TriMet shares its thinking about Bybee MAX station plans

By Eric Norberg

The Bee, Nov 25, 2009

This illustration presented at the November 9th meeting in Eastmoreland shows the Bybee Station, and the pedestrian access to it from both sides of the Bybee Bridge, from a point southeast of the bridge looking towards the west.

TriMet hosted a presentation and discussion about the progress of its planning for a light rail station at S.E. Bybee Boulevard, under the Bybee Bridge, at the Eastmoreland Grill on the evening of Monday, November 9.

A sizeable crowd was present to view the diagrams and illustrations, hear a discussion of the plans, and to ask questions and make suggestions.

It became clear that there were a number of people concerned about the dropping of plans to widen the north side of the Bybee Bridge, as it was designed to do when rebuilt recently, in order to provide a bus-stop turnout. TriMet spokespersons explained that, with bus stops nearby on both sides of the bridge, widening it did not seem cost-effective.

However, one diagram shown indicated that in response to this concern, TriMet had already planned to add a westbound bus stop on the bridge — without widening it. Loading and unloading buses would block westbound traffic, but the statistics suggest that buses would normally not stop westbound traffic more than a half minute at a time. Continued comment from attendees led the light rail officials present to agree to take another look at the widening idea, but it was clear they did not believe they had the budget for doing that.

Instead, the current thinking is to build stairways and elevators on both sides of the bridge for pedestrian access from the middle of the bridge to the station below. And, for security, tickets would have to be bought at the bridge level, before descending to the platform. “Nobody without a ticket could legally be on the platform,” it was explained. Other security features, including multiple closed-circuit TV cameras, would also be part of the installation.

Also causing some comment was the provision in the design for eastern-side widening S.E. McLoughlin Boulevard to three lanes each direction between Harold Street and Tacoma Street. However, this is not a TriMet plan; it’s a long-planned ODOT project, for which there has been and still is no funding. ODOT insists it will be done, but perhaps not for a couple of decades. But TriMet still has to allow space for the planned expansion.

TriMet also acknowledged the ongoing Westmoreland interest in a Harold Street station, by showing it on all route maps as a “future location”. The rails are to be constructed there in such a way as to allow a station to be added later, when funding is available for it.

The final design of the Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail line, and its stations and Park-and-Rides, is to be attained by sometime next year or in 2011; full funding is expected by 2012; Construction is planned for 2011-2015, and the line is projected to be open and running by 2015.

TriMet plans more meetings on aspects of the project, and develops mailing lists for meeting notifications from sign-in sheets at the meetings. They also notify the media, and THE BEE carries notice of such meetings affecting the area we serve in our monthly calendar listings.

For information on the project, call TriMet Community Affairs at 503/962-2150, or go online to: www.trimet.org/pm. You can sign up for e-mail meeting notifications there as well.

Also resources for the public are the 24 members of the project’s Citizen Advisory Committee. These include Michole Jensen, for Ardenwald-Johnson Creek; Lance Lindahl, for the Brooklyn neighborhood; Dan Packard for the Eastmoreland neighborhood; and Reid Kells for the Sellwood and Westmoreland neighborhoods.

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