Inner Southeast Light Rail: Looking more likely, this time around
By Eric Norberg
The Bee, May 3, 2007
This Metro route map for MAX light rail service through Inner Southeast, at the OMSI open house on April 9th, was the first route map THE BEE has seen on public display in recent years to suggest the restoration of an originally-promised north-Westmoreland light rail station--in this case, at Harold Street and McLoughlin.
On March 5th, a Metro open house in Milwaukie demonstrated that public opinion in that city had changed greatly since MAX light rail to the city had first been proposed. Today, it appears, the community is generally favorable to it, and the main question is determining the exact alignment of the service into Milwaukie.
It was the turn for residents of the Sellwood, Westmoreland, Eastmoreland, Brooklyn, and Hosford-Abernethy neighborhoods to have their say, at a Metro open house at the OMSI auditorium on Monday, April 9th. According to the Metro personnel on the scene, the feedback was mostly positive--as would be expected of an area which has always supported funding light rail in every election in which it was on the ballot, even for other areas now served by MAX.
The last time there was an Inner Southeast Light Rail open house in the auditorium of the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, this area of Portland had successfully gotten the service “back on the table” after Tri-Met had officially declared the opportunity for it dead and gone. Seven years ago, THE BEE headlined that light rail was once again being considered, after Tri-Met found in a series of open houses that no other option was acceptable for the area (including floating taxis on the Willamette, dedicated bus lanes, and the like).
However, that time around, the surprise late addition of the I-205 alignment as an alternative proved the winner, mainly because it would be cheaper to build--the right-of-way was right down the middle of a publicly-owned freeway! Inner Southeast was pushed back to “the next project”--if funding became available.
In late March, the State Ways and Means Committee voted to favor directing funds available after the retirement of the Westside light rail bonds to Inner Southeast light rail, and funding looked brighter. Local state legislators, including Kate Brown and Carolyn Tomei, were assisting in that plan.
With the caution that this funding was still not definite and final at this point, and that this project has been offered and snatched away from Inner Southeast repeatedly in the past, the latest round of open houses are making MAX for our area look more and more likely.
One of the key decisions now to be made is how the proposed new light rail line would cross the Willamette River; the previously-preferred alignment projected a new bridge just south of the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Now, it appears funding and construction become much more likely if the new bridge were constructed so the MAX line were to serve the new “South Waterfront” district and OHSU facility south of the west end of the Ross Island Bridge. Two alternate routes for such a bridge, both also accommodating the Eastside Trolley from OMSI back to downtown, are now under active study.
Of special interest to residents of Westmoreland, the removal of the planned north-end light rail station from the official plans a few years ago has apparently finally been recognized. After SMILE’s Neighborhood Plan a decade ago had sought (and received) rezoning at the north end for residential density, to reflect planned use of that particular station, the deletion of any station in the two mile stretch between Holgate and Bybee had become a cause celebre.
At least one of the route maps posted in the OMSI open house showed, pasted-in, a potential MAX station on McLoughlin Boulevard at Harold Street--where there is already a signalized pedestrian crossing for bus riders, making foot access to a MAX station at the entrance to the Union Pacific trainyard a practical option. This, too, is not definite and final, but it is the first formal recognition noted by THE BEE in a public forum that the deletion of the previous Westmoreland station has been noted and might be reversed.
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⬆ I agree!... keep them coming...
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