On January 22nd, TriMet hosted an in-person open house to show its progress on the 82nd Avenue Transit Project designs and gather feedback from attendees. TriMet reports nearly 100 people attended the event in the Community Hall Annex at Portland Community College’s Southeast campus. The public transit provider created an online version of the open house where people can provide additional feedback through February 14th.
Online visitors can find maps of the proposed route and station locations similar to the information presented at the in-person event. The map also shows station removals planned for the new bus rapid transit (BRT) line. TriMet will implement traffic-light signal-prioritization for buses and near-level boarding platforms with dual door entry and remove underutilized stops along the route to decrease travel times for future FX-Frequent Express service. TriMet also intends to work with the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) to use some percentage of outer lanes along 82nd Avenue for Business Access & Transit (BAT) uses. They would reserve a yet-to-be-determined length of lanes for bus travel and for cars turning into or out of a parking lot.
As with the FX line running on SE Division Street, this new service on 82nd Avenue will have bus stations instead of stops with shelters, seating, lighting, and digital displays informing waiting riders of the next bus’s arrival time. Busses will run more often with enhanced reliability, according to planner’s estimates. TriMet recently secured funding for a fleet of zero-emission hydrogen fuel-cell electric buses to operate on this line, reducing roadside noise and pollution.
TriMet expects to upgrade bus service on 82nd Avenue between Clackamas Town Center and the Cully neighborhood by 2029. This open house is the best time to provide input about the proposal. TriMet recently solicited public participation in an 82nd Avenue Transit Project Community Advisory Committee (CAC). Applications for the CAC closed on January 27th, but TriMet has not yet announced the selected members. The CAC engagement process will provide Portlanders other opportunities to interface with TriMet regarding the BRT’s development. However, the survey following the online Open House is still the most direct way to express feedback about this transit project.
