TriMet


The Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon, branded as TriMet, is a transit agency that serves most of the Oregon part of the Portland metropolitan area. 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 began operating a light rail system, MAX, in 1986, which has since been expanded to five lines that now cover. It also operates the WES Commuter Rail line since 2009. It also provides the operators and maintenance personnel for the city of Portland-owned Portland Streetcar system. In, the system had a ridership of, or about per weekday as of.
In addition to rail lines, TriMet provides the region's bus system, as well as LIFT paratransit service. There are over 650 buses on 79 lines as of September 2025. In 2018, the entire system averaged 310,000 rides per weekday and operates buses and trains between the hours of approximately 5 a.m. and 2 a.m. TriMet's annual budget for FY 2018 is $525.8 million, with 30% of resources coming from a district-wide payroll tax and 10% from fares. The district is overseen by a seven-person board of directors appointed by the state's governor. , the agency has around 3,428 employees.

General information

TriMet is "a municipal corporation of the State of Oregon", with powers to tax, issue bonds, and enact police ordinances and is governed by a seven-member board of directors appointed by the Governor of Oregon. It has its own boundary, which currently encompasses an area of about. The TriMet district serves portions of the counties of Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas; it extends from Troutdale to Forest Grove east to west, and from Sauvie Island to Oregon City and Estacada north to south.
For more than 30 years the agency called itself Tri-Met, but it formally dropped the hyphen from its name in 2002, as part of a new corporate identity strategy involving a redesigned logo and new color scheme for its vehicles and other media.
TriMet was formed in 1969 after disputes between the Portland City Council and the Rose City Transit Company, the private company that previously operated the bus system serving the city. The new public agency was created by an ordinance of the Portland city council, under provisions of a law enacted by the 1969 Oregon Legislature, and took over all of Rose City Transit's service and fleet effective December 1, 1969. Bus service in the suburban portions of the metropolitan area was operated by four smaller private companies which had a common union and were collectively known as the "Blue Bus" lines: Portland Stages, Tualatin Valley Buses, Intercity Buses and Estacada-Molalla Stages. These were taken over by TriMet on September 6, 1970. Eighty-eight buses owned by the four suburban companies were transferred to TriMet, but many were found to be in poor condition and the TriMet board soon took action to replace them with new buses.
As of January 2024, TriMet operates a total of 695 buses on 84 routes, 145 MAX light rail cars on five lines, and 253 LIFT paratransit vehicles. Each of the five MAX and 17 of the bus lines are designated as "Frequent Service" lines, scheduled to operate at headways of 15 minutes or less for most of the service day.
TriMet connects to several other public transit systems:
TriMet also links to various local shuttle services operated by the following: Ride Connection, which serves Banks, Gaston, King City and North Plains; the Swan Island Transportation Management Association; the Tualatin Transportation Management Association; Intel; Nike; and Oregon Health & Science University, including the Portland Aerial Tram.
Long-range transportation planning for the metropolitan area is provided by Metro, an elected regional government. Metro also has statutory authority to take over the day-to-day operations of TriMet, but has never exercised that power, as past studies of such a merger have found it to be problematic.
The agency's administrative headquarters was, for more than 40 years, located in Southeast Portland, at SE 17th Avenue and Center Street, the site of the largest of its three garages; the current office building at that site replaced an older one in 1978. In early 2013, the administrative offices were relocated to downtown Portland, to leased space in a building at SW 1st Avenue and Harrison Street known as Harrison Square, with the former administration building becoming TriMet's Operations Headquarters. The administrative offices were moved again in 2023, within downtown, to space in the One Main Place building.

