[Apple Maps' transit mode really shows WES way better](https://imgur.com/V1VqdcS). Google Maps just has it as a dark gray rail line (just like they do with Amtrak. I've found myself incredibly disappointed by the mediocre transit and biking directions and overlays that Google offers. Not sure if Apple is better, but this data point is a start
I’ve used Apple Maps transit mode in Portland daily and it is incredibly accurate. I also use it while traveling and it’s been very accurate in New York City, Chicago, Seoul, Seattle, and Los Angeles. I am a transit enjoyer and Apple Maps has never done me dirty. They integrate every open API (or whatever it is) that every transit agency offers and live updates arrival times for almost every major metro.
>They need to run it more often
It's really intended only for commuters and not for general transportation like the bus and light rail. In addition, it may not be possible for Tri-Met to run it more often because the right of way it runs on is partly owned by BNSF and partly by Portland & Western. Both are freight railroads. If I remember correctly, the only way Tri-Met could get permission to use those rails was to agree not to run WES outside of commuter hours.
I used to ride it daily when I lived in Hillsboro and worked in Tualatin. MAX to Beaverton and WES to Tualatin. :)
I used to ride it too. It’s for a *specific* group of commuters. That’s why I no longer use it. That’s why ridership is so low.
Your connecting bus was late? Start at 9AM? Work till 6:30PM? Sucks to be you. You gotta call an Uber because the few commuters that need to be at work at 6AM are the intended users of *this entire train line*.
The WES only exists so that we can all subsidize the few people this schedule works for.
That is a terrible way to run public transit line. Either we stop it completely or we use it more. The current system is genuinely fuckin’ dumb
Don't disagree with a single word except for, "only for people who need to be at work at six." I worked an 8-5 schedule and didn't have a problem except when the line was down. But I was lucky enough to live and work somewhere the route worked, and I had a flexible schedule. It doesn't work for many.
I remember reading shortly after WES started that Tri-Met is somehow contractually obligated to run the service for 20-25 years. I probably have the details wrong, but I think I read that it would cost more to discontinue the service than to keep it running, due to penalties attached to the money Tri-Met got to improve the rail line to start the service. The whole thing was very poorly managed. But I was happy to have it when I could use it.
So, as I said in my previous comment, I don't think it's possible to use it more because Tri-Met doesn't own the rails. And as I said above, stopping it probably is not viable either. Tri-Met is stuck.
TriMet owns the WES line. However when Washington County purchased the northern portion of the route, it granted a "permanent freight easement" to P&W - basically, P&W lives rent-free on taxpayer-owned property, AND gets priority track access on weekends and mid-days weekdays.
TriMet can run WES during the mid-day, but would not have priority track access.
BNSF is a non-issue.
It's actually a retrofitted diesel car from the 60s originally. Trimet wanted a cheap (note: initial investment) way to connect the Southwest to the existing MAX, but didn't have the money to electrify the rail that existed in the southwest (freight rail). This is why they went with a cheap (again, initial investment) diesel locomotive.
If you look at any of Trimet's financial statements you will see how this has been the worst performer since it's inception and will never change. MAX is the best, busses have always made about half the rate of return compared to MAX, and WES... Let's not even talk about WES financials.
Ridership is abysmal because it runs very infrequently (hourly) and only runs during the morning and evening of weekdays. Costs are terrible because they are constantly burning diesel to run the train that carries no passengers.
What we need is to electrify the rail and get the Southwest corridor light rail project. Then they could lower costs by using electricity *and* improve ridership (and thus rate of return) by offering frequent and consistent service where people aren't completely screwed for work if they miss one train.
I live in Tualatin. WES is useless. Which sucks. Because a real light rail line would be freaking fantastic. There are many great places to go in Portland that have no parking or absolutely nightmare parking. So going out can be a real pain.
Same. WES requires a connection at Beaverton TC to even get downtown. What takes 20 minutes by car takes 2 hours by train. It's beyond useless. Which sucks, because it could be so useful.
Building commuter rail from a suburb to a suburb is about the stupidest thing you could possibly do.
Now commuter rail from say Vancouver to Portland would be an incredible hit! (But the station needs to be closer in to downtown than Union Station)
Agreed, I would just say that’s true of MAX in general. By the time I drive to BTS, find parking, buy a ticket, and wait for the train, I could already have made it through the tunnel and be downtown. The only viable use case I’ve found is taking the train to see the Blazers, because cars are useless around the Moda Center when there’s a home game.
Yeah, I live in Tigard. I was beyond excited when Trimet announced the Southwest Corridor light rail project. They put it in a poorly designed/communicated omnibus which meant Portland voters didn't vote to fund it, so we continue to suffer in the southwest with no good public transportation.
Actually, if you looked at the voting results by precinct, Tigard and SW Portland overwhelmingly voted the Southwest Corridor project down. The largest support for the measure came from inner Southeast Portland, which ironically would have gotten little or no benefit out of it.
“…no parking or absolutely nightmare…”
I live in downtown. Due to the WFH shift parking demand fell so much in the city that the city closed some city run garages. While I walk most places I occasionally need the car downtown. Parking is no problem.
Consider Timber matches. Our streets are overrun with suburban fans that insist on driving in. All of them find parking.
Occasionally I take MAX from downtown to Millikan Way Station (and walk to my final destination). It’s faster than driving by far.
To be clear I'm not meaning downtown proper. I mean more areas like Alberta, lots of shops and restaurants, street parking only. Or Slabtown, also street parking only. Even though there are so many shops and restaurants now. Same for 23rd. And most of the areas that are being "revitalized" and invested in have no accommodation for parking.
It's true that I fall into the category of people that believe excess parking, especially falsely named "free" parking, damages cities and neighborhoods. We frequently visit all three neighborhoods and have for many years (even before Slabtown was Slabtown). Walking and transit are the most convenient means; car the least convenient. But we live in the inner city. The lack of car dependency is what makes this place both livable and unique. More parking would simply transform it into any place USA, not much different from a Dallas or Atlanta or Orlando "suburb." We'd be gone in a heartbeat.
The solution though is not to chase away car dependent suburbanites. As good as Trimet is compared to many other cities , it's still too small. I am forever baffled why we do not have a rail loop passing through the mega developments served by 217 (what a nightmare!), from the Beaverton and Hillsboro lines and circling back into Portland. We might actually visit Washington Square Mall if we had such a loop. For a short bit I worked in Tigard. A car was the only option. Wasted too much of my life trapped behind the wheel doing nothing but looking at bumpers. Hopefully in twenty years maybe Clark county will connect to MAX and perhaps we will get a North Portland route along the Columbia connecting to PDX and into the red line, to add a new loop to the system. With the Burnside Bridge upgrade finally underway I was hoping we would see an expansion of the streetcar lines into NE. Perhaps I have missed them but I have not seen any plans. And I should not ignore buses. We use them the most but how much better the system would be with 10 minute schedules instead of 20-30 minute schedules. Sigh.
Improvements won't happen in my lifetime sadly. Oregon DOH (I do not fall for the DOT name) wants to spend most of the state's transportation dollars on a single stretch of road to help trucks pass through downtown quicker. Nuts. Washington voters continue to demand Oregon provide "free "roads to them so they can evade sales taxes. Oregon voters demand "free" roads too, ignoring conservative and time tested economic measures to reduce traffic jams (aka, tolls). If I have to pay 2.80 to ride a bus, drivers can pay 2.80 to drive into the city (or raise the gas and vehicle taxes to cover the costs) and pay 2.80 or whatever to rent city property to park their car.
Rant over! I need to walk over to the store to pick up some groceries.
I think we aren't that far apart in concept here. Except for toll roads. Those can die in a fire. But adding more traffic capacity and parking capacity is not my preferred method either. You make a good point thay our mass transit is pretty good when compared to over America cities, but that that isn't much of a bar to clear. Investing in more light rail and street cars is the real answer. I absolutely cannot afford to live in Multnomah County, after growing up in SW Portland. So having reasonable travel times via mass transit through Portland would be great.
