The Southwest Corridor Community Advisory Committee met for the first time Feb. 6. We spoke with five members about why they're serving, including (from left) Rachael Duke, Kathleen McMullen, Evelyn Murphy and Arnold Panitch. Not pictured: Linda Moholt.
A new committee of community representatives will play an important role in guiding the course of the Portland region’s next MAX line.
The Southwest Corridor Community Advisory Committee held its first meeting Monday in Southwest Portland. The meeting was an opportunity for introductions and discussion of the committee’s role in the Southwest Corridor project, which proposes to connect light rail from downtown Portland to Tigard and Bridgeport Village.
The light rail project is undergoing a detailed environmental study to understand the potential benefits, impacts and mitigation strategies for several route and station options still on the table, along with walking, biking and roadway connections to stations. The committee will follow the study and help the project steering committee make decisions about what to include in a final route recommendation expected in early 2018.
The committee is expected to meet monthly through the study process. Its 17 members include representatives of transit riders, neighborhoods, businesses, colleges and universities, and advocates for affordable housing, accessibility and pedestrian safety. See a full list of members
As the committee’s work begins, we checked in with a few members to see why they serve and what perspective they’ll bring.
The Knoll at Tigard, 47-unit apartment building for people 55 and older, is one of the properties managed by Community Partners for Affordable Housing in the Southwest Corridor.
Protecting affordability: Rachael Duke
Rachael Duke is executive director of Community Partners for Affordable Housing, an affordable housing provider and developer with eight properties in Tigard, Tualatin, Beaverton and Portland. Founded in 1995, the organization also advocates for affordable housing policy at the state, regional and local governments. Duke became executive director in October 2015 after decades of experience in affordable housing, including positions at Home Forward and Outside In.
Why did you want to serve on this committee?
The reason I asked to serve is I think CPAH has a unique perspective on housing. We’re going to bring the perspective of an affordable housing organization and that’s important.
Our roots are in the Tigard area but our offices are in Southwest Portland, so we feel connected to the whole corridor as advocates and people who want to educate the community about affordable housing. And create more affordable housing.
We’ll also help the project stay connected with the affordable housing community in general.
What perspective will you bring to the committee?
There’s a lot of reasons affordable housing should be part of (transit) project planning. Certainly creating a light rail line could gentrify the area and make it so some of the more affordable housing opportunities that currently exist in the community go away, unless we make a conscious effort to do something. We don’t want to exacerbate a crisis.
But low income people can benefit greatly from being near transit. It can make getting around much more affordable and keep monthly expenses down.
What do you hope the Southwest Corridor project will do for the community?
I hope we end up with more opportunities for low-income families to have good lives by being close to mass transit and by being able to live in housing that they can afford.
Today, key sections of Barbur Boulevard don't have sidewalks on both sides. Making transit in the Southwest Corridor accessible to all – particularly people with disabilities and older adults – is a key goal for the project.
Ensuring accessibility: Arnold Panitch
Arnold Panitch is a member of TriMet’s Committee on Accessible Transportation. The retired professor of social work is passionate about helping people get as much enjoyment and convenience as he finds in TriMet’s buses and trains, regardless of disabilities or mobility challenges they may experience. He moved to Portland from Boise in 2003, and now lives in the Hillsdale neighborhood. He previously lent his time and insight to the Portland-Milwaukie light rail project.
What perspective will you bring to the committee?
I’m more interested in how we get there than where (the light rail line) goes. There are some people very sophisticated about where the line should go and they will be negotiating that. I’m more interested in the accommodations in how you get there.
The location of the stations – are they accessible to people being able to get there? Are there good bus connections to the stations? The ramps and the different obstacles that may occur getting to the stations. We’ve learned a lot of things about the stations just in Portland.
What do you hope the Southwest Corridor project will do for the community?
Bus Line 12 comes in from Tigard. By the time it gets to Hillsdale it says discharge only. The buses don’t even stop in Hillsdale because they’re too crowded. You can’t put enough buses on Line 12 for the traffic. You have much more demand than you have capacity.
You can’t buy your way with more buses. We just don’t have the capacity in Southwest. So we have to go to a much more efficient system where you can move more people through the same area.
Tigard Transit Center, in downtown Tigard, is served by several bus lines that link the community to Portland, Tualatin and other cities, as well as WES commuter rail to Beaverton and Wilsonville.
Tigard transit regular: Evelyn Murphy
A clinical nurse and social worker, Evelyn Murphy has worked at Oregon Health and Science University for about 30 years. For 22 of those years, she’s lived on the south side of Tigard. A self-described “devoted transit taker”, she has appreciated TriMet’s express bus service to OHSU’s Marquam Hill campus, and the direct connection of the 12-Barbur to downtown Portland, where she currently works. Murphy also serves on Tigard's Transportation Advisory Committee.
Why did you want to serve on this committee?