Rail lines

TriMet runs the MAX Light Rail system, and contracts with Portland and Western Railroad to operate the WES Commuter Rail line. Fares on MAX are the same as TriMet bus fares, and fare collection uses a proof-of-payment system with ticket vending machines at each station. Fare inspectors patrol the system randomly. Incidents of violence on the system have led to calls for more security, and some have argued that more thorough checking of fares would improve riders' overall feeling of safety.
The TransitTracker system uses satellite tracking on buses and sensors in the MAX tracks to predict arrival times at stops and stations. Additionally, TriMet is partnering with Google Maps to install Bluetooth low energy beacons on MAX platforms, allowing nearby Android device users to directly receive schedule and alert information.
TriMet trains operate using reporting mark TMTC.
TriMet's rail lines include:
;Light rail
;Commuter rail
  • WES: Beaverton – Tigard – Tualatin – Wilsonville
From 1991 until 2014, TriMet also operated the Portland Vintage Trolley service, which ran on a portion of the MAX system on most weekends. It was reduced to only seven dates per year in 2011 and was discontinued entirely in July 2014.
Additionally, the Portland Streetcar system, which is owned and managed by the City of Portland, not TriMet, is operated and maintained by TriMet under contract with the City of Portland. TriMet also provides a portion of the funding for the streetcar lines.

Bus service

, TriMet operates 75 bus routes. Each route is identified by both a number and a name. The numbers are mostly in the range 1–99, but there are currently eight routes with three-digit numbers. From 1969 until 1973, TriMet bus routes were named but not numbered, a practice inherited from Rose City Transit and the "Blue Bus" lines, but route numbers were assigned to all routes in August 1973.
Seventeen bus routes are designated as "Frequent Service Lines", which the agency defines as having a headway of 15 minutes or less most of the service day. Fifty-eight percent of all bus trips are on the frequent service lines. Bus stops that are served by a frequent service line are identified with an additional green sign.
The bus system includes 15 transit centers, that allow passengers to transfer between bus routes and, at many transit centers, MAX routes.
TriMet buses began carrying bicycles on the front in 1992, on a trial basis on eight routes; the experiment was judged a success and within three years the entire bus fleet had been fitted with bike racks.
TriMet added a temporary free shuttle service connecting between Rose Quarter Transit Center and a temporary bottle redemption facility in industrial district in Northwest Portland specifically to address people redeeming empty containers while grocers have been relieved from the Oregon Bottle Bill during the COVID-19 pandemic. This service was created at the request of Governor Kate Brown and it went into service on April 29, 2020.
On September 18, 2022, TriMet started its FX service, a limited-stop bus route with some bus rapid transit features. FX replaced the 2-Division, the sixth busiest bus route in the system, and features articulated buses, all-door boarding, transit signal priority, bus lanes and frequent service.

Fares

TriMet uses a flat fare system, with a single price regardless of the distance of the trip. Single-fare tickets permit unlimited transfers to other routes within 2½ hours, and passes are valid until end of the service day.
Several different methods of fare payment are available. On buses, riders can pay with cash, but no change is given. On the MAX Light Rail system, in common with most other North American light rail systems and on the WES Commuter Rail line, TriMet uses a proof-of-payment fare system, requiring riders not already in possession of a valid fare to purchase or validate one before boarding. Ticket vending machines at MAX and WES stations accept cash and credit and debit cards. For both bus and rail riders, a number of other payment methods are available as an alternative to cash.
TriMet tickets and passes are also valid on the Portland Streetcar, which is owned by the City of Portland but operated mostly by TriMet personnel under a contract with the city.
TriMet also has a mobile ticketing app, allowing riders to purchase and use tickets for buses, light rail, and commuter rail on their smartphones. The app, called TriMet Tickets, was developed by Portland startup GlobeSherpa and released in September 2013 at no cost to TriMet. Instead, Moovel Transit will take a commission on every ticket sale through the app.
An e-fare system named "Hop Fastpass" was introduced in July 2017. Developed by INIT for TriMet, the City of Portland, and C-Tran, at a cost estimated to be about $30 million, the new Hop Fastpass system enables riders to pay with a fare card, using card readers on buses and train platforms and, as of August 2017, using a smartphone equipped with NFC via a digital wallet. The name is said to evoke both the speed of the rabbit and the hop plant used as an ingredient in the craft beer brewed in Portland.