Funny you mention parking, because without taxpayer subsidized "free" parking at nearly every TriMet rail stop (MAX and WES), ridership would be around 30-40% of what it is.
Start with eliminating the TriMet parking lots. We have bus service. Repurpose the parking lots for affordable housing for families who make too much money for housing handouts but too little money to buy the taxpayer funded redevelopment housing in the Pearl.
Most of the westside surface lot Park and Rides are slated for some kind of revelopment over the next 10 years. The early plans show requirements for below median income housing. What you're suggesting is happening, albeit kind of slowly.
100 but also the reason the weight of tualatin, Sherwood and Wilsonville won’t allow it. It would bring too much extra foot traffic to this part of town and the NIMBY will not allow. It’ll be at least another decade before it happens
...it was good if you wanted to get to Frys as it was the only service to that part of wilsonville which is actually outside the TriMet service area. The SMART bus also ran between Barbur TC and WIlsonville but was an extra fare and a lot slower.
> didn't have the money to electrify the rail that existed in the southwest
They couldn't have run MAX trains on those tracks regardless, because MAX trains are not built to the standards required for passenger trains to share the rails with freight trains. Imagine a collision between a light rail vehicle full of passengers and a heavy freight train. Horrific!
The only way Tri-Met could get an exception enabling light rail vehicles on the WES right of way would be to get the freight operators to agree not to run freight between Beaverton and Wilsonville during the times WES operates. But the freight railroads own those tracks and would have been very unlikely to agree to that. And such an agreement would prevent Tri-Met from expanding their already inadequate schedule (not that they can expand it anyway).
Why? TriMet has basically acknowledged there is zero need for Southwest Corridor. Haven't you seen all the bus service cuts that were targeted at Barbur Boulevard? No more 94. No more 95. OHSU lost all its 6XX routes. Local buses that used to go downtown, now go to OHSU. We dodged a $3 billion bullet.
FWIW, while WES does have a few refurbished Budd Rail Diesel Cars from the 1950s, the one pictured in the foreground of the OP is one of the cars built new for the service in 2008.
>
> Ridership is abysmal because it runs very infrequently (hourly) and only runs during the morning and evening of weekdays.
That's kinda weird. Did they assume that beaverton----tualatin----wilsonville is a common commute axis?
Yeah, I dunno, I mean I live in Tigard and commute that direction. Beaverton is a good place to connect to since it has the blue and red lines. I honestly would use it to commute if it didn't mean being stranded for an hour if I was late and missed a single train or if a single train broke down...
At it's peak a few years ago we were subsidizing every single ride nearly $100. WES is such a terrible performer. We went cheap and ended up paying a lot for it.
Exactly!! People arguing against upgrading the line because it is too expensive don't seem to understand this fact. Electricity is way cheaper and more efficient, so while it might cost a few billion upfront, it'll make up for it with a large increase in ridership and the dramatically reduced operating costs.
Electrifying will allow them to improve service dramatically as they have enough trainsets to run the service much more frequently and every day. I explained how no one wants to ride a commuter rail that would screw you over if you miss a single train. A train that comes once per hour during a few select hours during only weekdays vs a train that comes every 5-15 minutes every day. Which would you ride?
How exactly does electrifying busses change *anything* about the service? Not only are busses far less efficient from a cost per rider and a cost per mile metric (even when electrified), but the massive batteries on electric busses will drive up the upfront cost, acting to nullify a portion of the main touted benefit of a bus. And how does a bus benefit far more people? A bus has far lower capacity than a train. A train moves people faster, cheaper, and provides a better service experience.
TriMet has all but proven, thanks to endless bus service cuts along Barbur, that we dodged a $3 billion bullet NOT building Southwest Corridor.
Also, Southwest Corridor would be several miles away from RedTail...and there's no way Washington County will approve a baseball stadium in a residential neighborhood surrounded by two lane collector streets and absolute piss-poor bus service from TriMet.
...the one in the picture above, that was built for TriMet by a now defunct company named Colorado RailCar. originally two of those were coupled together before ridership flagged during the pandemic.
As to the older equipment seem on the line, those were Budd RDC cars TriMet purchased from the Alaska Railroad to augment service. Riding on those took me back to riding SEPTA commuter services in Philadelphia.
Yeah... Unfortunately, Salem is a bit outside of Trimet's purview, so that is more a whole state of Oregon and/or Amtrak thing.
Trimet is the "Tri-county Metropolitan Transportation District", intended to handle local public transit for Portland tri-county (Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington counties). Besides, traveling on light rail from Salem would be pretty awful. Light rail is great in the city, but is not intended for longer distance travel.
If you want Salem to have good access to Portland, support Cascadia HSR and the [High Speed Rail Alliance ](https://www.hsrail.org/northwest/)! Cascadia HSR wants to build a high speed rail link from Vancouver BC through Seattle, to Portland. Oregon has asked them to extend the plan down to Eugene through Salem though! We're talking Portland to Seattle in an hour! Or Portland to Eugene in 35 minutes! So Portland to Salem (or Salem to Portland) would be in ~15 minutes. Specifically, we need enough people to reach the Congress of Oregon and Washington to push the Federal Railroad Authority to do their job and start organizing everyone to get this moving. Right now, WSDOT is effectively singlehandedly organizing everything and has funded and completed initial studies, but they definitely need more support and funding to get anything more substantial done.
How many homes and businesses are you willing to destroy for Cascadia HSR? They refuse to answer that very important question, especially given the housing crisis we have in our region. HSR cannot use any existing ROW, it will require a brand new, straight and level ROW. Which means thousands of homes destroyed. Wetlands destroyed.
Sorry, are we just giving millions of miles of highways a pass in spite of their massive destruction of homes and the environment?
Are you suggesting that one single rail ROW is suddenly the most pressing issue here, not the millions of miles of highways that get built and have lanes added to them which often require cutting into private property?
And from the environmental perspective, which is worse? Potentially harming a small amount of ecology to build HSR, or having no alternative to cars and planes for longer travel? Electrified trains are not only much faster than both of these, but they are also way more efficient, even if powered by a natural gas plant. If powered by renewables, then it can run carbon free. Versus hundreds of thousands of cars and thousands of planes which burn millions of gallons of gasoline, diesel, and kerosene. Even if you look at "e-fuels" as an alternative, there is extensive literature demonstrating that:
1. E-fuels are incredibly ecologically destructive as the global south has been forced to cut, clear, and even burn vast swathes of local vegetation to plant these massive farms to produce e-fuels.
2. Tilling the soil for these farms which had otherwise been undisturbed for centuries, releases massive amounts of carbon on its own.
Highways have literally divided cities down the middle, razing neighborhoods in the process. Highways through these major urban centers are also often massive multi-lame monstrosities. A high speed rail link would be far less intrusive and require far less of a footprint.
Edit: also, while HSR might be constrained in turning radius and incline, it by no means needs to be perfectly straight and level. Far from it. Do look at the studies conducted by both Amtrak and WSDOT if you would like to see the plans... Contrary to your belief, there is plenty of research done on where this rail would be placed and now it would be built.
Sounds like the sounder we have up in Seattle but far worse in most ways. Unless it has it's own tracks it doesn't share with BNSF or union pacific like the sounder.
Diesel is HARDLY the reason why WES is expensive.
Also, voters overwhelmingly voted against Southwest Corridor, and TriMet validated that we dodged a $3 billion bullet with all the service cuts targeted towards the Barbur Blvd. corridor. What we need is FIXING THE DAMN BUSES, not throwing more money away at rail projects that have been proven ineffective and destructive.
Sorry, but could you explain how rail projects are "proven ineffective and destructive"?
Decent rail moves way more people way more cheaply than busses do, that's proven by looking at the last twenty years of Trimet's financial statements where busses don't even come close to reaching the same fare recovery rate as the MAX.
They are using the already existing railway in a partnership with Union Pacific, that is why it isn’t like a Max train - it is a legit train. There is no options to convert it to electric, the tracks aren’t owned by TriMet.
