Basic improvements along the Tualatin Valley Highway could go a long way in improving traffic and livability in the area, according to planners working on a study of the corridor.
Representatives from ODOT, Washington County, Hillsboro, Beaverton and Metro have been studying the highway since last year, part of a broader effort to plan for economic and residential growth in the area.
Proposals in the TV Highway Corridor plan include improving traffic conditions, adding sidewalks and bikeways, improving bus service and adding speed cameras. Planners also suggested more street lighting and fewer driveways as improvements that could be made in the next five years.
Re-thinking TV Highway has been a priority for some time, but it's been a daunting undertaking. More than 40,000 cars per day travel on some stretches of the road, which is the main route between downtown Hillsboro and downtown Beaverton. Adjacent to it is the Portland and Western Railroad, which makes any changes to the right of way difficult.
Most of the proposed projects are focused on reducing congestion for cars. Signal timing, dynamic message signs and consolidation of driveways were some of the proposals directed at keeping motorists moving.
At a Metro Council work session last week, Councilor Shirley Craddick said that the projects looked very suburban. After the meeting, Craddick said she would have liked to have seen more work done on studying transit along the corridor.
She said one of the ways to reduce congestion is to improve transit service and ridership.
Hillsboro planner Jeannine Rustad said discussions are ongoing with TriMet and ODOT about transit on the corridor. She said Hillsboro Mayor Jerry Willey would like to see some sort of rail project on the corridor; others have suggested bus rapid transit.
One of the projects proposed by staffers working on the project would add a new bus from the South Hillsboro area to a MAX station. But proposals to add new buses parallel to TV Highway didn't make the cut.
Rustad said the proposal for more north-south bus service was extremely popular. At an open house, visitors were asked to rank their preferred transit, bike, pedestrian and multimodal improvements. "The one for transit that blew the others away was adding new north-south bus service," she said.
Metro Council President Tom Hughes, who lives just south of the highway, said transit service in the area hasn't been the same since the opening of MAX in 1998. He said he and his wife Gayle went car-free for about 9 months before the opening of the MAX line.
"The weekend after MAX went in," he said, "we had to buy a car."
Several ideas were spiked from further consideration, because, Rustad said, they weren't supported by stakeholders or were too expensive. Those included taking out some railroad crossings or fencing in the railroad, adding a carpool lane, burying the railroad under TV Highway or adding a pedestrian underpass of the railroad.