated tunnels and underground stations over the years to facilitate subway transfers but also to keep speeds up at major terminus during boarding. So even on routes with very mixed traffic like Queen St. that frankly have good VIBE because the street car keeps it slow are still somewhat usable when there's really extreme bunching and urban chaos.

I disagree. I think that the MAX is at grade is one of its features. Yes, MuniMetro in SF moves faster along Market street, but you have to add in the time it takes to go down into a station and then come back up. This is also a reason that buses can be more popular as the threshold is just so much lower. Before you seriously campaign for under-grounding MAX you need to figure out exactly how much time you would actually save -- Portland's downtown is not that large. Next you need to find out how many trips terminate in downtown vs how many pass through downtown on the way to the other side of town. Unless there's a huge number of riders passing through, making it easier for them to board and exit downtown is better than the train itself passing through quicker.

@climate and transit, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Pittsburgh needs to turn it's PRTx in to Oakland in to a rail subway underground. The Forbes and Fitth avenue corridors are highly congested and chaotic with local deliveries and I don't see how street running BRT (the current plan) will make anything better. Especially, considering they are the only arteries (one way) through the dense Oakland hospital landscape. Also, Downtoan Pittsburgh and Oakland are the second and third largest economic hubs in PA, respectively, behind Center City Philadelphia. There's absolutely NO reason why Oakland and PGH should not be connected with a subway.

The Calgary C-Train is a lot like MAX, with the major difference being that the downtown portion runs along a dedicated transit mall with transit signal priority. So even though it's running on the surface at grade, it has a smooth operation, making it as fast and reliable as a metro system.

Since TriMet funds all their major projects by voter approved bonds, and we're started voting them down lately, I don't know if this would ever get funded even though we need it.

One other positive of putting the MAX in subway tunnels under downtown is that in addition to opening up new streetcar routes on the unused tracks you could also run extended length streetcar routes during peak hours. For example during peak hours you could run streetcars all the way out to Portland’s airport. Some people want to have the shortest walk possible to get onto public transit & are willing to take slower/longer rides for the convenience of less walking. Other commuter are willing to walk a bit further to access faster/shorter transit rides. By having extended peak hour services on the Portland streetcar network that would serve both types of transit users. Some transit users will simply walk to the nearest street stop to access their transit ride even though that option might take the slowest/longest route to get to their destination. Other transit users are willing to walk a bit further to get a faster/shorter transit route.

You forgot to mention that portlands downtown blocks limit the max to 2 car trains, also if they can build a articulated 2 car train, at least that can increase some capacity during rush hour.

They could just emulate C St in downtown San Diego, where it has a limited access road for a few parking garages. But it mostly serves as a transit corridor for two way trolley tracks and a wide sidewalk. But it doesn't totally stop idiots crossing the tracks as a shortcut to the interstate.

You mentioned that biking is faster than taking the MAX downtown. I can confirm this is the case. I used to bike to the Morrison and 3rd Stop to catch the MAX to work. Sometimes, I'd miss the MAX at Morrison & 3rd but I'd still be able to catch up to it on my bike, either at Pioneer Square or SW 10th ave. I was huffing and puffing once i got on though.

I ride the MAX to work and sometimes for inter-neighborhood travel. It really is slow when you’re in/near downtown. I think the density of stops is also too high downtown. A tunnel would be great and might actually make it feasible to use for longer trips (say Hillsboro to East Portland on Blue/Red, or North Portland to Southeast on Yellow/Orange).

closing stops will annoy existing passengers.

Here’s what I wrote on the last Climate and Transit’s light rail video, where a ranted about the MAX: People keep praising Portland's MAX system, but in reality it lacks on a bunch of the bullet points in this video. Here are my gripes and honestly a bit of a rant: • Instead of limiting the speed in some areas, they decided to make it uncrossable to pedestrians for long stretches with barriers, creating essentially an urban divide in the same way a highway does (Interstate Ave). Pointless too, as the trains have to slow down for some intersections anyway for the few places where pedestrians CAN cross. The yellow line opened 20 years ago, and the corridor still doesn't have as much development as you would expect, and has a surprising number of gas stations, drive-throughs, and auto shops along it. 100% if they slowed it down and removed barriers where shops are they would increase development (and slowed cars down) you would actually start seeing people on the street and hanging out there. For the amount of large apartment complexes in the area, it's a bit of a ghost town. • Getting to and from PDX airport is a pain. There's so many damn stops on the highway getting there, it's faster to take a car by a significant margin. They just need to remove some stations especially running along the interstate, but recently they added a new one! Right next to a giant interstate intersection!! • I tried using it to get to work, but I have to cross an ugly and loud pedestrian interstate overpass, with long ramps/stairs on either side. If that was the only issue I could possibly deal with it, but at peak times the headway is only 15m!! Practically useless for commuting. Thankfully the bike network isn't terrible, but I still have to bike along a highway along some stretches to get to work (2.5miles as the crow flies). • It's so damn slow going through downtown. Stops need to be removed to increase the speed, and better signal priority needs to be implemented. Even buses are faster through downtown sometimes. Understand it's for pedestrian safety, but it goes I swear 8mph at some points (near the Amtrak Union Station). • The MAX has so much potential, it's just frustrating seeing all the flaws. Maybe I lived in NYC for too long that it's ruined me, but I just stopped using it as I don't find it helpful getting places.