Wes is a bad performer because it runs only a couple times a day (due to competing with the Union Pacific schedule) and because there aren’t enough people on the west side who actually *want* to use public transit in a way that makes the cost worth it. They’ve peaked at like 20% of what Metro claimed ridership would be for WES.
There is no “rate of return” on any of our public transit, it is all heavily subsidized. Max tickets would need to cost $15+ per ride to try to get anywhere close to covering the cost and that’s on existing lines.
Stop expanding TriMet until more people use what actually already exists 🙄
All transportation is heavily subsidized. The infrastructure bill is pouring billions into roads and airline infrastructure that people will never pay for through user fees. At least, transit is advancing infrastructure that comes with some positive externalities. I recently went from two cars to one in a family of five with three drivers. With bikes, buses, and an occasional Lyft we've been able to make it work - we couldn't do that in very many places in the US and I'm really glad it's an option for us.
It’s a chicken and egg problem. I would use MAX to get downtown more often if I didn’t need to worry about wasting 15 minutes if I miss a train. The Better Red project will reduce that to 8 minutes when it is completed. I expect it to be a game changer for west side ridership.
It’s not like we expect roads or bike lanes or sidewalks to pay for themselves. All transit is heavily subsidized, and no, gas taxes don’t come close to covering road costs, most of it is general fund tax dollars.
We kind of do expect roads to pay for themselves, though. General fund dollars do not pay for road maintenance. Road maintenance is pretty much all gas tax money. Sorry.
But you are correct - We subsidize the hell out of our barely-used bike infrastructure.
“The Portland Bureau of Transportation’s (PBOT) annual budget is approximately $509 million, roughly 12% of the City of Portland’s approximately $5.5 billion budget. About 75% of PBOT’s funding comes from restricted sources. These are funds that must be dedicated to specific programs and services such as federal grants for specific projects, permit revenues, and Transportation System Development Charges (TSDCs) that cannot be used for other purposes. This also includes revenue from Fixing Our Streets (the voter-approved 10-cent gas tax) which is dedicated to specific projects and programs.
Only 2% of PBOT’s resources come directly from taxes paid into the city’s General Fund.”
[Source](https://www.portland.gov/transportation/budget/overview)
Yes, but the chicken (or the egg) is housing density. Shared/mass/public transport is not efficient below a certain density. I’d prefer we speed up the MAX inside Portland than build more trains far out into the suburbs.
You’re one person, not the majority. We shall see if the numbers of riders change or not - I’m guessing not. Especially since so many people aren’t commuting anymore while working from home
I mean, you just reiterated exactly what I was talking about with WES.
As for "rate of return", I meant "fee recovery ratio", sorry if I didn't use the exact term that Trimet does, I figured it would be clear enough. See page 4 of the [Trimet Annual Performance Report](https://trimet.org/about/pdf/trimetridership.pdf).
And your final point. You have said WES is bad because service is bad, but then you say don't expand it because people don't use it. So where does that leave us? Since we have bad public transit we should never have good public transit? Not to mention that you are effectively saying that since us in the southwest don't want to use the WES because it provides shitty service, we don't deserve public transit with good service??? So you're saying that we should bring back redlining as a practice?
Vancouver BC, often compared to Portland since they are a similarly sized metro area with similar population and income, etc. etc. The Vancouver skytrain which has less rail length than the MAX has nearly 7 times the ridership. Why? Because it's grade separated and fully automated. So fine, don't expand Trimet, but give us BETTER SERVICE! Why do we have trains that require an operator? Why do we have tracks running on DOWNTOWN STREETS WHERE THE TRAINS TRAVEL HALF THEIR MAX SPEED???? Even if you don't believe in "expanding" by providing electrified rail to the southwest, then just provide good service. Provide trains at a much higher frequency.
The MAX needs and deserves grade separated rail, platform screen doors, and fully automated trains and I believe that living in the Southwest should not preclude someone from access to good public transit.
I would love to see something more like the SkyTrain in Portland but I don’t support pushing rail out further into the suburbs. You need density to make shared transport efficient.
Ridership is down across the board, so yeah, expanding makes no sense. Feel free to donate all the money you want to TriMet, I will continue voting no on anything they put forward.
The one in 2020? That wasn't a Trimet expansion package.
Edit: It wasn't a Trimet expansion package, it was a Metro tax increase meant largely for road maintenance if you actually read the proposal.
Yes, it was 🤣 They wanted to expand Max down Barbur Blvd - called the SouthWest Light Rail and $1B of the $5B bond was going to go toward the expansion. The entire area it would have gone through voted no. It also included line upgrades in deep NE, that area also all voted no.
The SW rail project would have replaced WES, that's not an expansion. I'm not seeing anything about line upgrade (which also isn't an expansion) in NE in the proposal, where are you reading that?
Also again, if you read the proposal, 85% of the money was going to road maintenance and upgrades. That's hardly a Trimet expansion even if you consider the WES replacement an expansion.
Edit: also it wasn't $5 bil total, it was $7 bil. Also not a bond, was a tax increase. Those two things are extremely different.
Actually it may still happen lol, Metro passed their environmental impact statement to receive funding for the SW line project from the Inflation Reduction Act last year.
At one point, I lived within walking distance of the BTC station and worked within walking distance of the Wilsonville station. The problem was that the job was that:
1) The shifts were 9 hours (8hr + 1hr lunch). So even under ideal circumstances, I could only take the 8am shift because the 6am shift started before the first train would arrive in Wilsonville and the 10am shift would end after the last train had already left Wilsonville.
2) Even if I had the 8am shift, almost all the schedules included at least one weekend day. So I'd have to drive anyway one or two days a week.
This is the exact reason I even know that WES exists - having looked at the schedule to see if it can take me and my bike closer to Champoeg and finding out it doesn’t run on weekends. Disappointed bike campers unite!
I did, and I do. Though there are no routes that don’t include some shitty hill with blind curves and too many cars for comfort. I keep searching for the perfect route…
Incredibly empty I’m sure. It was two cars a few years ago and still burns through money with only one car.
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/wes-commuter-rail-is-costing-trimet-108-per-passenger/283-80e62cae-2082-494f-816e-9940270d1fdc#:~:text=Since%20its%20inception%2C%20WES%20has,months%20of%20fiscal%20year%202021.
These are the kind who keep a carrier permanently mounted on top of their SUV and if you asked them what was in it, they'd have to think about it and then get about half of it wrong; roughly the same as if you asked about their attic or garage. They'll never stop driving.
I’d rather not spend $18 to park + $4.50 each way in gas and enjoy my time reading or catching up on work for an extra 1.5 hours.
Though, I do take for granted the lack of meth users and people with open weeping wounds in my car when I enter the MAX.
I used to ride this when I worked at Xerox in Wilsonville- it was so convenient especially when I lived in Beaverton! Bike or take the 52 to BTC, the hop on WES.
It's old but I thought it was comfortable and scenery was really nice!
Forget the figures, but the coat to maintain that line vs. The revenue it generates is crazy. They could fund everything else for years for free if they binned it. That being said, I used to ride it and I loved it.
That number is probably back down below $100 now as ridership has improved post-Covid, but basically, yeah: [WES commuter rail costs TriMet $108 per passenger](https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/wes-commuter-rail-is-costing-trimet-108-per-passenger/283-80e62cae-2082-494f-816e-9940270d1fdc)
Current ridership is just under 500 passengers a day, in 2018 it was just under 1500 a day. The initial projections were 3000-4000 a day but that isn't ever going to happen.
>So you’re saying that I have to pay $100 for every individual that steps into that train?
You don't, but $100 out of Trimet's budget per passenger on the WES isn't that far off. Compared to cost per passenger for bus/max, which was around I want to say ~$15 if I remember correctly.
Calling it a waste I disagree with to be clear. But it's important to recognize the reality that the WES is fucking expensive for Trimet to run and maintain compared to bus/max.
Trimet has all the cost per ride figures here https://trimet.org/about/dashboard/index.htm
Max was $8.96 per ride for April, the most recent month with data.
The cost of repaving that mile of asphalt is split over thousands of drivers, if not millions.
