History
Planning for a light rail system on Portland's west side started in 1979, with a groundbreaking coming in 1993 on the Westside MAX project. The line originally was to terminate at Willow Creek/185th, but lobbying by Hillsboro mayor Shirley Huffman and others secured funding to extend the line to downtown. Plans for the station originally called for the construction of a branch of the Hillsboro Public Library at the stop. Due to cost overruns when building the Robertson Tunnel through the West Hills, the library was canceled and a Books by Rail program was added to the Hillsboro Central station. TriMet also canceled plans for security cameras at the station. The park-and-ride lot opened on March 3, 1997, served by a single bus line (52), because it was ready for use. The original planned opening date of September 1997 for Westside MAX as far as 185th Avenue had been postponed by one year, due to delays in constructing the Robertson Tunnel, resulting in Willow Creek park-and-ride's being completed far in advance of the start of MAX service and related bus-service expansion.
On September 12, 1998, Willow Creek Transit Center opened along with the rest of the Westside MAX line. The park-and-ride lot was filled to 67% capacity on average within a few months of the MAX line's opening. In 1999, library officials proposed moving the Books by Rail program to the busier Willow Creek station, but the move did not occur and the program was later canceled due to reduced library funds and a failed library funding levy. By December 1999, Willow Creek was the second busiest station in terms of boardings on the Hillsboro portion, averaging 2,313 per day. The park-and-ride lot was the fifth busiest on the MAX system by March 2000.
A woman at Willow Creek was hit by MAX train in November 2000. A nearly 400-unit apartment complex was built adjacent to the station in 2003. In 2005, a stabbing occurred at the stop, and in 2007 a rider forced off the MAX by TriMet then attempted to assault someone at the neighboring apartment complex.
Of the 16 MAX stations on the west side, Willow Creek had the third-highest number of boardings for the 2006–2007 fiscal year, with an estimated 947,000, and the most calls for police assistance with 971. In 2008, TriMet secured a grant from the Transportation Security Administration to allow the transit agency to add security cameras to the station. Portland Community College (PCC) began construction of a training center at the station in 2008, with the $25 million facility then opened in 2009. TriMet had planned to build a third track in 2009 at the station in order to allow the extension of the Red Line to Willow Creek using federal stimulus funds, but canceled the project due to projected costs.
Read more about this topic: Willow Creek / Southwest 185th Avenue Transit Center
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