If they do end up placing some trains in the tunnels i hope they still keep the tracks in the road and expand streetcar routes

To answer your question on what other cities that don't already have tunnels need them, all of them do. San Diego's 2050 regional transportation plans has zero plans for a Downtown LRT tunnel but instead has plans for a Blue Line LRT express from Downtown to San Ysidro. The tunnel is a far better deal than the Blue Line express which is way overrated. 1st, express trains would come every 15 minutes rather than every 7.5 minutes like the currrent local service. 2nd, the express would only serve a fraction of the stations. 3rd, most passengers taking the Blue Line do not travel the whole distance from Downtown to San Ysidro. By contrast, a Downtown LRT tunnel would speed up every single trip passing through Downtown (potentially a far larger number than people traveling the distance from Downtown to San Ysidro). It would result in frequency increases, which would benefit every single station from end to end on the Blue Line, unlike an express service which would only benefit a select few stations.

Another idea you didn't mention, which may have less backlash than completely making the streets the light rail goes on car free would be making changes to those streets. I don't know what every street the light rail runs on looks like, so this is just me spit balling, but one of the streets I saw in one of the clips was essentially a three lane wide road with two lanes going in either direction and one lane for parallel parking. Get rid of the parallel parking and make that the lane going the other way, then the far left lane is just for trains only and then give the trains signal priority at every intersection. This should speed it up at least a little bit and is much cheaper than tunneling most of the system.

We need some light rail in Downey. Lakewood Blvd and Rosemead Blvd. interstate 19. From Long Beach to Sierra Madre CA.

How’d Pittsburgh manage to pull off a downtown tunnel but Portland hasn’t yet? Wild

I think Portland needs to commit to building proper heavy rail metro at this point. They could benefit from the capacity and if you are spending the money on grade separation you might as well go all out and get the benefit of having a proper metro system. In a metropolitan area of almost 3 million people Portland needs more than a light rail system. They also need to do a better job of connecting the city with their system too. There are a lot of transit deserts in Portland where the max system doesn’t go. I think they need to find ways to increase capacity and decrease congestion so that they can serve further areas of the city and grade separation and building proper subways like most other large cities in the world would do the city of Portland well.

How often do the MAX trains cross the bridge each direction? Warsaw has to limit its tram speeds on the Poniatowski Bridge because of nimbys below and it still manages to run a tram every 2 minutes

The easiest and cheapest way to fix the MAX is to remove all the damn stops downtown

Yellow and Orange are technically the same, but NMBY's are why they are considered different

Some notes, cars rarely ever block the Max by being stuck on the tracks, it happens but its more of a consistent problem for the streetcar running. Also on the tunnelling, the reason why it hasnt been expanded on is because the ground is extremely flimsy and is a massive danger to earthquakes. I would say a bigger problem for the MAX is how many violent/unhinged people just wander on/off the Max without paying and make

Ok but why make it come up at Goose hollow instead of keeping it underground since it already goes underground once it starts to go towards Washington park

Yes! Portland should definitely build a tunnel. So should Calgary through its downtown already identified to be run under 8 Ave SW, our downtown pedestrian mall.

Idk why but for me it just doesn’t seem like it goes anywhere helpful. It should seamlessly go from SE to Beaverton

Portland is one of the most normal cities I've ever visited, their motto is misleading.

You mean Reece was wrong about how you shouldn’t put light rail underground because “you shouldn’t have built light rail to begin with”? Heresy! In all seriousness, I think Seattle, and even begrudingly LA, have shown how effective light rail can be when you balance grade separation and at grade sections. There’s crucial at grade parts that save taxpayers some money and make the projects feasible, but the elevated or underground crossings make the trains reliable services

SF needs to tunnel the N judah and M ocean

Everyone loves to rave about MAX, but it genuinely has far more negative than positives, and I say that as both a life long transit & city planning whore AND a reliant rider of TriMeth up through February of 2023. And as an aside, let's face it, the Red line isn't even existent until Gateway/99th. There is where it begins it's existence as both it's start and termini. It's just the Blue line the entire rest of the way. It may not be "important" in the grand scheme, but goddamnit is it so annoying pretending it somehow is not just a relabeled blue line.

it depends all what portland geology is like.

Make a video about denver!!!

HOW MUCH FOR the cyber Gutter punk Subway

If you don‘t want cardrivers to drive on dedicated tramlanes, just use green tracks?🗿

Yep, anything that gets 1 or 2 lines off the Steel Bridge is a good idea. Maybe another bridge instead of a tunnel?

Don't listen to RM transit that using tunnels for the light rail is bad.

I've never been to Portland (would love to one day) but as an LA resident (which you used as a positive example a few times here) I don't think we're a good comparison. Our light rails are more like taking the worst aspects of regional/commuter rail (long distances) and light rail (lots of at grade crossings) and trying to act like it's heavy rail. I don't think tunnelling would have the payoff for how expensive and invasive it'd be, since it's a way lower population and a much more bikeable city I'd lean more toward less frequent stops and making it wait for traffic less (crossing gates, closing down some smaller streets that try to pass through it, etc).

Portland has one of the worst designed system in North America 1,900 pax per mile pre-Covid is just abysmal - that's what Valley Metro carries. The whole network is horribly misaligned - a downtown tunnel won't magically bring people to the system if all the branches are rubbish. There's not a single decent corridor in the network it's almost comical how in a city with so many promising radial ROWs and good urban bones they managed to mess this up. Three decent LRT corridors have been built in the US (Houston Red, Minneapolis Green and LA's Santa Monica line) vs 100s of design failures. It's maddening how much money was spend across dozens of systems and all of them combined carry maybe double of the combined ridership of Calgary's and Edmonton's LRT systems...

Portland's got a lot more problems than its right rail system.

Light rail is just a quick cheap solution that doesn't work well as public transportation. All Light rail should have been elevated.