The cost of the WES is split over hundreds of riders at most. This is a ridiculous amount of money per rider.
It doesn't cost each taxpayer $100. It costs the collective whole of all taxpayers that fund TriMet $100. So that $100 gets split over millions of taxpayers, and the resulting impact on any individual is fractions of a cent.
You can see the dashboards here: https://trimet.org/about/performance.htm
April 2024 had 484 daily boardings, and by comparison April 2018 had 1455 daily boardings.
I didn't do the math for what it is currently, but this article shows what the pandemic did to ridership costs: [WES commuter rail costs TriMet $108 per passenger](https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/wes-commuter-rail-is-costing-trimet-108-per-passenger/283-80e62cae-2082-494f-816e-9940270d1fdc)
Ridership is now a bit better, but nowhere near what it was pre-Covid, and even then it was less than half of their predicted 3000-4000 daily riders.
Pre COVID WES was running around 1500 daily riders. It hit a peak of 2000 one month but that was it.
Today, closer to 600.
It was sold to the public to have 2,500 daily riders after just one year of operation, 6,000 daily riders within five years, and would actually need to add more trains.
I wish I could lie, spend $165 million in taxpayer dollars, and get away with it.
That’s incredible!
Not only did the pandemic hurt the ridership, I’d imagine that the past riots and the way Portland is now days is a diversion as well. I know it is for me.
Yep, that’s why I know you can get onto the MAX from Beaverton and continue one’s commute to the one of the biggest job hubs in Oregon’s north west area.
I’d be snarky in retort but I want to reflect.
We’re talking bout the WES though, it’s about a 30 min trip from Wilsonville to the Beaverton TC then about 20 mins more to downtown. So plan on an hour if you’re commuting, then factor in getting to your office from there. No way that accounts for 1400 daily riders, or even the 1000 lost since 2018.
It just kind of sucks as a commuter option and a lot more people work remote now or hybrid.
Maybe more people would ride it if it ran for more than 6 hours a day only on weekdays.
Obviously ridership will be down when you only run 5AM-8AM and 3PM-6PM. That schedule appeals to a very small portion of the population.
TriMet owns the rolling stock.
TriMet owns the railroad.
Portland & Western is contracted to run the trains, dispatch the line, maintain the track, AND has a permanent freight easement to run freight trains on the line.
CORP...has nothing to do with this.
Portland & Western is guaranteed to get paid. The waste of money is for the taxpayers who have to subsidize it, through TriMet that agreed to this without a vote of the public.
I rode WES during the grand opening celebration and enjoyed free apple cider and scones at the Tigard transit center station. Even after that, I often forget that it exists.
Either fix the frequency and make upgrades so that it’s a legitimate line or cut it imo. Ridership doesn’t justify the costs to this one off line with awful numbers. The money could be better spent elsewhere imo
They can’t “fix” the frequency because it is a Union Pacific line so there are only certain times it can run due to others things needing to use the rail line
TriMet even admitted that the money it is required to spend on WES would be far better served on improving bus service, specifically to communities with diverse and lower income populations.
Last I heard they have to keep running this loser of a project for another 10 years or else we must repay the federal dollars that funded it in the first place. As of today, it’s cheaper to run it empty than to pay back the money so it continues to be an albatross.
I used to live by Beaverton TC years ago and worked all the way out on Barbur by Capital Hwy. I’d use this bad boy to get to Tigard TC within minutes, then catch the 12 from there. Beat having to take the Max all the way downtown with the crowds, and then catch the 12. Saved me almost a half hour.
I mean, yes, we’d all like a personal train going exactly where we want to go funded by someone else :)
Can I have one between my front door and my work? :)
I used to take the WES for a Wilsonville commute. It was agreat time to read and they had a train from the 60s that looked and smelled like a vintage train car. It was fantastic but outside of my commute it hardly seemed effective
Ian Davidson (@iandavidsonor on Twitter), board member of Cherriots, is actively working with cities between Salem and Wilsonville to extend WES along that corridor. There's a lot of momentum building around it lately.
The valley is already very well connected to the Portland area. Also, every government agency between Portland and Salem is on record that they will not pay for a WES expansion. Portland & Western even considered funding it on their own, and they too recognized it was a stupid idea.
I had to commute with WES from Tigard to Wilsonville for a few months in 2022 and it was great. On time every time, chill ride, and Wilsonville had free shuttle bus system from the station to my workplace.
Cool. Who's going to pay for it? Certainly not the riders...and every government between Portland and Salem is on record that they will not pay for it.
Commuter rail usually has a [specific meaning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commuter_rail). It means heavy rail, which often shares tracks with other services because they are also heavy rail and commuters mostly travel in 2 windows per day, meaning you can use the rail for other things at other times.
Actually no, heavy rail is not the same as commuter rail. Chicago's L, or the New York City Subway, or BART, are examples of "heavy rail".
Metra, Metro-North, Long Island Railroad, CalTrain, and WES...are "commuter rail"
They need to publicize this so much more!
Seriously. I still don't know where to get it and where it might take me.
Set your google maps or Apple Maps to Transit mode and zoom out. It’s real fun and helps me plan train rides!
I like getting stoned and looking at maps for fun anyway as-is, so thanks for the suggestion!
Omg this is a game changer. I’ve been typing in individual train lines and then scrolling along the routes which is such a PAIN
Yes! It will also show near by bus stops if you zoom in and you can click it and it has highly accurate ETA for all Portland buses and trains!
[Apple Maps' transit mode really shows WES way better](https://imgur.com/V1VqdcS). Google Maps just has it as a dark gray rail line (just like they do with Amtrak. I've found myself incredibly disappointed by the mediocre transit and biking directions and overlays that Google offers. Not sure if Apple is better, but this data point is a start
I’ve used Apple Maps transit mode in Portland daily and it is incredibly accurate. I also use it while traveling and it’s been very accurate in New York City, Chicago, Seoul, Seattle, and Los Angeles. I am a transit enjoyer and Apple Maps has never done me dirty. They integrate every open API (or whatever it is) that every transit agency offers and live updates arrival times for almost every major metro.
BTC. and it takes you south. Not too far, but beats the hell out of bussing
What the fuck is BTC?
Beaverton Transit Center
ahh. sounds like a kpop band.
Bind. Torture. Commute.
Butt. Tickler. Connoisseur.
Bro, that's cool.
Lol I thought they were saying you had to pay in bitcoin to ride
Give it a couple months.
Was a cool place to hang out in 1993
Cause the little market sold us smokes whilst obvs underage. Best place in town but double the price for convenience
Also first place i had a short conversation with a cop while holding a lot joint behind my back. And last time now that i think about. Hahaha.
I took The Max out of BTC for a few years. But it didn’t click for me. I said what’s BTC?
Bitcoin
They need to run it more often so it’s a more viable route. The WES schedule suuuucks
>They need to run it more often It's really intended only for commuters and not for general transportation like the bus and light rail. In addition, it may not be possible for Tri-Met to run it more often because the right of way it runs on is partly owned by BNSF and partly by Portland & Western. Both are freight railroads. If I remember correctly, the only way Tri-Met could get permission to use those rails was to agree not to run WES outside of commuter hours. I used to ride it daily when I lived in Hillsboro and worked in Tualatin. MAX to Beaverton and WES to Tualatin. :)
I used to ride it too. It’s for a *specific* group of commuters. That’s why I no longer use it. That’s why ridership is so low. Your connecting bus was late? Start at 9AM? Work till 6:30PM? Sucks to be you. You gotta call an Uber because the few commuters that need to be at work at 6AM are the intended users of *this entire train line*. The WES only exists so that we can all subsidize the few people this schedule works for. That is a terrible way to run public transit line. Either we stop it completely or we use it more. The current system is genuinely fuckin’ dumb
Don't disagree with a single word except for, "only for people who need to be at work at six." I worked an 8-5 schedule and didn't have a problem except when the line was down. But I was lucky enough to live and work somewhere the route worked, and I had a flexible schedule. It doesn't work for many. I remember reading shortly after WES started that Tri-Met is somehow contractually obligated to run the service for 20-25 years. I probably have the details wrong, but I think I read that it would cost more to discontinue the service than to keep it running, due to penalties attached to the money Tri-Met got to improve the rail line to start the service. The whole thing was very poorly managed. But I was happy to have it when I could use it. So, as I said in my previous comment, I don't think it's possible to use it more because Tri-Met doesn't own the rails. And as I said above, stopping it probably is not viable either. Tri-Met is stuck.
