The Metropolitan Area Express (MAX) is a light rail system serving the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Oregon. Owned and operated by TriMet, it consists of five color-designated lines that altogether connect the six sections of Portland; the communities of Beaverton, Clackamas, Gresham, Hillsboro, Milwaukie, and Oak Grove; and Portland International Airport to Portland City Center. Service runs seven days a week with headways of between 30 minutes off-peak and three minutes during rush hours. In 2019, MAX had an average daily ridership of 120,900, or 38.8 million annually. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which impacted public transit use globally, annual ridership plummeted, with only 14.8 million riders recorded in 2021.
The Portland Streetcar is a streetcar system in Portland, Oregon, that opened in 2001 and serves areas surrounding downtown Portland. The 3.9-mile (6.3 km) NS Line runs from Northwest Portland to the South Waterfront via Downtown and the Pearl District. The Loop Service, which opened in September 2012 as the Central Loop, runs from Downtown to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry via the Pearl District, the Broadway Bridge across Willamette River, the Lloyd District, and the Central Eastside Industrial District and added 3.3 miles (5.3 km) of route. In September 2015 the line was renamed as the Loop Service, with the A Loop traveling clockwise, and the B Loop traveling counterclockwise. The two-route system serves some 20,000 daily riders.
TriMet, formally known as the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon, is a public agency that operates mass transit in a region that spans most of the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Oregon. Created in 1969 by the Oregon legislature, the district replaced five private bus companies that operated in the three counties: Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas. TriMet started operating a light rail system, MAX, in 1986, which has since been expanded to five lines that now cover 59.7 miles (96.1 km), as well as the WES Commuter Rail line in 2009. It also provides the operators and maintenance personnel for the city of Portland-owned Portland Streetcar system. In 2022, the system had a ridership of 53,889,500, or about 173,600 per weekday as of the fourth quarter of 2022.
The MAX Blue Line is a light rail service in Portland, Oregon, United States, operated by TriMet as part of the MAX Light Rail system. It travels east–west for approximately 33 miles (53 km)—the longest in the network—between Hillsboro, Beaverton, Portland, and Gresham and serves 48 stations from Hatfield Government Center to Cleveland Avenue. The line carried an average 55,370 riders each day on weekdays in September 2018, the busiest of the five MAX lines. It runs for 221⁄2 hours per day from Monday to Thursday, with headways of between 30 minutes off-peak and five minutes during rush hour. Service runs later in the evening on Fridays and Saturdays and ends earlier on Sundays.
The MAX Yellow Line is a light rail service in Portland, Oregon, United States, operated by TriMet as part of the MAX Light Rail system. It connects North Portland to Portland City Center and Portland State University (PSU) with 17 stops from Expo Center station to PSU South/Southwest 6th and College station. The line travels from Portland Expo Center in the north, south to the Rose Quarter through a 5.8-mile (9.3 km) light rail segment along the median of Interstate Avenue. From the Rose Quarter, it crosses the Willamette River via the Steel Bridge and enters downtown Portland, where it operates as a northbound-only service of the Portland Transit Mall on 6th Avenue. Service runs for approximately 21 hours daily with a headway of 15 minutes during most of the day.
Mall/Southwest 4th Avenue and Mall/Southwest 5th Avenue were a pair of light rail stations in Portland, Oregon, United States, served by TriMet as part of the MAX Light Rail system. Built into the sidewalks of Southwest Yamhill and Morrison streets between 4th and 5th avenues in downtown Portland, the Mall stations were the 22nd and 8th stations eastbound on the Blue Line and the Red Line, respectively. For just over five years, they were also served by the Yellow Line from May 2004 to August 2009. MAX began operating in 1986 without stations at this location to make way for the Morrison Street redevelopment project. The stops were infilled upon the completion of Pioneer Place in 1990. In March 2020, TriMet closed the stations in an effort to speed up MAX trains in downtown.
Goose Hollow/Southwest Jefferson Street is a light rail station on the MAX Blue and Red Lines in the Goose Hollow neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. It is the third stop westbound on the Westside MAX alignment and makes several cameo appearances in the movie What the Bleep Do We Know!? as the stop where Marlee Matlin's character boards the train to get into town.
Kings Hill/Southwest Salmon Street is a closed light rail station in Portland, Oregon, United States, which prior to closure had been served by the Blue and Red lines of TriMet's MAX Light Rail. The station is situated within the Goose Hollow neighborhood. Its incorrectly punctuated name refers to the hillside to the west of the station, which has historically been referred to as King's Hill. A section of King's Hill, which contains many historic buildings, qualified for inclusion within the King's Hill Historic District, the easternmost boundary of which is at SW 21st Avenue.
Pioneer Square South and Pioneer Square North are a pair of light rail stations in Portland, Oregon, United States, served by TriMet as part of the MAX Light Rail system. Situated directly west of the Portland Transit Mall on the perimeter of Pioneer Courthouse Square in downtown Portland, facing Yamhill and Morrison streets between Broadway and 6th Avenue, the pair are the 21st and 7th stations eastbound on the Blue Line and the Red Line, respectively. They consist of one side platform each as MAX operates in a one-way pair along this segment; trains traveling eastbound stop at Pioneer Square South while trains traveling westbound stop at Pioneer Square North. With connections to the Green, Orange, and Yellow lines, the Pioneer Square stations, along with the Pioneer Courthouse/Southwest 6th and Pioneer Place/Southwest 5th stations located one block east, mark the only transfer point in the MAX system where riders can board any of the five existing lines.