Living and driving and commuting along the Southwest Corridor, I am well acquainted with what a mess it is. Given what we know can happen with comprehensive long-term planning, how does it make sense to do anything else. It has to include high capacity transit. There’s just no other way.
We’ve seen what population growth is happening and we know it’s not going to stop. We have our choice of a growing city with a growing sensible transit system, or a growing city with growing traffic problems.
What perspective will you bring to the committee?
I ride the bus all the time. I see people and hear positive things about our transit system. I hear complaints and suggestions. I see the human cost of poor transportation and inadequate transportation that doesn’t meet people’s needs, and I see what can happen when it works properly.
I can’t pretend to have any particular technical expertise. I can make suggestions and give feedback about the kind of planning that affects people individually and on a day-to-day basis. OHSU is one of our biggest employers and I know how transit affects the experience of people there. I can translate technical issues into human terms.
What do you hope the Southwest Corridor project will do for the community?
An overall transit system that works – roads and everything else – is a huge variable in quality of life. Particularly for people who work at the somewhat lower-wage jobs, whether people want to admit it or not, keep our communities livable. The people who can’t afford to have a car for every worker in the family or don’t necessarily want it, they keep our economy going. Also the young working people that we want to attract to our community, they’re not as in love with the passenger vehicles as we Baby Boomers were. They’ve very comfortable with biking, mass transit and walking, and if we want to attract those people I think we do we need a good transit system. And as people age.
If we want people from young children to the elderly to be successful here we need transportation options.
Portland Community College's Sylvania campus has a hilltop location that has made access difficult for anyone not driving a car. The college hopes the Southwest Corridor project will help students and staff have more reliable, quick transit choices.
Connecting students: Kathleen McMullen
Kathleen McMullen is transportation and parking manager for Portland Community College, a job that includes working on improving access to all of the college's campuses around greater Portland.
With nearly 28,000 students enrolled every year and hundreds of employees, PCC's Sylvania campus is one of the major destinations in the corridor, but its hilltop location has made providing frequent, reliable transit service difficult. Although the Southwest Corridor steering committee opted not to build a light rail tunnel beneath the campus, the project is continuing to study several options for connecting the campus to future light rail stations.
McMullen, who has been a transportation planner for more than two decades, also lives near the PCC Sylvania campus.
Why did you want to serve on this committee?
PCC is really committed to having sustainable facilities and environment in general and as part of that we have a very active travel demand management program. We’d like to see the ridership from Sylvania and I think a big piece of that is travel times. The biggest reason people don’t take the bus is because it takes too long. When this committee started I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to see if I can have some input to help improve the travel times (to campus).
What perspective will you make to the committee?
I think I can provide good travel demand knowledge. I also live nearby and I think I can give a good neighborhood perspective as well. I’ve worked for several transit agencies and have been involved with clean air efforts and a lot of good experience.
What do you hope the Southwest Corridor project will do for the community?
My main hope is that it can improve travel times. I also think when you get established stations, it helps to improve the land use, creating opportunities for higher density development, including more opportunities to shop and eat, and things to do that are close by. I think that’s important.
Bridgeport Village is more than a major shopping destination – it's a place where hundreds of people work. Getting workers to jobs in Tualatin is one thing that concerns local chamber of commerce CEO Linda Moholt.
Speaking for workers and employers: Linda Moholt
Linda Moholt is CEO of the Tualatin Chamber of Commerce, which advocates for businesses and commercial opportunities in the community. The city of 27,000 people is home to several major jobs centers, including significant industrial areas and Bridgeport Village, which is the proposed southern terminus for the line. But the vast majority of workers in Tualatin do not live in the city, and the vast majority of Tualatin residents who work travel outside the city to their jobs. Improving mobility for both workers and residents is critical to the city's economic future, Moholt says.
Moholt has lived in Tualatin for nearly 30 years and was the coordinator of a local food pantry before taking the Chamber of Commerce job in 2008. She also commuted by bus from Tualatin to downtown Portland for 15 years for a previous job.
Why did you want to serve in this committee?
The number one reason would be 90 percent of our workforce drives in every day. We have more jobs than people living here.
The congestion is significant. Every morning, every night, all day, at lunch. Congestion is one of the major things hampering people from getting around and getting business done.
What perspective will you bring to the committee?
I am extremely involved in our community and have a pretty good understanding of our current and future transportation needs. We have an incredibly diverse business community and workforce that is rapidly expanding. With 50 percent of our tax base paid by local businesses, it’s important to have their voice represented.
What do you hope the Southwest Corridor project will do for the community?
Businesses want to see the ability for their employees to get in and out quickly. We’re built out here. We have virtually no housing left. If you can’t live here and work here the next best thing would be to take transit.
Every day I hear about companies that have trouble filling qualified positions. It’s hard to recruit when you have to commute over an hour.
Learn more about the Southwest Corridor Plan