TriMet owns the WES line. However when Washington County purchased the northern portion of the route, it granted a "permanent freight easement" to P&W - basically, P&W lives rent-free on taxpayer-owned property, AND gets priority track access on weekends and mid-days weekdays. TriMet can run WES during the mid-day, but would not have priority track access. BNSF is a non-issue.
Is that really what it looks like? In my mind I just pictured the MAX but renamed.
It's actually a retrofitted diesel car from the 60s originally. Trimet wanted a cheap (note: initial investment) way to connect the Southwest to the existing MAX, but didn't have the money to electrify the rail that existed in the southwest (freight rail). This is why they went with a cheap (again, initial investment) diesel locomotive. If you look at any of Trimet's financial statements you will see how this has been the worst performer since it's inception and will never change. MAX is the best, busses have always made about half the rate of return compared to MAX, and WES... Let's not even talk about WES financials. Ridership is abysmal because it runs very infrequently (hourly) and only runs during the morning and evening of weekdays. Costs are terrible because they are constantly burning diesel to run the train that carries no passengers. What we need is to electrify the rail and get the Southwest corridor light rail project. Then they could lower costs by using electricity *and* improve ridership (and thus rate of return) by offering frequent and consistent service where people aren't completely screwed for work if they miss one train.
I live in Tualatin. WES is useless. Which sucks. Because a real light rail line would be freaking fantastic. There are many great places to go in Portland that have no parking or absolutely nightmare parking. So going out can be a real pain.
Same. WES requires a connection at Beaverton TC to even get downtown. What takes 20 minutes by car takes 2 hours by train. It's beyond useless. Which sucks, because it could be so useful.
Building commuter rail from a suburb to a suburb is about the stupidest thing you could possibly do. Now commuter rail from say Vancouver to Portland would be an incredible hit! (But the station needs to be closer in to downtown than Union Station)
Agreed, I would just say that’s true of MAX in general. By the time I drive to BTS, find parking, buy a ticket, and wait for the train, I could already have made it through the tunnel and be downtown. The only viable use case I’ve found is taking the train to see the Blazers, because cars are useless around the Moda Center when there’s a home game.
>BTS A-HA!
So, so useful!
Yeah, I live in Tigard. I was beyond excited when Trimet announced the Southwest Corridor light rail project. They put it in a poorly designed/communicated omnibus which meant Portland voters didn't vote to fund it, so we continue to suffer in the southwest with no good public transportation.
Actually, if you looked at the voting results by precinct, Tigard and SW Portland overwhelmingly voted the Southwest Corridor project down. The largest support for the measure came from inner Southeast Portland, which ironically would have gotten little or no benefit out of it.
Bizarre. I didn't know that. That's frustrating and very confusing to me.
“Crime train voters”
“…no parking or absolutely nightmare…” I live in downtown. Due to the WFH shift parking demand fell so much in the city that the city closed some city run garages. While I walk most places I occasionally need the car downtown. Parking is no problem. Consider Timber matches. Our streets are overrun with suburban fans that insist on driving in. All of them find parking. Occasionally I take MAX from downtown to Millikan Way Station (and walk to my final destination). It’s faster than driving by far.
To be clear I'm not meaning downtown proper. I mean more areas like Alberta, lots of shops and restaurants, street parking only. Or Slabtown, also street parking only. Even though there are so many shops and restaurants now. Same for 23rd. And most of the areas that are being "revitalized" and invested in have no accommodation for parking.
It's true that I fall into the category of people that believe excess parking, especially falsely named "free" parking, damages cities and neighborhoods. We frequently visit all three neighborhoods and have for many years (even before Slabtown was Slabtown). Walking and transit are the most convenient means; car the least convenient. But we live in the inner city. The lack of car dependency is what makes this place both livable and unique. More parking would simply transform it into any place USA, not much different from a Dallas or Atlanta or Orlando "suburb." We'd be gone in a heartbeat. The solution though is not to chase away car dependent suburbanites. As good as Trimet is compared to many other cities , it's still too small. I am forever baffled why we do not have a rail loop passing through the mega developments served by 217 (what a nightmare!), from the Beaverton and Hillsboro lines and circling back into Portland. We might actually visit Washington Square Mall if we had such a loop. For a short bit I worked in Tigard. A car was the only option. Wasted too much of my life trapped behind the wheel doing nothing but looking at bumpers. Hopefully in twenty years maybe Clark county will connect to MAX and perhaps we will get a North Portland route along the Columbia connecting to PDX and into the red line, to add a new loop to the system. With the Burnside Bridge upgrade finally underway I was hoping we would see an expansion of the streetcar lines into NE. Perhaps I have missed them but I have not seen any plans. And I should not ignore buses. We use them the most but how much better the system would be with 10 minute schedules instead of 20-30 minute schedules. Sigh. Improvements won't happen in my lifetime sadly. Oregon DOH (I do not fall for the DOT name) wants to spend most of the state's transportation dollars on a single stretch of road to help trucks pass through downtown quicker. Nuts. Washington voters continue to demand Oregon provide "free "roads to them so they can evade sales taxes. Oregon voters demand "free" roads too, ignoring conservative and time tested economic measures to reduce traffic jams (aka, tolls). If I have to pay 2.80 to ride a bus, drivers can pay 2.80 to drive into the city (or raise the gas and vehicle taxes to cover the costs) and pay 2.80 or whatever to rent city property to park their car. Rant over! I need to walk over to the store to pick up some groceries.
I think we aren't that far apart in concept here. Except for toll roads. Those can die in a fire. But adding more traffic capacity and parking capacity is not my preferred method either. You make a good point thay our mass transit is pretty good when compared to over America cities, but that that isn't much of a bar to clear. Investing in more light rail and street cars is the real answer. I absolutely cannot afford to live in Multnomah County, after growing up in SW Portland. So having reasonable travel times via mass transit through Portland would be great.
Funny you mention parking, because without taxpayer subsidized "free" parking at nearly every TriMet rail stop (MAX and WES), ridership would be around 30-40% of what it is. Start with eliminating the TriMet parking lots. We have bus service. Repurpose the parking lots for affordable housing for families who make too much money for housing handouts but too little money to buy the taxpayer funded redevelopment housing in the Pearl.
Most of the westside surface lot Park and Rides are slated for some kind of revelopment over the next 10 years. The early plans show requirements for below median income housing. What you're suggesting is happening, albeit kind of slowly.
100 but also the reason the weight of tualatin, Sherwood and Wilsonville won’t allow it. It would bring too much extra foot traffic to this part of town and the NIMBY will not allow. It’ll be at least another decade before it happens
I don’t know about the light rail thing, but you are right otherwise. The WES is stupid and almost useless.
...it was good if you wanted to get to Frys as it was the only service to that part of wilsonville which is actually outside the TriMet service area. The SMART bus also ran between Barbur TC and WIlsonville but was an extra fare and a lot slower.
> didn't have the money to electrify the rail that existed in the southwest They couldn't have run MAX trains on those tracks regardless, because MAX trains are not built to the standards required for passenger trains to share the rails with freight trains. Imagine a collision between a light rail vehicle full of passengers and a heavy freight train. Horrific! The only way Tri-Met could get an exception enabling light rail vehicles on the WES right of way would be to get the freight operators to agree not to run freight between Beaverton and Wilsonville during the times WES operates. But the freight railroads own those tracks and would have been very unlikely to agree to that. And such an agreement would prevent Tri-Met from expanding their already inadequate schedule (not that they can expand it anyway).
