The Portland MAX is slow. This is how to fix it.

LRTs need downtown tunnels, but they need to be fast, even in car centric areas. The Eglinton Crosstown's major flaw is how unreliable it becomes on the east end because it is in the middle of the street and, since the transit priority will be very limited, cars will pass over the tracks and slow down the trams. For that reason, LRT should have good transit priority signals and be surrounded by wide sidewalks and protected two-way bicycle paths.

The US in general also has a cultural roadblock in that everyone thinks public transit is just for poor people.

The old tracks in Downtown can also be used as an alternative route if there is maintenance or something bad going on in the tunnel.

At 9:30, you suggest giving orange line trains a place to turn around. That really isn't needed, since the orange line is basically just an extension of the yellow line. Northbound orange line trains change into yellow line trains in downtown, and vice versa for southbound yellow line trains.

Growing up in Portland I thought the MAX was the coolest thing. When they expanded into my neck of the woods with the Green Line and later the Orange Line, it was game over for me. I was going downtown every other day. After moving to Chicago though, it's so jarring every time I go back with the amount of at-grade crossings, especially on the Yellow line which has a no dedicated right of way until you hit Rose Quarter, then runs down the middle of Interstate Ave until the last two stops going to the Expo Center. I feel like the system hasn't caught up to Portland's growth and it's really starting to show. I know getting cities to pay money for public transit infrastructure is like pulling teeth, but a complete overhaul of the MAX system would be a game changer and catch Portland up to that truly urbanist standard.

Dallas had a very good and very comprehensive idea to solve a very similar problem. We planned D2 (Downtown 2nd Alignment) to run underneath Downtown Dallas as a means to increase frequency, decrease congestion on the transit mall by splitting the four lines (two on the surface lines, two underground), and to add more service to more areas. Instead, DART focused on the Silver Line (which was still a needed transit asset), and later shelved D2 in favor of other projects, like expanding the bus network, securing more funds, the Silver Line, etc. I'm sure DART will eventually build D2, and we're all hoping they do, so that way DART can handle the increasing ridership and frequency demands of its system.

I feel like not only MAX but TRIMET in general has too many stops for trains and buses. They all are having to stop too often most of the time.

Some notes as someone who has spent a lot of time in Portland: 1) MAX already has at least one tunnel! The red and blue lines go through a tunnel on the way out to the suburbs, and the Washington Park station is underground in the tunnel. Tri-Met already has at least some experience with tunnels and underground stations on the MAX. 2) Steel Bridge is a particular bottleneck because it’s a drawbridge. It doesn’t raise all that often, but when it does, every MAX line but the orange line gets disrupted as a result. 3) While not a problem that can’t be overcome, I will say that a MAX subway tunnel would be more expensive to construct than a subway tunnel in other cities due to the Cascadia Subduction Zone. For those who don’t know, Portland doesn’t have a history of earthquakes, but it’s in close proximity to a fault line that causes rare but catastrophic earthquakes (we’re talking Richter 9.0+) every few hundred years. The next “big one” is arguably overdue, and seismologists expect it’s more likely than not Portland will experience a 7.0 or higher within the next hundred years. A MAX tunnel would need to be constructed (in the muddy soil of the west side, no less!) to withstand a record-breaking quake. 4) I need to address the elephant in the room… A significant portion of Portland’s infamous homeless population is located in that very same west side corridor. The Washington Park station is far enough outside of downtown that it’s not an issue, but stations and tunnels in the downtown core would need a strong security presence (and, unfortunately, hostile architecture) or they’d get taken over by underground encampments almost immediately.

God this would be a good idea. Especially the 2 tunnel solution. And like you mentioned, with Portlands existing streetcar system, they could take over the existing corridors for great local connectivity, all while the tunnels can partially serve new or underserved areas or connect across the streetcar corridors AND provide relief in the case of maintenance or other disruptions. With Tunnels, Portland really could go from Good to outstanding!

