TriMet

Cherriots, the public transit service for Salem and Keizer, connecting at the Wilsonville WES station

Columbia County Rider, serving Scappoose, St. Helens, and Columbia County

Sandy Area Metro, serving Sandy (formerly within the TriMet district)

SMART, serving Wilsonville (formerly within the TriMet district)

South Clackamas Transportation District, serving Molalla and rural areas south of Oregon City along Highway 213 (formerly within the TriMet district)

Tillamook County Transportation District, serving Tillamook County

Yamhill County Transit Area, serving Yamhill County

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.

Timeline

1960s

1969 Tri-Met takes over for the nearly bankrupt Rose City Transit Company. The system has 175 buses and a daily ridership of about 65,000.

1970s

1970 Tri-Met takes over the "Blue Bus" companies, the four companies which had been providing bus service to and within Portland's suburbs, adding another 88 buses to the agency's fleet.

1973 Route numbers (or Line numbers) are adopted for the first time; previously, routes had been designated only by names.

1974 The first shelters at bus stops are installed.

1975 The "Fareless Square" is created in downtown Portland, with the goal of reducing short automobile trips within the city core and attracting more riders. Fares outside the Square are 35 cents. The zone-based fare system was discontinued at that time, but was reinstated less than four years later and remained in use until 2012.

1977/78 The 22-block Portland Transit Mall opens on downtown's Fifth and Sixth Avenues. The mall includes bus-only lanes and provides a hub to make it easier for riders to make connections. Tri-Met also introduces the seven "sector symbols", for different areas of the transit district, used at stops on the new mall: Brown Beaver (SE), Green Leaf (S), Yellow Rose (SW), Orange Deer (W), Red Fish (N), Purple Raindrops (NE) and Blue Snowflake (E)

1978 After 3½ years using a "flat" fare system, a zonal fare structure is reinstated, with three fare zones. Zone 1 consisted of downtown Portland and extending about one to two miles (3 km) out. Zone 2 was a ring around Zone 1 out two to three more miles. Zone 3 wrapped around Zone 2 and consisted of the rest of the system within the suburbs of Portland.

1980s

1981 24-hour recorded schedule information becomes available over the phone.

1982 Tri-Met introduces articulated buses for the first time. The buses were manufactured by Crown-Ikarus, a now-defunct partnership between Ikarus, of Hungary, and Crown Coach, of California, but they proved to be sufficiently trouble-plagued that the agency later sues the manufacturer to recover expenses tied to excessive repairs; a settlement was reached in 1987. The last bus was retired in 1999 and TriMet did not purchase articulated buses again until 2019 (for the Division Transit Project, to enter service in 2022).

1982 In September, Tri-Met introduces a proof-of-payment (or "self-service") fare system for all service, but discontinues it in June 1984, due to fare evasion, high equipment repair costs and other problems.

1983 Completion of the installation of two-way radios on the entire fleet; 100 buses already had radios by 1980, and all others were equipped in 1982–83.

1986 As part of a package of budget cuts, Tri-Met discontinues its all-night "Owl" service, making Portland the second largest U.S. city without all-night transit service. Seven regular (daytime) bus routes also were eliminated.

1986 The 15-mile (24 km) long MAX Light Rail line between Portland and Gresham opens. It reintroduces rail transit service to the Portland area, missing since the 1950s.

1989 Tri-Met is named the best large transit system in North America by the American Public Transit Association.

1990s

1992 The first bike racks are installed on the fronts of some Tri-Met buses, as part of a one-year trial project.

1995 Tri-Met's website goes online, hosted by local Internet service provider Teleport (which eventually becomes acquired by OneMain.com, later to become part of Earthlink). At the time when Internet access was less ubiquitous, Tri-Met also offered a dial-up information service through Teleport using a Unix shell and Lynx.

1996 Tri-Met begins to equip its bus fleet with vehicle tracking system equipment, to enable monitoring of buses in service, using GPS technology.

1997 The first low-floor buses and light-rail cars go into service.

1998 Westside MAX (now known as the Blue Line between Portland and Hillsboro) opens. Tri-Met also establishes bus lines that come every 15 minutes or sooner everyday, lessening the need to consult a schedule when using them.

1999 Satellite-assisted bus arrival time displays (later to be named Transit Tracker) are installed at select major bus stops in North Portland and downtown.

2000s

2001 Fareless Square is expanded to a small portion of Northeast Portland between Lloyd Center and the Steel Bridge. Airport MAX (the Red Line) begins service on September 10 after a public/private partnership, prompted by a proposal from Bechtel Corporation, enables its construction years ahead of TriMet's plans for the use of public funds. Bechtel received exclusive development rights to 120 acres (486,000 m2) near the entrance to Portland International Airport. The original MAX line began to be referred to as the MAX Blue Line upon the opening of the Red Line. Bus sector symbols began to be phased out from maps and publications.

