Portland's MAX Orange line opens tomorrow (Sept 12)

[OhioGuy]

3 ways MAX's Orange Line will change Portland-Milwaukie commuting
By Joseph Rose | The Oregonian/OregonLive
September 02, 2015

Someone's going to ride the Orange Line.

They better.

The thing cost nearly $1.5 billion. TriMet even raised a magnificent Willamette River bridge as part of the 7.3-mile light-rail line snaking from Milwaukie to Portland State University.

In reality, many of the new MAX line's future riders don't even live along the corridor yet. TriMet, with the help of Metro planners, have spent the past three years building for the future of mass transit. The expectation is that regular trains stopping at new stations will inspire a milk-and-honey era of residential and commercial growth along the rails.

Certainly, MAX has been a catalyst for development.

map link

[fflint]

Awesome! I can't wait to ride the rails, and also to ride a bike over Tilikum Crossing.

[miketoronto]

The only thing that needs fixing is the schedule. 35 minute late night frequency is not very attractive.

[cityscapes]

I rode it today along my first time riding the new MAX trains Trimet ordered for this extension. The stations and treatment of the public realm along the alignment seem of a higher quality than other recent MAX extensions namely the Green and Yellow lines. The station spacing and speed was satisfactory too. I don't know how often I'll use it though, despite living fairly close to the line, I don't find myself going downtown or down to Milwaukie / Sellwood - Eastmoreland very often.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

The only thing that needs fixing is the schedule. 35 minute late night frequency is not very attractive.

Considering that these LRT lines should be trunk transit lines and an enormous investment was made to build them, I have to agree. The minimum service level should be 15 minute frequency in all service hours.

[WestCoast]

Rode my bike over the bridge today, pretty nice.

That said, I'm not a big MAX fan (and I live downtown). Too slow, too many stops. (the streetcar is the worst).

Glad PDX is adding more transit, but, I dream of subways instead of trains on the street.

Hopefully the Orange is faster than normal.

[cityscapes]

Here's some pictures I took on opening day:








I had to ride the train until it turned into the Yellow Line to get it this empty. Orange Line trains were pretty much standing room only all day.




Milwaukie Riverfront Park - second to last station.






A few shots from South Waterfront - neighborhood around the last station on the west side of the river before the Orange line crosses the new bridge.




Portland Streetcar crossing Tilikum Crossing.




SW Moody Ave / South Waterfront Station.

[zilfondel]

Trimet Orange Line - Opening Day - Saturday, September 12th 2015:

As most know, last Saturday was the official opening day of Trimt's new MAX Orange Line - running from Portland State University south through Milwaukie, OR ending at the suburban station at Park Avenue. The new bridge also debuted and it was a free Trimet day. My wife and I took the day and rode the line from our house in Sellwood, south to the end of the line and then north across the bridge to South Waterfront. We stopped to take pictures at the Bybee station, Park Ave, SE 12th ave/Clinton, and South Waterfront and OMSI.

This new MAX line is a pretty big deal. It vastly improves transit access, mobility and reliability for transit riders in SE Portland to Milwaukie, and features miles of new Amsterdam-level bike infrastructure and new pedestrian sidewalks and trails on both sides of the river. Access across SE Powell is vastly improved - SE 17th ave has been completely rebuilt and is similar to Interstate Ave. South Waterfront and the OMSI area have two new transit centers on either side of the bridge!

All in all I was highly impressed by the line - the design, construction, detailing, signage all seemed to be top-notch. I thought the stations were generally well integrated into the urban landscape (much better than the Green Line). Downtown Milwaukie, for instance, has their station right smack dab in the middle of downtown (we didn't stop as we were running out of time - but it was very crowded!). I live right next to the MAX and will definitely use it when I'm not biking.

New Map:

img from Trimet

Photobucket slideshow



















































































all images taken by me, except for the map

[fflint]

Great photos, the infrastructure looks great. I especially like the stations and the new bridge.

[bzcat]

Question for the locals... why is this the "orange" line and not an extension of the yellow line?

