Over more than a month of give-and-take discussions, the city of Tualatin and TriMet, the regional transit service, have collaborated to narrow the gap between TriMet’s service cuts and the concerns of city leaders and residents, according to the city’s mayor.
The tone of the dialogue has mostly eased since late December, when Tualatin Mayor Frank Bubenik threatened to help steer the city out of TriMet and into Wilsonville’s SMART transit service.
“It’s tempered down because we’re working together,” he said. “For now, cooler heads – because they listened.”
The mayor’s interest in leaving TriMet flared up after he heard complaints that TriMet service cutbacks already were stranding residents in the city’s new, keystone, 116-unit affordable-housing development, Plambeck Gardens. Bubenik told Tualatin Life that, with TriMet’s service curtailments, he was concerned about whether the city is getting an adequate return on its more than $9 million a year in payroll taxes to TriMet.
At an affordable housing forum on Dec. 17, Plambeck resident Catherine Ball told the mayor and other members of the Tualatin City Council that TriMet’s service for the development was too limited to enable residents to reliably reach schools, jobs and health appointments on time.
As scheduled on. Jan. 5, TriMet circulated a wide range of proposals to curtail service throughout its regional territory in hopes of further reducing a $300 million budgetary shortfall that has resulted from long-term trends. Among them are inflation in operating costs, pandemic-weakened ridership and fare revenue, changes in state and federal support and rising safety and security expenses.
In its service to Tualatin riders, TriMet proposals included a variety of line eliminations and schedule curtailments that would take effect in late August, including these highlights from TriMet’s outlines:
Cut Line 37 and move Line 96 off Interstate 5 to replace Line 37 on Southwest Boones Ferry Road, serving the Barbur Transit Center via Mountain Park and Portland Community College’s Sylvania campus, and adjust Line 96 to run only during rush hours.
Shorten and adjust Line 38 to run between Tualatin Park & Ride and Barbur Transit Center and replace Line 38 service with Line 96 on McNary Parkway.
Eliminate Line 76 service between Legacy Meridian Park Hospital in Tualatin and Oregon City Transit Center and cut Line 153.
Eliminate Line 97, which covers Tualatin-Sherwood Road.
In response to these proposals, Bubenik sent TriMet a four-page letter expressing “grave concerns about the disproportionate and severe impacts these cuts will have on Tualatin residents and businesses, particularly our most vulnerable community members.”
Bubenik outlined particular concern about proposed line eliminations in Tualatin and the reduction of Line 96 to peak-hour-only service. He warned these changes risked undermining “years of coordinated regional planning,” creating “transit deserts” in areas that are home to “concentrations of affordable housing and developing employment centers” and, most critically, eliminating transit access along affected lines to residents with disabilities who depend on TriMet’s LIFT service.
For Plambeck Gardens, peak-hour-only service would severely limit “residents’ ability to reach jobs with non-traditional schedules, medical appointments, shopping, school, and social services outside commute hours” – an outlook Bubenik warned would create “transportation poverty.”
Bubenik suggested that not only would the service changes impair residents’ access to employment, especially at non-traditional hours, but they also could serve to make Tualatin “less competitive regionally as workers and businesses choose locations with better transit connections.”
At a Tualatin City Council meeting on Feb. 9, a panel of six TriMet officials responded to all feedback it had received about its service cut proposals in Tualatin by outlining several key alternatives that would save the service money while lessening the cuts’ impacts on Tualatin riders. The lineup included Sam Desue Jr., TriMet general manager, Robert Kellogg, TriMet board member and former Tualatin City Council member, and Tom Mills, director of mobility and planning policy.
In response to feedback, Mills said TriMet was considering a proposal to save Line 97 by connecting it to Line 38.
To eliminate service breaks along Line 96 during the day to Plambeck Gardens along Boones Ferry Road, he said TriMet would ask Wilsonville’s SMART service to provide service there during middays and weekends. The agency also could direct Line 96 to stay on Boones Ferry Road, providing service along it, instead of going north on Interstate 5, opening up more service stops.
Under another proposal, Mills said, with the elimination of Line 76, TriMet is talking with SMART about picking up the line’s service to Meridian Park Hospital.
A TriMet spokesman declined for the agency to further detail or clarify these alternative proposals, saying they are still being finalized for proposal updates to be issued March 11.
Mayor Bubenik said he was pleased with TriMet’s flexibility in response to feedback. But as LIFT service depends on its proximity to bus lines, he said he is interested in continuing to negotiate how to accommodate LIFT riders near line cuts.
After TriMet officially issues its proposal updates on March 11, the board will stage a “listening session” on March 18 and a public hearing on March 25, and it is scheduled to vote on the changes on April 22.
