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Electric-powered public transport in Portland,
Oregon: toward greater sustainability
Tuck Wilson, a veteran of 30 plus years as Special Counsel for the Portland area's
transit agency, has specialized in extending light rail and streetcar systems since 1981.
Reflecting his continuing commitment to sustainable practices, he has remained an
active supporter of environmental organizations such as The Climate Institute, for
which he serves as a member of its Board of Advisors.
Tuck Wilson
Special Counsel for the Portland
Area's Transit Agency
Portland, Oregon, is a metropolis of 2.3 million people located on the West Coast of the United States.
To the north are the state of Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia. California lies
to the south.
The city takes pride in its international reputation
as a leader in urban sustainability. Portland adopted
a Climate Action Plan in 1993, the first city in the
U.S. to do so. By 2013 carbon emissions had dropped
by 14 percent below 1990 levels, even as population
grew 30 percent. These impressive results are in part
due to a concerted focus on improving transportation and access for its citizens.
Founded in 1851, Portland was a young town in the
late nineteenth century when it experienced its first
transportation boom. From a single horse-drawn
streetcar in 1872, by 1916 a network of some 300
miles of electric street car and interurban rail lines
carried passengers to all corners of the metropolitan
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area. Land developers laid streetcar tracks to attract
homebuyers to new neighborhoods.
The boom era of rail transportation ended in Portland, as in cities all over the country, with the rise
of automobile ownership. By the 1920s millions of
Americans were driving machines produced by Hen-
ry Ford’s assembly line. All these new cars needed
new roads. Roads were paved, new highways were
built and rail lines closed. By 1950 streetcars had all
but disappeared, while improved highways prompted
the appearance of new homes in outlying suburbs—
the uniquely American “sprawl.”
The ascendance of the automobile reached its peak
in Portland in the 1960s. Multiple car households
became the norm. Miles driven grew annually. By
1970, Portland and its neighboring towns and cities
had approved a massive highway construction plan
and were beginning to build.
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Issue 11, May 2015
That same year, the tide began to turn. Across the
country concern about polluted air and water gave
rise to what has become known as the environmental movement, marked by the first Earth Day and the
first of a wave of progressive federal legislation aimed
at environmental protection.
Construction of this first link in Portland’s MAX
light rail network began in 1982. Several hundred
thousand citizens turned out for free rides and community events on the opening weekend for the new
service, September 5, 1986.
Portlanders in many ways were in the vanguard of
this first popular expression of what we now know
as “sustainability.” By the mid 1970s Portland had replaced a major downtown thoroughfare next to the
iconic Willamette River with a burst of green parkland. Portland, other metropolitan communities and
the state had called a halt to plans to build a major
new roadway, the Mt. Hood Freeway, through the
middle of some of Portland’s oldest neighborhoods.
State legislators enacted a law requiring municipalities to develop “urban growth boundaries” within
which new development would be contained, while
farms and forests would continue to flourish outside
the boundaries.
The rebirth of Portland’s sustainable rail transit network was at hand. A challenging project to extend
MAX 18 miles to the western suburb of Hillsboro
The stage was set for expansion of public transit, including the rebirth of pollution-free streetcar and
light rail lines.
By 1980, plans had been drawn for new light rail
service from downtown Portland 15 miles due east
to Gresham, on the eastern edge of suburban development. Brilliantly, elected leaders managed to gain
approval to use federal funds, once meant for the defunct Mt. Hood Freeway, to fund the new light rail
line along with safety upgrades to the adjacent existing freeway.
A Magazine for the
Environmental Center for Arab Towns
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was approved in 1990, funded largely with federal transit monies. The route needed to negotiate a
ridge of hills 1,000 feet high that hemmed in Portland’s downtown. The solution was twin three-mile
tunnels; their construction took four years. In September 1998 the opening of the new line meant the
Portland region’s principal commuting routes from
suburb to central city offered a speedy, modern option of light rail transit.
In 1999 this 33-mile MAX line carried 55,000 daily
riders. Today there are three additional lines and another one opening in fall 2015, for a combined total
Envirocities eMagazine
of 60 miles of light rail.Ridership has tripled. New
links include the first rail transit service to a West
Coast urban airport, which opened in 2001. The first
MAX line heading north began carrying passengers
in 2004. Another line that travels through downtown
on a north/south route opened in 2010. A 15-mile
commuter rail line linking to MAX opened in 2009.
The latest addition to the MAX network follows the
Willamette River heading south from downtown,
crossing the river on the city’s first new bridge since
1974. That older one carries freeway traffic. The new
bridge serves transit—light rail, streetcars and bus-
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es—along with bicyclists and pedestrians. Appropriately, the name of the new bridge, a striking cablestay design, is Tilikum—a word that means “people”
in the language of the Portland area’s original inhabitants.
While Portland’s light rail network was expanding,
streetcars were being revived in sleek modern form.
Light rail stations are spaced up to several miles
apart; two-car trains pre-empt traffic signals or run
in separate rights-of-way to provide access to the far
corners of the metro area. The re-imagined streetcars
are smaller, routes shorter, stops more closely spaced
and speeds as slow as surrounding motor traffic.
The first of the new streetcars began service in 2001 on
a north-south route through downtown. A short extension southward opened in 2005, for a total four miles
from one end of Portland’s core to the other. In 2011 an
extension on the east side of the Willamette was completed. Later this year, when Tilikum Crossing opens,
the streetcar will travel in an eight-mile loop.
Issue 11, May 2015
growth of dynamic new neighborhoods at key nodes
along the lines. Portland has long recognized the
symbiotic relationship between transportation and
land use in focusing urban growth into a sustainable
form. This approach has paid off: Portlanders are
driving fewer miles now than in 1990.
Portland’s MAX cars were first in the U.S. to use
European low-floor technology to span the gap between cars and curb with retractable bridge plates,
improving accessibility for people with wheelchairs,
walkers, baby carriages, bicycles and other wheeled
devices. Streetcars have similar features.
This emphasis on accessibility is symbolically appropriate. The role of transportation in a sustainable community is access: connecting citizens to their destinations
using the most environmentally responsible and lowcarbon-intensity technologies. Portland, Oregon, is one
of the world’s cities facing this challenge head on, thus
far, with considerable success.
Thanks to intentional planning and foresight, the
light rail and streetcar systems have spawned the
References
1.
pdf of MAX system map http://trimet.org/pdfs/maps/railsystem.pdf
2.
pdf of Portland Streetcar system map http://www.portlandstreetcar.org/pdf/map_201501.pdf
A Magazine for the
Environmental Center for Arab Towns