About 30 people attended a November meeting to give input for the crossover street alignment and stop locations for the Powell-Division Rapid Transit project. 82nd Avenue remains the north-south Portland crossover between Powell and Division streets, while Hogan Street has emerged as the preferred north-south Gresham crossover between Division and Stark streets. The overall alignment is 15 miles long and includes approximately 38 proposed stations from beginning to end.
Station placement criteria are based on themes: for instance, education. The first station is at Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, the last at Mt. Hood Community College; however, if you’re destined for Portland Community College on 82nd Avenue or nearby Warner Pacific College, you’ll need to get off at Woodward Avenue, the “Fubonn” station, and walk a few blocks.
More generally, according to TriMet’s public plans, the goal is to develop a transportation mode, alignment and station location plan that ensures safe, convenient, efficient and high-capacity transit service to this high-traffic corridor. All this will be attempted while instructed by the East Portland Action Plan to mitigate impacts of economic development’s “market pressures” that cause “involuntary displacement … of residents and businesses” and to “equitably distribute the benefits and burdens of change.”
Discover in the next three to four months how these lofty goals translate to alignments and station locations.
The next public meeting is Feb. 1, 2016, at 4 p.m. The alignment and location decisions are expected to come during that meeting or the March 28, 2016, meeting, both at locations yet to be determined at press time. For more information about the Powell-Division Rapid Transit project, call Dana Lucero at 503-797-1755 or email her at dana.lucero@oregonmetro.gov.