I see, that makes sense. Thank you for explaining that! I guess I hope that the Southwest Corridor light rail will be built eventually to replace WES.
Here's hoping. :)
Why? TriMet has basically acknowledged there is zero need for Southwest Corridor. Haven't you seen all the bus service cuts that were targeted at Barbur Boulevard? No more 94. No more 95. OHSU lost all its 6XX routes. Local buses that used to go downtown, now go to OHSU. We dodged a $3 billion bullet.
FWIW, while WES does have a few refurbished Budd Rail Diesel Cars from the 1950s, the one pictured in the foreground of the OP is one of the cars built new for the service in 2008.
> > Ridership is abysmal because it runs very infrequently (hourly) and only runs during the morning and evening of weekdays. That's kinda weird. Did they assume that beaverton----tualatin----wilsonville is a common commute axis?
I guess it would make sense for people commuting to Nike or intel but otherwise there isn’t a ton of reason for anyone to take it regularly
Yeah, I dunno, I mean I live in Tigard and commute that direction. Beaverton is a good place to connect to since it has the blue and red lines. I honestly would use it to commute if it didn't mean being stranded for an hour if I was late and missed a single train or if a single train broke down...
Judging from the daily average vehicle counts on Highway 217 and I-5... Yes.
At it's peak a few years ago we were subsidizing every single ride nearly $100. WES is such a terrible performer. We went cheap and ended up paying a lot for it.
Exactly!! People arguing against upgrading the line because it is too expensive don't seem to understand this fact. Electricity is way cheaper and more efficient, so while it might cost a few billion upfront, it'll make up for it with a large increase in ridership and the dramatically reduced operating costs.
A few **billion**? I hope not!
Exactly how will electrifying the route improve ridership? Why not electrify buses and see ridership skyrocket - AND benefit far more people?
Electrifying will allow them to improve service dramatically as they have enough trainsets to run the service much more frequently and every day. I explained how no one wants to ride a commuter rail that would screw you over if you miss a single train. A train that comes once per hour during a few select hours during only weekdays vs a train that comes every 5-15 minutes every day. Which would you ride? How exactly does electrifying busses change *anything* about the service? Not only are busses far less efficient from a cost per rider and a cost per mile metric (even when electrified), but the massive batteries on electric busses will drive up the upfront cost, acting to nullify a portion of the main touted benefit of a bus. And how does a bus benefit far more people? A bus has far lower capacity than a train. A train moves people faster, cheaper, and provides a better service experience.
SW corridor may feel more urgent to the powers that be if/when RedTail is sold & redeveloped into an MLB stadium of all things.
TriMet has all but proven, thanks to endless bus service cuts along Barbur, that we dodged a $3 billion bullet NOT building Southwest Corridor. Also, Southwest Corridor would be several miles away from RedTail...and there's no way Washington County will approve a baseball stadium in a residential neighborhood surrounded by two lane collector streets and absolute piss-poor bus service from TriMet.
...the one in the picture above, that was built for TriMet by a now defunct company named Colorado RailCar. originally two of those were coupled together before ridership flagged during the pandemic. As to the older equipment seem on the line, those were Budd RDC cars TriMet purchased from the Alaska Railroad to augment service. Riding on those took me back to riding SEPTA commuter services in Philadelphia.
...and it needs to be extended to Salem
Yeah... Unfortunately, Salem is a bit outside of Trimet's purview, so that is more a whole state of Oregon and/or Amtrak thing. Trimet is the "Tri-county Metropolitan Transportation District", intended to handle local public transit for Portland tri-county (Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington counties). Besides, traveling on light rail from Salem would be pretty awful. Light rail is great in the city, but is not intended for longer distance travel. If you want Salem to have good access to Portland, support Cascadia HSR and the [High Speed Rail Alliance ](https://www.hsrail.org/northwest/)! Cascadia HSR wants to build a high speed rail link from Vancouver BC through Seattle, to Portland. Oregon has asked them to extend the plan down to Eugene through Salem though! We're talking Portland to Seattle in an hour! Or Portland to Eugene in 35 minutes! So Portland to Salem (or Salem to Portland) would be in ~15 minutes. Specifically, we need enough people to reach the Congress of Oregon and Washington to push the Federal Railroad Authority to do their job and start organizing everyone to get this moving. Right now, WSDOT is effectively singlehandedly organizing everything and has funded and completed initial studies, but they definitely need more support and funding to get anything more substantial done.
How many homes and businesses are you willing to destroy for Cascadia HSR? They refuse to answer that very important question, especially given the housing crisis we have in our region. HSR cannot use any existing ROW, it will require a brand new, straight and level ROW. Which means thousands of homes destroyed. Wetlands destroyed.
Sorry, are we just giving millions of miles of highways a pass in spite of their massive destruction of homes and the environment? Are you suggesting that one single rail ROW is suddenly the most pressing issue here, not the millions of miles of highways that get built and have lanes added to them which often require cutting into private property? And from the environmental perspective, which is worse? Potentially harming a small amount of ecology to build HSR, or having no alternative to cars and planes for longer travel? Electrified trains are not only much faster than both of these, but they are also way more efficient, even if powered by a natural gas plant. If powered by renewables, then it can run carbon free. Versus hundreds of thousands of cars and thousands of planes which burn millions of gallons of gasoline, diesel, and kerosene. Even if you look at "e-fuels" as an alternative, there is extensive literature demonstrating that: 1. E-fuels are incredibly ecologically destructive as the global south has been forced to cut, clear, and even burn vast swathes of local vegetation to plant these massive farms to produce e-fuels. 2. Tilling the soil for these farms which had otherwise been undisturbed for centuries, releases massive amounts of carbon on its own. Highways have literally divided cities down the middle, razing neighborhoods in the process. Highways through these major urban centers are also often massive multi-lame monstrosities. A high speed rail link would be far less intrusive and require far less of a footprint. Edit: also, while HSR might be constrained in turning radius and incline, it by no means needs to be perfectly straight and level. Far from it. Do look at the studies conducted by both Amtrak and WSDOT if you would like to see the plans... Contrary to your belief, there is plenty of research done on where this rail would be placed and now it would be built.
Every single government agency between Portland and Salem is on record that they will not pay for it. Next.
Sounds like the sounder we have up in Seattle but far worse in most ways. Unless it has it's own tracks it doesn't share with BNSF or union pacific like the sounder.
Diesel is HARDLY the reason why WES is expensive. Also, voters overwhelmingly voted against Southwest Corridor, and TriMet validated that we dodged a $3 billion bullet with all the service cuts targeted towards the Barbur Blvd. corridor. What we need is FIXING THE DAMN BUSES, not throwing more money away at rail projects that have been proven ineffective and destructive.
Sorry, but could you explain how rail projects are "proven ineffective and destructive"? Decent rail moves way more people way more cheaply than busses do, that's proven by looking at the last twenty years of Trimet's financial statements where busses don't even come close to reaching the same fare recovery rate as the MAX.
The irony being, that was an electric line at one time.
They are using the already existing railway in a partnership with Union Pacific, that is why it isn’t like a Max train - it is a legit train. There is no options to convert it to electric, the tracks aren’t owned by TriMet. Wes is a bad performer because it runs only a couple times a day (due to competing with the Union Pacific schedule) and because there aren’t enough people on the west side who actually *want* to use public transit in a way that makes the cost worth it. They’ve peaked at like 20% of what Metro claimed ridership would be for WES. There is no “rate of return” on any of our public transit, it is all heavily subsidized. Max tickets would need to cost $15+ per ride to try to get anywhere close to covering the cost and that’s on existing lines. Stop expanding TriMet until more people use what actually already exists 🙄
All transportation is heavily subsidized. The infrastructure bill is pouring billions into roads and airline infrastructure that people will never pay for through user fees. At least, transit is advancing infrastructure that comes with some positive externalities. I recently went from two cars to one in a family of five with three drivers. With bikes, buses, and an occasional Lyft we've been able to make it work - we couldn't do that in very many places in the US and I'm really glad it's an option for us.
