MAX Blue Line
The MAX Blue Line is a light rail line serving the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Oregon. Operated by TriMet as part of MAX Light Rail, it connects Hillsboro, Beaverton, Portland, and Gresham. The line serves 47 stations; it travels from Hatfield Government Center station in Hillsboro to Cleveland Ave station in Gresham. Service runs for 22 hours per day from Monday to Thursday, with headways of between 30 minutes off-peak and five minutes during rush hour. It runs later in the evening on Fridays and Saturdays and ends earlier on Sundays. The Blue Line is the busiest of the five MAX lines, having carried an average 25,019 riders each day on weekdays in May 2025.
The success of local freeway revolts in Portland in the early 1970s led to a reallocation of federal assistance funds from the proposed Mount Hood Freeway and Interstate 505 projects to mass transit. Among various proposals, local governments approved the construction of a light rail line between Gresham and Portland in 1978. Referred to as the Banfield Light Rail Project during planning and construction as a part of the Banfield Freeway redevelopment, construction of what is now the Eastside MAX segment began in 1983. The line was inaugurated as the Metropolitan Area Express on September 5, 1986.
Planning for an extension of MAX to the west side began as early as 1979. Known as the Westside MAX, construction was delayed by nearly a decade due to funding disagreements. Originally designed to terminate at 185th Avenue near the border of Hillsboro and Beaverton, proponents for a longer line achieved a supplemental extension to downtown Hillsboro just before groundbreaking in 1993. The Westside MAX opened in two phases following delays in tunnel construction; the first section up to Goose Hollow opened in 1997 while the rest opened on September 12, 1998.
In 2000, the two distinct segments, already operating as a single through route between Gresham and Hillsboro, were unified in passenger information as the Blue Line after TriMet introduced a color coding scheme in preparation for the opening of the Red Line to Portland International Airport. The Blue Line currently shares its route with the Red Line on the west side, between Hillsboro Airport/Fairgrounds station and Rose Quarter Transit Center. On the east side, it shares tracks with both the Red Line and the Green Line, between Rose Quarter Transit Center and Gateway/Northeast 99th Avenue Transit Center.
Eastside history
Early freeway opposition
Following the recommendations of Robert Moses, the Oregon State Highway Department developed a plan for freeways in the Portland metropolitan area in 1955 that proposed, among others, the Stadium, Mount Hood, and Industrial freeways. Added to the Interstate Highway System as Interstate 405, the Stadium Freeway was the first to start construction in 1963. Its route through downtown Portland led to condemnations that fostered one of the first grassroots opposition to freeways, which grew considerably as planning continued for the others. In 1971, the Portland–Vancouver Metropolitan Transportation Study, published a "1990 Transportation Plan". The plan, later adopted by the Columbia Region Association of Governments as a regional transportation plan, called for 54 new road and highway projects. That same year, an anti-freeway group called Sensible Transportation Options for People was formed, while Neil Goldschmidt ran a successful election campaign on freeway opposition to become a member of the Portland City Council and eventually, mayor.By 1972, local groups had filed lawsuits against the Oregon Transportation Commission to halt the Mount Hood and Industrial—by then called I-505—freeways. For I-505, a U.S. district court forced the Highway Department to conduct an appropriate environmental impact statement after Northwest Portland residents alleged that National Environmental Policy Act guidelines were ignored. In 1973, a separate EIS prepared by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill determined that if built, the Mount Hood Freeway would only add more traffic to downtown Portland than the surface streets could handle. Then, on February 4, 1974, U.S. District Judge James M. Burns rejected the freeway plan after finding that the corridor selection process failed to follow the appropriate procedures. Multnomah County and the City of Portland withdrew their support for the Mount Hood Freeway later that year, and in 1978, the City of Portland did the same for I-505.