Downtown Minneapolis really slows down Metro Transit's Blue and Green lines with poorly-timed traffic signals. That often messes up schedules, so a tunnel would be great there. They need to at least implement strong traffic signal priority there. Portland partially avoids that by skipping traffic signals on many intersections, though possibly only on one-way streets. The speed benefit of tunnels (or elevated lines, where appropriate) is huge, since instead of being restricted to roadway speeds of 20-30 mph (if trains can even reach that between signals), they can run as fast as the equipment, tracks, and distance between stops allows

It's also worth mentioning regarding Portland is that the system has Washington Park station, which is the deepest transit station in both North America and the Western Hemisphere! It has a depth of 260 ft or around 79 m! It doesn't have long escalators like deep Soviet metro systems but rather elevators. The station has a geological theme, and so to go along with it, the floor indicators outside the elevators refer to its two levels not by floor numbers but by "the present" and "16 million years ago"! The "16 million years ago" refers to the basalt layers the Robertson Tunnel (named for William D. Robertson, who served on the TriMet board of directors and was its president at the time of his death) passes through, and due to variations in the rock composition, the tunnel curves mildly side to side and up and down to follow the best rock construction conditions! A core sample taken during construction is actually on display at the station with a timeline of local geologic history! The station serves the Hoyt Arboretum, Oregon Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Oregon Zoo, and World Forestry Center! The station opened in September 1998 as part of the Westside MAX extension to downtown Hillsboro. The reason the station is so deep is because prior to the start of preliminary engineering efforts, the Portland City Council asked TriMet to consider building a rail tunnel through the West Hills instead of following the Sunset Highway alternative proposal to run tracks on the surface alongside Canyon Road. TriMet's engineers noted that this surface option would carry a steep six- to seven-percent grade as opposed to only two percent in a tunnel. Thus, they went with a tunnel, identified three tunnel options, and chose the one with the option to serve the Oregon Zoo! Two other deep stations in North America include Wheaton and Forest Glen on the DC Metro's Red Line, both are deep because tunneling through soft rock close to the surface just wasn't doable, and the Forest Glen community opposed an above-ground station because a parking lot would've demolished homes. Wheaton contains 230-foot-long (or around 70 m) escalators, the longest set of single-span escalators in the Western Hemisphere. And even smaller cities have tunnels for LRT within their downtown, like the Newark City Subway portion of the Newark Light Rail in Newark, NJ! The line originally opened in 1935 along the old Morris Canal right-of-way, from Broad Street (now known as Military Park) to Heller Parkway (now replaced by the nearby Branch Brook Park station). The line extended to Newark Penn in 1937, and Franklin Ave (now Branch Brook Park station) in 1940. It wouldn't be extended to Grove Street in Bloomfield until 2002. The line acts as a "subway–surface" line, so it runs underground from Penn Station to Warren Street-NJIT, and above-ground north of Warren Street! When NJ Transit was formed in 1979 and took over the Newark City Subway in 1980, the PCCs ended up in NJ Transit disco stripe colors, and their NJ Transit forms looked really cool, cool enough I got a Corgi model of it! PCCs were first used on the line in 1954 when 30 of them were bought from Minneapolis-St Paul's Twin City Rapid Transit Company (originally built in 1946–1949 by the St. Louis Car Company), and they lasted all the way until 2001 when they were replaced by Kinki-Sharyo LRVs. The Newark City Subway's Military Park station was actually used for scenes of the Gotham subway during The Dark Knight Rises. Newark's streetcar history runs deep, as what's now PSEG headquarters was once the Public Service Terminal, a three-level streetcar station owned and operated by the Public Service Corporation, adjacent to the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad's (whose successor is PATH) former Park Place station (Park Place closed in 1937 after Newark Penn opened in 1935). It served as the terminus for streetcar or interurban lines from as far as Trenton. Public Service was both a transportation company and a utility, providing electric and gas service to much of northern New Jersey, but today no longer runs transit with its energy utility becoming PSEG and selling its transit to NJT in the 1980s, and the terminal was demolished in 1981. Most streetcars used the upper level, reached by a ramp from Mulberry Street on the east side. Some used the lower level, reached on the west side from Washington Street by a two-block Cedar Street Subway. In 2006, the former Cedar Street subway junction with the City Subway line was re-purposed to connect a new branch to Newark Broad Street station.

As a frequent rider of Portland's MAX system to travel from suburbs to downtown and across the city, I would love to see the addition of tunnels to increase train speed and efficiency. But I have to say that I enjoy the vibe of street cars running through the city with road traffics. It resonates with the small and scalable feeling of Portland metro area. Also I kind of doubt the capability of the city to construct such a project. It requires time/money and lots of planning. It took 8 years to get the Seattle's Bellevue to Redmond lightrail done, and that area is one of the most fast-developing and rich area in US.

I wish LA had extended it's Light Rail tunnel just a mile longer. That street running segment between 11th and Washington is a missed opportunity.