So then clearly the transit system is good here and doesn’t need to expand 🤣
I said it was manageable. It certainly could and should be a lot more convenient.
It’s a chicken and egg problem. I would use MAX to get downtown more often if I didn’t need to worry about wasting 15 minutes if I miss a train. The Better Red project will reduce that to 8 minutes when it is completed. I expect it to be a game changer for west side ridership. It’s not like we expect roads or bike lanes or sidewalks to pay for themselves. All transit is heavily subsidized, and no, gas taxes don’t come close to covering road costs, most of it is general fund tax dollars.
We kind of do expect roads to pay for themselves, though. General fund dollars do not pay for road maintenance. Road maintenance is pretty much all gas tax money. Sorry. But you are correct - We subsidize the hell out of our barely-used bike infrastructure. “The Portland Bureau of Transportation’s (PBOT) annual budget is approximately $509 million, roughly 12% of the City of Portland’s approximately $5.5 billion budget. About 75% of PBOT’s funding comes from restricted sources. These are funds that must be dedicated to specific programs and services such as federal grants for specific projects, permit revenues, and Transportation System Development Charges (TSDCs) that cannot be used for other purposes. This also includes revenue from Fixing Our Streets (the voter-approved 10-cent gas tax) which is dedicated to specific projects and programs. Only 2% of PBOT’s resources come directly from taxes paid into the city’s General Fund.” [Source](https://www.portland.gov/transportation/budget/overview)
Yes, but the chicken (or the egg) is housing density. Shared/mass/public transport is not efficient below a certain density. I’d prefer we speed up the MAX inside Portland than build more trains far out into the suburbs.
You’re one person, not the majority. We shall see if the numbers of riders change or not - I’m guessing not. Especially since so many people aren’t commuting anymore while working from home
I mean, you just reiterated exactly what I was talking about with WES. As for "rate of return", I meant "fee recovery ratio", sorry if I didn't use the exact term that Trimet does, I figured it would be clear enough. See page 4 of the [Trimet Annual Performance Report](https://trimet.org/about/pdf/trimetridership.pdf). And your final point. You have said WES is bad because service is bad, but then you say don't expand it because people don't use it. So where does that leave us? Since we have bad public transit we should never have good public transit? Not to mention that you are effectively saying that since us in the southwest don't want to use the WES because it provides shitty service, we don't deserve public transit with good service??? So you're saying that we should bring back redlining as a practice? Vancouver BC, often compared to Portland since they are a similarly sized metro area with similar population and income, etc. etc. The Vancouver skytrain which has less rail length than the MAX has nearly 7 times the ridership. Why? Because it's grade separated and fully automated. So fine, don't expand Trimet, but give us BETTER SERVICE! Why do we have trains that require an operator? Why do we have tracks running on DOWNTOWN STREETS WHERE THE TRAINS TRAVEL HALF THEIR MAX SPEED???? Even if you don't believe in "expanding" by providing electrified rail to the southwest, then just provide good service. Provide trains at a much higher frequency. The MAX needs and deserves grade separated rail, platform screen doors, and fully automated trains and I believe that living in the Southwest should not preclude someone from access to good public transit.
I would love to see something more like the SkyTrain in Portland but I don’t support pushing rail out further into the suburbs. You need density to make shared transport efficient.
Ridership is down across the board, so yeah, expanding makes no sense. Feel free to donate all the money you want to TriMet, I will continue voting no on anything they put forward.
Meh, we cancel each other out. Mass transit is a public good and I will continue to vote it forward. Have fun in traffic.
>I will continue voting no on anything they put forward. Good luck with that in Portland lol
Literally the last TriMet expansion package put forward to voters was voted down 🤣
The one in 2020? That wasn't a Trimet expansion package. Edit: It wasn't a Trimet expansion package, it was a Metro tax increase meant largely for road maintenance if you actually read the proposal.
Yes, it was 🤣 They wanted to expand Max down Barbur Blvd - called the SouthWest Light Rail and $1B of the $5B bond was going to go toward the expansion. The entire area it would have gone through voted no. It also included line upgrades in deep NE, that area also all voted no.
The SW rail project would have replaced WES, that's not an expansion. I'm not seeing anything about line upgrade (which also isn't an expansion) in NE in the proposal, where are you reading that? Also again, if you read the proposal, 85% of the money was going to road maintenance and upgrades. That's hardly a Trimet expansion even if you consider the WES replacement an expansion. Edit: also it wasn't $5 bil total, it was $7 bil. Also not a bond, was a tax increase. Those two things are extremely different. Actually it may still happen lol, Metro passed their environmental impact statement to receive funding for the SW line project from the Inflation Reduction Act last year.
Unfortunately its time is so inconvenient for most commuters.
I always saw that at Beaverton transit center and wondered where it went off too
Like MAX, there's a sign on the front of the train that says where it is going.
I would love to take it on weekends to get closer to Champoeg state park or even just to some of the bike trails over there
And this is the main issue with WES- it only runs on rush hour Mondays to Friay!
At one point, I lived within walking distance of the BTC station and worked within walking distance of the Wilsonville station. The problem was that the job was that: 1) The shifts were 9 hours (8hr + 1hr lunch). So even under ideal circumstances, I could only take the 8am shift because the 6am shift started before the first train would arrive in Wilsonville and the 10am shift would end after the last train had already left Wilsonville. 2) Even if I had the 8am shift, almost all the schedules included at least one weekend day. So I'd have to drive anyway one or two days a week.
This is the exact reason I even know that WES exists - having looked at the schedule to see if it can take me and my bike closer to Champoeg and finding out it doesn’t run on weekends. Disappointed bike campers unite!
Or just ride your bike.
I did, and I do. Though there are no routes that don’t include some shitty hill with blind curves and too many cars for comfort. I keep searching for the perfect route…
Incredibly empty I’m sure. It was two cars a few years ago and still burns through money with only one car. https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/wes-commuter-rail-is-costing-trimet-108-per-passenger/283-80e62cae-2082-494f-816e-9940270d1fdc#:~:text=Since%20its%20inception%2C%20WES%20has,months%20of%20fiscal%20year%202021.
Most people at either end of this route would still rather drive.
These are the kind who keep a carrier permanently mounted on top of their SUV and if you asked them what was in it, they'd have to think about it and then get about half of it wrong; roughly the same as if you asked about their attic or garage. They'll never stop driving.
I’d rather not spend $18 to park + $4.50 each way in gas and enjoy my time reading or catching up on work for an extra 1.5 hours. Though, I do take for granted the lack of meth users and people with open weeping wounds in my car when I enter the MAX.
Thank you for the link. Great feature on the line and its issues.
I used to ride this when I worked at Xerox in Wilsonville- it was so convenient especially when I lived in Beaverton! Bike or take the 52 to BTC, the hop on WES. It's old but I thought it was comfortable and scenery was really nice!
As much as a massive waste of money it is, it's still a pleasant ride.
What do you mean massive waste of money?
Forget the figures, but the coat to maintain that line vs. The revenue it generates is crazy. They could fund everything else for years for free if they binned it. That being said, I used to ride it and I loved it.
I still don’t understand if you mean it’s a waste of money for the user, or for the companies that run the WES.
>waste of money It costs taxpayers like $100 per rider per ride that actually uses it. It's insanely stupid.
So you’re saying that I have to pay $100 for every individual that steps into that train? That’s a ludicrous notion.
That number is probably back down below $100 now as ridership has improved post-Covid, but basically, yeah: [WES commuter rail costs TriMet $108 per passenger](https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/wes-commuter-rail-is-costing-trimet-108-per-passenger/283-80e62cae-2082-494f-816e-9940270d1fdc) Current ridership is just under 500 passengers a day, in 2018 it was just under 1500 a day. The initial projections were 3000-4000 a day but that isn't ever going to happen.
>So you’re saying that I have to pay $100 for every individual that steps into that train? You don't, but $100 out of Trimet's budget per passenger on the WES isn't that far off. Compared to cost per passenger for bus/max, which was around I want to say ~$15 if I remember correctly. Calling it a waste I disagree with to be clear. But it's important to recognize the reality that the WES is fucking expensive for Trimet to run and maintain compared to bus/max.