Aren't trains operating thru to/from the yellow line?

[mas1092]

Originally Posted by WestCoast

Rode my bike over the bridge today, pretty nice.

That said, I'm not a big MAX fan (and I live downtown). Too slow, too many stops. (the streetcar is the worst).

Glad PDX is adding more transit, but, I dream of subways instead of trains on the street.

Hopefully the Orange is faster than normal.

Has there ever been discussions/plans of subways or HRT?

Also, is the MAX only at grade or are there segments that are grade separated?

[electricron]

Originally Posted by mas1092

Has there ever been discussions/plans of subways or HRT?

Also, is the MAX only at grade or are there segments that are grade separated?

I haven't heard of any plans for HRT or subways downtown. But there are tunnels through mountains, or at least tall hills, and there are sections along freeways where the light rail lines are grade separated from other vehicles.

That's one of the main advantages of light rail; it can run under, over, or at grade with little difficulties, and can run in shared lanes with other traffic or not. It's very flexible.

[cityscapes]

Originally Posted by bzcat

Question for the locals... why is this the "orange" line and not an extension of the yellow line?

Aren't trains operating thru to/from the yellow line?

I believe this is because the yellow and orange lines run at different frequencies. Even though it looks like it would have made more sense for the orange to be an extension of the yellow not all orange line trains go to Expo Center as yellow line trains. Some will turn around at union station and become orange line trains again. I feel like it would make sense to make the orange and yellow one line when the frequencies match which I'm sure will be warranted one day as the areas around the yellow line seem to be booming with development right now.

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by WestCoast

Rode my bike over the bridge today, pretty nice.

That said, I'm not a big MAX fan (and I live downtown). Too slow, too many stops. (the streetcar is the worst).

Glad PDX is adding more transit, but, I dream of subways instead of trains on the street.

Hopefully the Orange is faster than normal.

I got the chance to finally ride the Orange line a few days after it opened....which works for me seeing I am not a huge fan of crowded festivals and events. I have to say, this might be the best line yet for the MAX, the stations and the route was done perfectly with plenty of room for development to happen around just about every stop to potentially make this line one of the busiest lines in the future....especially with the restructuring of the bus lines that now turn in downtown Milwaukie instead of continuing on towards downtown Portland. This line and the limited 99 Express bus are the only two direct transit ways into downtown Portland from Milwaukie.

The time it takes to get to downtown Portland from Milwaukie via train is extremely fast, between stations the train seems to hit about 50mph. The stations seems to be well spaced to allow the trains to hit this speed for an extended period of time. The traffic that happens on 99E has no effect on this rail line, which is nice because nothing sucked more than sitting on a bus in traffic and taking much longer than expected.

As for too many stops, that is debatable, the original lines through the city that head east and west did indeed have too many stops through downtown because it seemed like everyone wanted to have a stop outside of their establishment because they had this idea that no one would want to walk more than a block or two once they got off the train. Unfortunately for the eat and west lines there isn't much that could be done to correct this, and even if a few stops were to be eliminated, it would only shave off about 5 minutes, which leads to another question. Who riding the MAX is riding it through downtown from the east and west? Almost all destinations for people riding the MAX ends somewhere downtown, therefore the amount of stops is less of an issue for most of its users.

Now for the north and south lines, that is a different story, the number of stops for those lines is just right with plenty of spacing between stops. The Orange line will benefit from this greatly when it comes to getting in and out of downtown easily.

Though this dream of subways might need to be taken to another city that already has subways because that is a pipedream in Portland that is never going to happen in our lifetime. I am just hoping we get to see a SW rail line that rivals the Orange line and helps transform commuting through SW Portland.

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by bzcat

Question for the locals... why is this the "orange" line and not an extension of the yellow line?

Aren't trains operating thru to/from the yellow line?

Supposedly it is because the two lines operate on a different schedule and not all lines will continue through. That being said, I think it is call the Orange line completely for marketing reasons. A new line markets better than an expansion of an existing line.

