The longest service interruption in TriMet’s history is set to start Sunday, June 18. The public transit agency will halt MAX Red Line service between the Gateway Transit Center and Portland International Airport (PDX) for 126 days.
Wow, that’s rough. The max is such a great way to get to and from the airport.
First I’ve heard about it too - thanks for sharing!
Thank you for sharing. I have a friend coming into town for a conference in a couple of weeks and they were all told to take the red line to their hotel.
There will be bus service to all the Red Line stops from the airport, they usually have customer service staff nearby during these types of closures to help people find their way. Something to be aware of, but your friend shouldn’t have too much of an issue besides the general inconvenience.
We rode through on Sunday and, yeah, looks like a big project. I’m still not 100% sure what they’re trying to do. Looks like improving the arrival and departure tracks?
Looks like adding a second track:
add a second track to sections of the Red Line between the Gateway Transit Center and PDX, which TriMet says will improve system-wide reliability.
The timing seems questionable though. I’d think that any time other than our absolute peak travel season would have been better.
It’s part of a multi year long project, they may or may not have planned for that, but the timing of things can deviate from the schedule anyway where it’s gonna be a risk
Construction in the mud would probably take even longer though.
Here’s the project sheet from trimet’s website. I had no idea that they were also expanding the red line out to the fair complex in Hillsboro. Also looks like the red line will have it’s own platform at Gateway instead of sharing the platform with blue and green lines. Which allows the red line to use two tracks instead of the single track that exists now to get to the airport from Gateway TC. I’m not sure how they plan to increase times though when there are so many trains on the shared line through downtown Portland already.
