Milwaukie light rail gets back on track

Daily Journal of Commerce (Portland, OR), Mar 7, 2007 by Libby Tucker

For the third time in nearly 10 years, the regional government Metro has revived its plans to build a light-rail line from Portland to Milwaukie.

Milwaukie residents have considered the second phase of TriMet's South Corridor proposal for the 6.5-mile alignment twice before, in 1998 and again in 2003. But the third time may be the charm, Milwaukie city councilor Joe Loomis said Monday in Milwaukie at the first public meeting commissioned by Metro for the proposal.

"Really, we're starting all over," Loomis said, "but I think we'll get it through this time."

Milwaukie residents in 1998 voted down a ballot measure for a $475 million funding package. The proposal was brought back and an alignment was approved by the city council in 2004, but plans stalled after businesses and residents opposed the alignment.

Metro is now restarting the project, beginning with an update of its environmental analysis, and will consider three major changes to the 2003 alignment. The analysis will study design, cost, land uses and travel time associated with the new line.

If approved, the project could be complete as early as 2014. It would connect an estimated 20,000 daily riders to the region's existing MAX light-rail system, according to Metro.

Included in the updated plan is a proposal that would link the new light-rail line with the Portland Streetcar and Portland Aerial Tram on the South Waterfront development. Such a plan would move the original alignment further south of the Marquam Bridge and closer to Oregon Health & Science University's Center for Health & Healing.

"When this was first studied, South Waterfront didn't exist," said Olivia Clark, executive director of TriMet, the regional transportation authority. The proposed new alignment, she said, "is reflecting changing times in terms of what's happening in development."

Milwaukie, too, has experienced change, with the development of its first high-density mixed-use projects, including the $14 million North Main Village redevelopment project and the proposed Milwaukie- Metro Town Center, near the downtown core.

"Everything has grown up around us and now the Milwaukie center is developing," said Jeff Klein, chairman of the Milwaukie Planning Commission and the Lewelling Neighborhood Association.

Metro has projected that Clackamas County's population will grow to more than 590,000 by 2025, an increase of 259 percent from 1970. And daily traffic volume along McLoughlin Boulevard, the main commuter route between Portland and Milwaukie, will increase by 73 percent over the same time period, according to Metro.

"We need to be proactive in transportation needs not for now but for 10 to 20 years from now," Klein said.

Other updates to the 2003 plan include a proposal to extend the line's terminus south of Lake Road, beyond downtown Milwaukie, to accommodate a larger park-and-ride lot and decrease traffic flow through downtown. And variations of the alignment through the north industrial area will also be considered in the new plan.

Unchanged from the 2003 alignment are plans to build nine to 10 new stations and a new bridge across the Willamette River that would carry the light-rail line and eventually complete an eastside streetcar loop.

"We're starting up where we left off," said David Aschenbrenner, a Milwaukie resident who served on a citizens' advisory committee in the last planning process. "A lot (of the plan) is the same as the last one."

TriMet has not yet secured funding for the Milwaukie light-rail line, however. The agency is considering a mixture of local, regional, state and federal funding sources, including $115 million in state lottery-backed bonds that were approved by the Legislature in 1991 for construction of the west side light rail but have not yet been issued. The bonds are set to retire in three years.

"But construction costs have so escalated since 1991, we're looking at asking for more money to cover construction," TriMet's Clark said. The new bond request could be somewhere in the neighborhood of $230 million, she said.

The Federal Transit Administration, which has agreed to fund 60 percent of the Interstate 205 MAX extension to Clackamas Town Center, may also make funds available for the Milwaukie project. But Portland must compete with other cities, including Denver and Phoenix, for federal transit dollars as light-rail projects become increasingly attractive nationwide, Clark said.

The Milwaukie light-rail line must also compete with other Oregon transportation projects for funding, Clark said, including a proposed commuter rail line between Wilsonville and Salem.

The state Legislature this session will consider an Oregon Department of Transportation request for $2 million to study the state's rail options for freight and passenger trains. Until the study is complete, Clark said, it will be difficult to know exactly what a Milwaukie line would compete with for funding.

"We passed a tipping point in light rail with I-205," Clark said. "Everybody wants it now."