We have already had train conductors making the mistake of calling it the Yellow line when it is technically the Orange line. It would have made more sense to run a double line system where both the Orange and Yellow lines ran the same route and could just say if it is a train going from end to end or terminating in the city center. Hopefully one day they will correct this problem and make it a more cohesive system.

[fflint]

Originally Posted by urbanlife

The time it takes to get to downtown Portland from Milwaukie via train is extremely fast, between stations the train seems to hit about 50mph. The stations seems to be well spaced to allow the trains to hit this speed for an extended period of time.

This sounds like very good planning. Speed and reliability are very important in attracting and retaining riders.

Not running in the road means trips are not randomly slowed down, as you note, and speed--well, who doesn't want to get where they are going fast? The Bay Area learned that lesson when Caltrain started running trainsets that bypass half the stations along the route between San Jose and San Francisco, allowing the 'baby bullet' trains to maintain their top speed for much longer distances between stops. Total travel time end-to-end was cut in half, and ridership nearly tripled.

My guess is when you consider the unreliability of car traffic and the hassle and cost of parking downtown, the new Orange Line will be pretty competitive, especially at the stations with park and ride lots.

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by fflint

This sounds like very good planning. Speed and reliability are very important in attracting and retaining riders.

Not running in the road means trips are not randomly slowed down, as you note, and speed--well, who doesn't want to get where they are going fast? The Bay Area learned that lesson when Caltrain started running trainsets that bypass half the stations along the route between San Jose and San Francisco, allowing the 'baby bullet' trains to maintain their top speed for much longer distances between stops. Total travel time end-to-end was cut in half, and ridership nearly tripled.

My guess is when you consider the unreliability of car traffic and the hassle and cost of parking downtown, the new Orange Line will be pretty competitive, especially at the stations with park and ride lots.

The park and rides are really the only issue with the Orange line, we have two park and rides along the route, one at the end of the line is a parking garage that was reduced in size from the original idea. The second parking lot being a couple stops down and is a surface lot that was originally intended to be a small parking garage. So there is a major limit to the amount of people who can drive to this line, the intention for that is to hope those who ride the bus will simply transfer to the light rail in downtown Milwaukie to continue onward into Portland from there.

So far it seems to be working as planned, I have noticed a fairly large number of people hopping on the train in downtown Milwaukie. Which this makes sense for those that use to commute into Portland via bus because they are not all going to now start driving into downtown, dealing with traffic, and paying high fees to park just because they can't drive to the train. Instead, I think many people will continue to use the buses they have always relied on, and then simply get use to making the transfer for the train.

[pdxtraveler]

Originally Posted by urbanlife

The park and rides are really the only issue with the Orange line, we have two park and rides along the route, one at the end of the line is a parking garage that was reduced in size from the original idea. The second parking lot being a couple stops down and is a surface lot that was originally intended to be a small parking garage. So there is a major limit to the amount of people who can drive to this line, the intention for that is to hope those who ride the bus will simply transfer to the light rail in downtown Milwaukie to continue onward into Portland from there.

So far it seems to be working as planned, I have noticed a fairly large number of people hopping on the train in downtown Milwaukie. Which this makes sense for those that use to commute into Portland via bus because they are not all going to now start driving into downtown, dealing with traffic, and paying high fees to park just because they can't drive to the train. Instead, I think many people will continue to use the buses they have always relied on, and then simply get use to making the transfer for the train.

I wonder if the the lower number of park and rides is due to the fact, and this is just observation, not scientific, that the lots on the Green Line don't seem to be used that heavily with the exception of Gateway, which already existed and maybe Clackamas Town Center?

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by pdxtraveler

I wonder if the the lower number of park and rides is due to the fact, and this is just observation, not scientific, that the lots on the Green Line don't seem to be used that heavily with the exception of Gateway, which already existed and maybe Clackamas Town Center?

That is possible, I don't know what the numbers are for the park and rides on the green line. I know the one at Sunset would fill up fast and desperately needed to be expanded, but that I think has more to do with people on the westside using that park and ride as their free parking garage.