Vancouver resident Perry Casper describes his commute to work in Portland as long and unreliable.
“You don’t know when to take an earlier bus or when to take your normal bus because you have no idea what the traffic’s going to do,” said Casper, a federal employee who works in downtown Portland.
Sometimes his 50-minute bus ride from the Salmon Creek park-and-ride north of Vancouver can take an hour and a half.
“I’m going to have to start taking an earlier bus because I have to take leave for being late,” said his colleague Laura Walters, who also commutes from Vancouver to Portland. “Don’t have a big drink of water before you get on the bus.”
Many people around the region between Portland, Vancouver and Salem. Transit agencies run buses between these cities, but these buses are often stuck in traffic, a problem transit agencies find difficult to solve.
The regional transportation plan is updated every four years to keep up with changing demographics and new developments in state and federal regulations. An update is underway for 2018. Learn more.
Several programs are working to make these trips on the bus faster and more reliable. Metro’s Regional Transit Strategy – within the 2018 Regional Transportation Plan – will guide decisionmakers about where to make investments as they develop projects to expand the transit system.
They’re working to make transit more frequent, convenient, accessible and affordable for everyone across greater Portland.
In addition, the $5.3 billion state transportation package passed by the Legislature last year will help agencies increase intercity transit service in Oregon.
More people, more traffic
Clark County, across the Columbia River in Washington, has grown as rapidly as the rest of the region. The county added 122,000 residents between 2000 and 2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and its population is approaching 500,000. And more residents in the region means more cars on the road.
“The traffic is just insane between Portland and Clark County,” said Chris Selk, public affairs manager at C-TRAN, Clark County’s public transit agency.
C-TRAN runs seven bus routes between Clark County and Portland. “They are among our highest ridership routes,” reported Selk.
People board a C-TRAN bus at a bus stop in downtown Portland.
People are increasingly taking the bus to work in Portland for several reasons, she said. The costs for gas and parking quickly add up. People are taking advantage of subsidized bus passes offered through their employers. And many find Portland a stressful place to drive.
The two bridges over the Columbia River are major traffic chokepoints.
“The slowest part is getting across the bridge,” Casper said.
In the short term, the existing infrastructure between Portland and Vancouver will not change in any significant way to ease traffic. Plans to replace the 100-year-old I-5 bridge have been shelved. MAX light rail likely won’t reach Vancouver anytime soon. ODOT has a bridge replacement penciled in for the 2028-2040 time frame – but isn’t eager to re-start the politically fraught project.
C-TRAN officials recognize that there are no quick solutions to traffic. In the meantime, the agency is looking at creative ways to keep their buses moving. In partnership with Washington State Department of Transportation, it’s piloting a project to run buses along the shoulder of Highway 14 to the east of Interstate 205 to help speed up bus service.
“If that’s successful, I’d like to see us expand that beyond just Highway 14,” Selk said.
Commuting from Portland into Vancouver presents its own challenges – there are fewer options and buses don’t run as often. Sonja Steinbach lives in inner Southeast Portland. She used to work at the Washington State School for the Blind in Vancouver, but “changed jobs because I got tired of the commute,” she said. “Often times, I was late.”
The quickest way for Steinbach to get to work was to take one TriMet bus and two C-TRAN buses. That’s a commute against traffic, but it still took a long time during rush hour.
Salem: A different story
Commuting by bus between Salem and Portland is much faster and predictable. The traffic that plagues Portland doesn’t often extend to Wilsonville, nor impact bus service to and from Salem.
Ridership
C-TRAN (2016): 5.9 million
Cherriots (July 2016 - June 2017): 3.2 million
South Metro Area Regional Transit (July 2016 - June 2017): 278,707
Wilsonville resident Bernard Maurer has a reliable one-hour commute to work at Salem Hospital.
“I’ve considered working in Portland, but that would not be any easier for me as transportation goes,” he said.
Maurer takes one bus and uses his bike to complete his trip on either end. He enjoys relaxing on the bus and doing whatever he wants with his commute time.
In 2003, transit service between Salem and Portland also improved as a result of agency partnerships that focus on serving commuters traveling both ways.
Photo courtesy of Cherriots
Cherriots, the transit agency serving the Salem-Keizer region, and South Metro Area Regional Transit, which serves the Wilsonville area, share buses for one busy route, the 1X, between Salem and Wilsonville.
The partnership was a natural fit.
“SMART realized that a lot of people are coming from the region to work for the state,” said Steve Dickey, Cherriots’ transportation development director. “But we also realized that a lot of people were commuting north.”
The bus runs 30 miles, from downtown Salem to the Wilsonville station of TriMet’s WES commuter rail line.
Before they partnered, the agencies would often have empty buses traveling back in one direction. But the partnership allowed them to build ridership in both directions.
Ridership is so strong that overcrowding is a challenge.
“On the busiest trips, people show up 15-30 minutes early to make sure that they have a seat,” Dickey said. “Before we added trips, we had between 10-15 people standing with every single trip.”
The state transportation package signed into law last summer will help boost bus transit statewide. Dickey hopes that some of this money will go toward adding more buses to the popular route that Cherriots and SMART share.
Learn more
The regional transportation plan is updated every four years to keep up with changing demographics and new developments in state and federal regulations. An update is underway for 2018. Learn more.