A high capacity transit corridor in the southwest Portland region should extend from Portland to Tigard and Tualatin, regional planners recommended Monday, setting up a decision for policymakers next month.
But those policymakers, sitting on the Southwest Corridor Steering Committee, were also reminded that all of their energy in developing a plan would be for naught if their communities don't support it.
The committee is set to decide in July what kind of transit project should be intensely studied in the coming years, a study that would ultimately lead to a draft environmental impact statement in 2017.
The recommendation, from staff planners from the governments affected by the Southwest Corridor, carries no formal weight, but sets the stage for the coming conversation about what should be on the list for intense study. Also presented was a draft list of $500 million in non-transit projects that could support growth in that part of the region.
The Southwest Corridor is a geographic wedge of the region from downtown Portland out to Beaverton, Sherwood, Tualatin and Lake Oswego, and also includes Tigard, Durham and King City.
Drawing a transit line – in pencil
The staff recommendation for transit options to study further focused on identifying a location and determining whether a high capacity transit line would be bus-based or light rail.
The recommendation suggested the committee endorse a thorough study of high capacity transit to Tualatin, by way of Tigard. The study would look at options for the transit line including a direct connection to Portland Community College's Sylvania Campus or a tunnel under Marquam Hill and OHSU.
Staff from Metro, which manages transit studies like this in the Portland region, also suggested policymakers keep studying both light rail and bus rapid transit.
A light rail line to Tigard could cost $1.7 billion in inflation-projected 2022 dollars, said Metro planner Matt Bihn, based on comparable projects around the Portland region and across the United States. Extending light rail to Tualatin would cost another $700 million, and building a tunnel under OHSU would add another $700 million to the project cost, Bihn said.
Early estimates project that light rail to Tigard would carry 22,500 riders daily. By comparison, Interstate 5 carries about 115,000 cars a day in Southwest Portland.
Projecting costs for a bus rapid transit project is a little trickier, Bihn said, because there's no precedent for construction in the Portland region and because so few bus rapid transit projects have been built around the United States.
The cost of bus rapid transit also varies based on what level of transit service is constructed. At a minimum, Bihn said, at least 50 percent of the bus line should run in its own transitway. That translates to a cost of about 50 percent of light rail, ranging up to 80 percent depending on the amount of the line running in its own transitway and out of general traffic.
If the committee approves, the study will focus on those options, as well as the impacts of doing nothing, as the project moves toward an anticipated 2017 environmental study release.
Beyond transit
The Southwest Corridor isn't just a transit project. The study is being used to prioritize transportation investments, and land use policy decisions, in the cities in the area.
Staff recommended those transportation projects be prioritized in two batches: projects that help people get to the transit lines, and projects that help cities build out what's in their land use plans.
Depending on where transit stations are developed on the high-capacity transit line, as many as 58 transportation improvements, totaling as much as $304 million, could be put on the table. Another 21 projects that support land use plans, with a projected cost of $157 million, were also recommended to move forward.
Those projects include road extensions, road widenings, new bridges over Highway 217 and dozens of sidewalks and bikeways in the area. One of the projects calls for rebuilding Naito Parkway near the Ross Island Bridge as a two-lane road, with traffic lights replacing ramps and bridges.
Getting to yes
Regional leaders can talk about plans, studies and prioritization, but it's going to take public support to find the money to build whatever transportation and land use projects are proposed for the Southwest Corridor.
Jason Tell, director of ODOT's Portland region and that state agency's representative to the steering committee, said the public will expect something to come of the years-long Southwest Corridor planning effort.
And, Tell said, high capacity transit is vital in terms of achieving the rest of the corridor plan.
"High capacity transit offers the only real way to both meet the land use goals I've heard from local governments, as well as from regional players, and also has the promise of improving mobility in a really significant way," Tell said. "Without it, I think there are things we can do, but the impact of realizing both the land use goals and improving mobility are going to be on a much smaller scale."
He suggested the federal government – which covers about half the construction costs of qualifying transit projects – will be looking for widespread regional buy-in in assessing whether to financially support the project.
"Half the money has to come from non-federal funds, and that's not something in anyone's budget today," Tell said.
"That's why we have Portland at the table!" quipped Tualatin Mayor Lou Ogden.
Portland Mayor Charlie Hales wasn't quick to volunteer to pay for the project, instead reminding the committee that the local match would be significant.
"We have to get the money identified – not now, not when we figure out which alternatives we want to study and which turn out to be the most cost effective and land use effective – it's also the one we can pay for," Hales said.
Funding decision years away
The decisions on how to pay for a transit project are years away. First, this July, steering committee members must decide what to study in depth and what to leave behind.
By the middle of 2014, planners hope to have a better look at what specific transit routes to study in detail, where stations for a transit project would go, and what the funding picture could look like.
That all coalesces into a draft environmental impact statement, the most thorough level of analysis. The draft statement would be released in 2017, and would be followed by a public comment period, which would conclude with the release of a final environmental impact statement.
At any time, regional leaders could also decide to back off from the plan and think of other ways to address transportation in the Southwest Corridor, or focus exclusively on smaller fixes around the area.