Transitway planning and construction
With highway revolts similarly occurring in cities across the country, the U.S. Congress passed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 containing a provision that allowed state governments for the first time to transfer federal funds from withdrawn interstate projects to other transportation options, including mass transit. The Mount Hood Freeway and I-505 were officially removed from the Interstate Highway System in 1976 and 1979, respectively, but planning for the use of around $200 million from the Mount Hood Freeway and $154 million from I-505 on other projects in the Portland area started much earlier. In May 1973, Governor Tom McCall assembled a task force to determine alternative uses for the highway funds. The task force, in turn, recommended a network of "transitways". The task force was subsumed into CRAG in 1974, and CRAG incorporated its recommendations in an "Interim Transportation Plan" adopted in June 1975. The ITP identified three corridors for potential funding using the highway funds: Banfield, Oregon City/Johnson Creek, and Sunset. In 1976, CRAG moved forward with a detailed study of the Banfield Corridor and put planning for the other corridors on hold. Among five alternatives developed by the Highway Division, including the removal or extension of an existing high-occupancy vehicle lane, a busway had been favored for the Banfield Corridor. Support for light rail on the corridor grew following the mode's inclusion as a sixth alternative in a 1977 EIS, though there was also opposition. Notable opposition came from the East County Concerned Citizens; 5,400 individuals signed a petition against any alternative involving light rail for costs and lack of presumed ridership. The group endorsed a plan to add an HOV lane and general lanes to Banfield instead. This opposition was notable, especially in comparison to the 340 individual comments received during a discussion period in 1977–1978.In September 1978, TriMet became the first jurisdiction to adopt a resolution supporting a combined light rail and highway expansion plan. Remaining local jurisdictions each announced their support by November, and the State Transportation Commission approved the project in 1979. The Banfield light rail project received federal approval for construction in September 1980. Plans for a 27-station, line, running from Southwest 11th Avenue in downtown Portland to just east of Cleveland Avenue in Gresham, were produced by Wilbur Smith Associates. The project estimated a budget of $225.5 million, of which $146.9 million went to light rail. Planners selected the Steel Bridge to carry the alignment over the Willamette River because it had been designed for the use of the city's former streetcars. In the east side, planners routed the line through a former Mount Hood Company interurban right-of-way, which occupied the median of East Burnside Street between 99th Avenue in Portland and Ruby Junction/197th Avenue, along which interurban service had ended in 1927. From Ruby Junction to Cleveland Avenue, planners assumed acquisition of a two-mile section owned by the Portland Traction Company. In August 1983, PTC agreed to surrender this segment as part of a longer abandonment up to Linnemann Junction, a total of of right-of-way, which TriMet bought for $2.9 million in December of that year. Anticipating 42,500 riders by 1990, TriMet purchased 26 light rail vehicles from Bombardier, with each car costing $750,000. Bombardier started their production in 1982 and began delivering them in 1984. Zimmer Gunsul Frasca designed the line's stations and overpasses, earning the firm a Progressive Architecture Award in 1984.
The groundbreaking ceremony took place at Ruby Junction Yard, which would house a maintenance and operations building, in March 1982. Light rail construction, which progressed largely east to west, commenced the following year in April, on the two-mile section between Ruby Junction and Cleveland Avenue. The Ruby Junction facility opened as the system's first maintenance complex later that July. By January 1984, work had reached East Burnside Street. To minimize the cost of the Banfield Freeway segment, track right-of-way excavation and freeway widening took place simultaneously. Construction along this segment nonetheless slowed due to late material deliveries, particularly between Northeast Union and 39th avenues. Track work in downtown Portland, the final section to be built, began in March 1984 and involved utility relocation, cobblestone paving, and tree planting across 36 downtown blocks. The line's use of the Steel Bridge necessitated a $10 million rehabilitation that started the following June. System testing followed the completion of electrification work. This included the validation of the new light rail cars, which initially encountered electrical braking glitches, by putting each of them through of on-track testing. On July 28, 1986, an eastbound car conducting a test run struck and killed a man who had trespassed onto the light rail tracks near Northeast 68th Avenue. The Steel Bridge reopened in May 1986 after encountering a nine-month delay caused by structural problems and late deliveries. The bridge's owners—the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads—added to the delay by insisting on the replacement of the bridge's 64 lift cables, which TriMet claimed had not been in the original contract.