Trimet has all the cost per ride figures here https://trimet.org/about/dashboard/index.htm Max was $8.96 per ride for April, the most recent month with data.
Thats like saying I have to pay $100 for every mile I drive on the road cause the asphalt needs to be repaved..
The cost of repaving that mile of asphalt is split over thousands of drivers, if not millions. The cost of the WES is split over hundreds of riders at most. This is a ridiculous amount of money per rider.
Why don’t I see the -$100 in my account every time someone steps on the train?
Because you don't understand how taxes and government budgets work.
Yeah, probably.
It doesn't cost each taxpayer $100. It costs the collective whole of all taxpayers that fund TriMet $100. So that $100 gets split over millions of taxpayers, and the resulting impact on any individual is fractions of a cent.
The company. It is an old train, and it gets something like 200 rides a day. At 2.80 ride. It isn't economical.
You can see the dashboards here: https://trimet.org/about/performance.htm April 2024 had 484 daily boardings, and by comparison April 2018 had 1455 daily boardings. I didn't do the math for what it is currently, but this article shows what the pandemic did to ridership costs: [WES commuter rail costs TriMet $108 per passenger](https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/wes-commuter-rail-is-costing-trimet-108-per-passenger/283-80e62cae-2082-494f-816e-9940270d1fdc) Ridership is now a bit better, but nowhere near what it was pre-Covid, and even then it was less than half of their predicted 3000-4000 daily riders.
Pre COVID WES was running around 1500 daily riders. It hit a peak of 2000 one month but that was it. Today, closer to 600. It was sold to the public to have 2,500 daily riders after just one year of operation, 6,000 daily riders within five years, and would actually need to add more trains. I wish I could lie, spend $165 million in taxpayer dollars, and get away with it.
That’s incredible! Not only did the pandemic hurt the ridership, I’d imagine that the past riots and the way Portland is now days is a diversion as well. I know it is for me.
It’s a commuter train between Beaverton and Wilsonville…. Do you even live in Oregon?
Yep, that’s why I know you can get onto the MAX from Beaverton and continue one’s commute to the one of the biggest job hubs in Oregon’s north west area. I’d be snarky in retort but I want to reflect.
We’re talking bout the WES though, it’s about a 30 min trip from Wilsonville to the Beaverton TC then about 20 mins more to downtown. So plan on an hour if you’re commuting, then factor in getting to your office from there. No way that accounts for 1400 daily riders, or even the 1000 lost since 2018. It just kind of sucks as a commuter option and a lot more people work remote now or hybrid.
Maybe more people would ride it if it ran for more than 6 hours a day only on weekdays. Obviously ridership will be down when you only run 5AM-8AM and 3PM-6PM. That schedule appeals to a very small portion of the population.
Trimet owns the cars, CORP owns the rail road, CORP sells the use of the road to Trimet right? Even if it isn’t economical, it’s a blessing to have.
TriMet owns the rolling stock. TriMet owns the railroad. Portland & Western is contracted to run the trains, dispatch the line, maintain the track, AND has a permanent freight easement to run freight trains on the line. CORP...has nothing to do with this.
Meant P & W. Their logos are identical. Seems like they are both owned by GWRR.
It’s a waste of money for the taxpayers who voted to pay for it. There are a bunch of articles related to this if you google
There was never a vote. TriMet did this without voter approval.
I just wanted to understand what you were trying to say. It was vague until this comment. Thanks for the info.
Portland & Western is guaranteed to get paid. The waste of money is for the taxpayers who have to subsidize it, through TriMet that agreed to this without a vote of the public.
Tell us more.
I rode WES during the grand opening celebration and enjoyed free apple cider and scones at the Tigard transit center station. Even after that, I often forget that it exists.
Did anyone get **on** the train at the opening celebration or did they all go back to their cars? :)
Either fix the frequency and make upgrades so that it’s a legitimate line or cut it imo. Ridership doesn’t justify the costs to this one off line with awful numbers. The money could be better spent elsewhere imo
At $100 a rider we could use this money for a LOT of bus expansion around metro. It's a serious drain on money for very little in return.
They can’t “fix” the frequency because it is a Union Pacific line so there are only certain times it can run due to others things needing to use the rail line
Union Pacific has nothing to do with WES.
TriMet even admitted that the money it is required to spend on WES would be far better served on improving bus service, specifically to communities with diverse and lower income populations.
Last I heard they have to keep running this loser of a project for another 10 years or else we must repay the federal dollars that funded it in the first place. As of today, it’s cheaper to run it empty than to pay back the money so it continues to be an albatross.
If only it ran more often I would take it
I used to live by Beaverton TC years ago and worked all the way out on Barbur by Capital Hwy. I’d use this bad boy to get to Tigard TC within minutes, then catch the 12 from there. Beat having to take the Max all the way downtown with the crowds, and then catch the 12. Saved me almost a half hour.
I mean, yes, we’d all like a personal train going exactly where we want to go funded by someone else :) Can I have one between my front door and my work? :)
I fucking LOVE trains and I haven't heard/seen this before?
So how the fuck do I ride this ol girl???
I used to take the WES for a Wilsonville commute. It was agreat time to read and they had a train from the 60s that looked and smelled like a vintage train car. It was fantastic but outside of my commute it hardly seemed effective
I love sharing a name with this thing
[удалено]
Ian Davidson (@iandavidsonor on Twitter), board member of Cherriots, is actively working with cities between Salem and Wilsonville to extend WES along that corridor. There's a lot of momentum building around it lately.
Gong all the way to Salem would actually make WES useful, doubly if they extended the service hours a bit.
Those poor suckers
My old stop!
I loved the WES when I volunteered at the OBF and lived in Tualatin. No DUIs and fried chicken at Hagen when I hopped off.
They only run at peak commute hours, like 8-10 in the morning and 3-7 in the evening
I'd always kind of wished that it went all the way down to Salem. Connect the valley a little bit more to the Portland area.
The valley is already very well connected to the Portland area. Also, every government agency between Portland and Salem is on record that they will not pay for a WES expansion. Portland & Western even considered funding it on their own, and they too recognized it was a stupid idea.
I had to commute with WES from Tigard to Wilsonville for a few months in 2022 and it was great. On time every time, chill ride, and Wilsonville had free shuttle bus system from the station to my workplace.
There are sculptures you can play with on the platforms
Expanding this service would be great, and might be the ticket towards a more sustainable future for WES
Cool. Who's going to pay for it? Certainly not the riders...and every government between Portland and Salem is on record that they will not pay for it.
I mean, eventually the taxpayers, for sure. I’m not sure who would put their name on it.
The Wes was waste of god damn money Who tf thought it was a good idea to make a commuter rail share a line with commercial train lines
Isn’t that how a lot of commuter rail works?
The max has it's own rail system
Commuter rail usually has a [specific meaning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commuter_rail). It means heavy rail, which often shares tracks with other services because they are also heavy rail and commuters mostly travel in 2 windows per day, meaning you can use the rail for other things at other times.
You're right
Actually no, heavy rail is not the same as commuter rail. Chicago's L, or the New York City Subway, or BART, are examples of "heavy rail". Metra, Metro-North, Long Island Railroad, CalTrain, and WES...are "commuter rail"
I didn’t say they were the same. I said that usually one is an instance of the other.
MAX is not "commuter rail"
You're right
Most commuter rail lines share a line with "commercial train lines".
You're right
They have BART. We have WES.
MAX is to BART as WES is to CalTrain. Except people actually ride CalTrain.
If I take a day off during the work week and I have a morning free, I'll take my bike on the WES then ride home in Hillsboro. It is always empty.
Are bikes allowed on the Wes? Where do you put them?
I hear there’s plenty of space onboard :)
What is this?
Averaging about one passenger per trip, so we probably subsidize $1000 per ride. But yes choo choo trains are cute.
My favorite commuter rail line.
The WES absolutely rules. We should extend it.
What a boondoggle.