I live in Portland and have long thought about the need for a subway under the city center, from around the Lloyd Center to about Goose Hollow (near the Providence Park MLS stadium). But, even before Covid, downtown was hardly bustling and it just didn't feel dense and busy enough to merit a subway system. There's really not a lot of business there or much in the way of tourist attractions, compared to major cities with a subway. At any rate, I'd definitely support building a tunnel for all the reasons you covered, and more. At the very least, it would make MAX more attractive for those in the west-side suburbs (Beaverton and Hillsboro) for going to and from the airport. And given time, a subway would likely usher in some growth. Attract some new businesses downtown which would now be easier to get to for suburban workers. Encourage new residential towers near the subway lines. Inspire some new shopping or cultural destinations. Transit projects definitely should be built with an eye to the future rather than as a catch-up measure. After all, any downtown tunnel/subway system would take years, if not a decade to come to fruition. But there's one more benefit of a subway that you didn't mention in your video: It would be much more pleasant to wait for a train in an underground station when it's cold and raining in the winter or hot as heck in the summer!

While Hudson-Bergen Light Rail doesn't have a tunnel for its downtown Jersey City portion, it's still grade-separated in its own right-of-way for much of the segment, with the only street-running segment being Essex Street! At-grade crossings are equipped with transit-priority signals to automatically change traffic lights in favor of the light rail. And the HBLR uses a tunnel, the Weehawken Tunnel, to go between Port Imperial and Tonnelle Ave while serving Bergenline Ave in Union City as an underground station. Much of the HBLR is repurposed ROW, and the Weehawken Tunnel is no exception as it was once used the New York Central Railroad's West Shore Railroad division for trains that served the former Weehawken Terminal (now the Port Imperial ferry terminal) to Buffalo. It was also used by the New York, Ontario and Western Railway for service to Chicago. And thanks to the HBLR, it has been a catalyst for both residential and commercial development along the route and has played a significant role in the revitalization of Hudson County. Many of the stops were sited in vacant or underutilized areas and have since seen intense residential and mixed-use development. The HBLR has multiple connections, like at Hoboken Terminal connecting to NJT buses, NJT rail, PATH, and ferries, and it goes where people wanna go, whether it's Hoboken, a state park, the mall, university, etc! Not to mention, Hoboken and Jersey City both improving their biking infrastructure and implementing Vision Zero for safer streets have helped a lot! The St Louis MetroLink network also uses repurposed right-of-way for their tunnel downtown! The Eads Bridge was once briefly used by Amtrak trains between 1971 and 1974 (stopped on the year of Eads Bridge's centennial). So when they were constructing the underground stations downtown, the tunnel was already there, using the St Louis Freight Tunnel which went to the Eads Bridge with trains using its lower deck. The Eads Bridge stands out, not only because it was the first bridge across the Mississippi south of the Missouri River, as earlier bridges were located north of the Missouri where the Mississippi is smaller, but because none of the earlier bridges survived, it means that the Eads Bridge is also the oldest bridge on the entire Mississippi River! On the Red Line, trains use the former Wabash/Norfolk & Western Railroad's Union Depot line that once brought passenger trains from Ferguson to Union Station. When the Red Line makes a stop at the Delmar Loop station, it is located just below the original Wabash Railroad's Delmar Station building! On the Blue Line, it follows a former Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis (TRRA)/Rock Island railroad right of way. When they were constructing Skinker and University City-Big Bend stations, they faced opposition because that section was gonna be street-running, so they opted to build them underground! So thanks to NIMBYs, they ironically made the Blue Line a better and quicker service through no street-running!

The biggest problem with tunnels in Portland is the one thing that Portland does not have: Money. They have a city budget shortfall at the moment, so they are going to have to go to Washington DC with their puppy eyes and pretty pleases for a cut of the big infrastructure bill.

As a MAX user and Portlander, please let’s build a tunnel. Fast transit through the downtown core would make it more attractive of an option compared to the driving.

Pronounced "Willamette" correctly!!

I just wish the Max, at the very least, didn't have to stop for red lights downtown. It's true, I've seen it happen.

Lifetime Portlander here, former daily MAX user from 2001-2011. Okay, look - MAX ridership was once amazing. Nobody rides it anymore because its alignment and stops were designed for a time when many people worked downtown and lived just outside downtown. The number of people still working downtown are a fraction of what it once was. There’s no demand anymore where MAX goes. It’s disappointing. Most of us work from home, in the burbs, or other parts of town as businesses fled downtown. No commuters, no regular ridership.