Light Rail in The United States - Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

The Metropolitan Area Express (MAX) system serves the Portland metropolitan area. It has 52.4 miles (84.3 km) between four lines—the Blue, Red, Yellow and Green—and serves about 130,000 daily. Like most modern light rail systems, MAX runs in reserved lanes along city streets on some sections, but has a completely separate right-of-way on other sections. The only mixed-traffic street running on the system is along the Portland Transit Mall, in downtown, and light rail trains only share lanes with buses there, not any private vehicles. The length of MAX trains is limited to two cars by the relatively small 200-foot (61 m) blocks in downtown Portland.

The MAX system was born out of funds left over from the canceled Mount Hood Freeway, with the Gresham/eastside line (now part of the Blue Line) opening in 1986. The Hillsboro/westside line (now also part of the Blue Line) opened in 1998, more than doubling the system's size, followed in 2001 by the Red Line connection to Portland International Airport and in 2004 by the Yellow Line, which connects downtown to the Portland Expo Center via Interstate Avenue. Route colors were adopted in 2000. The Green Line is a 6.5-mile (10.5 km) extension that opened in September 2009 and connects a new transit center at Clackamas Town Center to the Gateway Transit Center, from where it follows previously existing MAX lines to downtown. Another major addition in 2009 was a new, second alignment through downtown, along the transit mall; it is used by both the Yellow and Green lines. Construction has begun on the planned Orange Line from the Green Line's downtown terminus at Portland State University to the southeast suburb of Milwaukie and will include a new bridge across the Willamette River.