The MAX Green Line is a light rail service in Portland, Oregon, United States, operated by TriMet as part of the MAX Light Rail system. It is 15 miles (24.1 km) long and serves 30 stations from the PSU South stations to Clackamas Town Center Transit Center; it connects Portland State University (PSU), Portland City Center, Northeast Portland, Southeast Portland, and Clackamas. The Green Line is the only service that shares parts of its route with the four other MAX services, sharing the Portland Transit Mall with the Orange and Yellow lines and the Banfield segment of the Eastside MAX with the Blue and Red lines. Southbound from Gateway/Northeast 99th Avenue Transit Center, it operates the Interstate 205 (I-205) segment through to Clackamas Town Center. Service runs for approximately 211⁄2 hours daily with a headway of 15 minutes during most of the day. It is the third-busiest line in the system, carrying an average of 19,160 riders per day on weekdays in September 2019.
The MAX Orange Line is a light rail service in Portland, Oregon, United States, operated by TriMet as part of the MAX Light Rail system. It connects Portland City Center, Portland State University (PSU), Southeast Portland, Milwaukie, and Oak Grove. The line serves 17 stations from Union Station/Northwest 5th & Glisan to Southeast Park Avenue and runs for 201⁄2 hours daily with a minimum headway of 15 minutes during most of the day. It averaged 3,480 daily weekday riders in September 2020.
The Portland Transit Mall is a 1.2-mile (1.9 km) public transit corridor that travels north–south through the center of downtown in Portland, Oregon, United States. It comprises a pair of one-way streets—6th Avenue for northbound traffic and 5th Avenue for southbound—along which two of three lanes are restricted to transit buses and light rail vehicles only. As of September 2022, the corridor is served by the Green, Orange, and Yellow lines of MAX Light Rail; Frequent Express; and over a dozen local bus routes, all of which are services of TriMet, the transit agency operating within the Oregon side of the Portland metropolitan area. C-Tran, the transit agency for Clark County, Washington, additionally serves it with two express bus routes—#105 I-5 Express and #164 Fisher’s Landing Express.
PSU South/Southwest 6th and College and PSU South/Southwest 5th and Jackson are a pair of light rail stations on the MAX Green, Orange and Yellow Lines in Portland, Oregon. Together, they serve as the southern passenger terminus—one for departures only and the other for arrivals only—of the Portland Transit Mall MAX line. The stations opened on September 2, 2012.
Southwest 6th & Pine and Southwest 5th & Oak stations are a pair of light rail stations on the MAX Green, Orange and Yellow Lines in Portland, Oregon. It is the 3rd stop southbound on the Portland Transit Mall extension.
Pioneer Courthouse/Southwest 6th and Pioneer Place/Southwest 5th stations are a pair of light rail stations on the MAX Green, Orange and Yellow Lines in Portland, Oregon. They are the 4th stop southbound on the Portland Transit Mall MAX extension. The Pioneer Courthouse/Southwest 6th station is served only by the Green and Yellow Lines, and the Pioneer Place/Southwest 5th station is served only by the Green and Orange Lines. Originally, from the opening of these stations in 2009 until 2015, the Yellow Line served both, but in September 2015 the then-new Orange Line replaced the Yellow Line at all southbound stations on the transit mall.
Southwest 6th & Madison Street and City Hall/Southwest 5th & Jefferson Street stations are a pair of light rail stations on the MAX Green, Orange and Yellow Lines in Portland, Oregon. It is the fifth stop southbound on the Portland Transit Mall extension.
Providence Park is a light rail station on the MAX Blue and Red lines located in the Goose Hollow neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. It is named after the adjacent stadium, Providence Park. The station primarily serves Providence Park and residential areas around West Burnside Street. The station, consisting of separate eastbound and westbound platforms built into city sidewalks between SW 17th and SW 18th Avenues on SW Yamhill and SW Morrison Streets, opened on August 31, 1997.
South Waterfront/South Moody, formerly South Waterfront/Southwest Moody, is a combined light rail and bus station located at 698 Southwest Porter Street in the South Waterfront neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, at the west end of the Tilikum Crossing bridge. It is serviced by the MAX Orange Line and TriMet buses. Portland Streetcar travels through it but does not service it.
Trio is an outdoor 2013 art installation by Seattle artist Elizabeth Conner, installed at the MAX Orange Line's Lincoln Street/Southwest 3rd Avenue MAX Station in Portland, Oregon, United States.
Kerf is an outdoor series of two pigmented cast concrete sculptures by Thomas Sayre, installed at the MAX Orange Line's Southeast Tacoma/Johnson Creek station in the southeast Portland, Oregon portion of the Ardenwald-Johnson Creek neighborhood, which straddles the border between Portland and Milwaukie, Oregon.