2002 With the September schedule change, Tri-Met launches a new corporate identity strategy. It is renamed TriMet (without a hyphen) and a new logo and blue, white and yellow livery are introduced. An improved automated phone service is introduced.

2004 Interstate MAX (the Yellow Line) opens along Interstate Avenue. The fleet has grown to 638 buses, 208 paratransit vehicles, and 105 trains with a daily ridership of over 300,000.

2005 TriMet introduces biodiesel fuel into its fleet, using a B5 blend (5 percent pure biodiesel, 95 percent petroleum diesel), initially on LIFT (paratransit) minibuses only. Use of B5 biodiesel was expanded to the entire bus fleet in late 2006.

2007 The Portland Mall, on 5th and 6th Avenues, is shut down for rebuilding and southward extension (to PSU), including adding a second light-rail alignment through downtown. The rebuilding, to take over 2 years, is part of the MAX Green Line project, but will also replace all infrastructure for buses on the already 29-year-old transit mall. Most bus routes serving downtown are detoured to other streets until 2009.

2009 The 14.7-mile (23.7 km) WES Commuter Rail opens on February 2. WES (Westside Express Service) provides service between Beaverton and Wilsonville with stations in Tigard and Tualatin in between.

2009 In May, the Portland Mall reopens for buses, and testing and training runs for the new Mall MAX tracks begin, for opening August 30.

2009 Due to the Great Recession's effect on the agency's finances, the board approves a series of service reductions, to take effect in September. The board votes on August 12 to discontinue Fareless Square for bus service beginning in January 2010, while retaining fare-free rides in the downtown area on MAX and the Portland Streetcar.

2009 On August 30, MAX service on the transit mall is introduced, with the shifting of the Yellow Line to the new alignment. September 12 brings the opening of the Green Line, also using the new transit-mall tracks, running from downtown (PSU) to Clackamas Town Center. It is TriMet's first light rail line serving Clackamas County.

2010s

2012 TriMet purchases 55 new Gillig diesel buses to begin replacing buses dating back to 1990. The last four of the new buses are hybrid-electrics estimated to be 20-50% more fuel-efficient and produce 95% fewer emissions; they replaced hybrid buses that were in service since 2002.

2012 TriMet discontinues "Free Rail Zone" (formerly known as the "Fareless Square") in Downtown Portland and ends use of three-zone, distance-based fare system. Until this time, the TriMet district was divided into three fare zones, with fares based on the number of zones in which a passenger traveled.

2015 TriMet opens the new MAX Orange Line from Downtown Portland to Milwaukie, and the Tilikum Crossing, used by the Orange Line and two bus lines

2018 After 32 years without any all-night transit service, TriMet extends service hours on lines 20-Burnside/Stark and 57-TV Highway to run 24 hours a day. The agency also establishes Line 272-PDX Night Bus to provide early-morning service between NE 82nd Avenue and the Portland International Airport. (This service was discontinued April 5, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and has not returned.)

2019 TriMet introduces a new paint scheme, the first such change since 2002.

2019 TriMet's first battery-electric buses, numbered 3801–3805, go into service.

2020s

2022 on September 18, TriMet's 14-mile Frequent Express line opens. 31 60-foot Novabus LFSA buses are put into service for use on the line.

2024 on August 25, TriMet completed the A Better Red project.

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 (Frequent Express) 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 (12-minute headways all day).

Fleet

Buses

Buses come in lengths of either 40 or 30 feet (12 or 9 meters) for use on traditional fixed-route services. TriMet also owns a fleet of 253 minibuses and 15 vans for use on LIFT Paratransit service. As of fiscal year 2026, TriMet's fleet included 669 buses.

By March 2017, the entire active fleet of regular buses were low-floor models and equipped with air-conditioning. This was the culmination of a plan launched 20 years earlier. In 1997, the TriMet board decided that all buses purchased in the future should be low-floor type and equipped with air-conditioning. The decision was for a gradual phase-out of high-floor, non-air-conditioned buses as they reached the ends of their normal lifespan (about 18–20 years) and in 2013 TriMet was anticipating that by 2017 all buses would have low floors without steps. In the agency's early years, all buses it purchased new had air-conditioning, but TriMet decided to stop using it in the late 1970s and to only buy non-air-conditioned buses, because it did not consider the expense of maintaining the equipment to be justified given the relatively few hot days in Portland (in the 1970s). The agency returned to a policy of having air-conditioning in new buses in 1997. TriMet retired its last non-air-conditioned buses in late December 2015. The last series of high-floor buses in service were taken out of regular use in June 2016, but with some kept serviceable through the summer for use on temporary shuttles used during construction-related disruptions to MAX service that took place between August and September.

While most of TriMet's fleet uses diesel motors for propulsion, the agency has also experimented with hybrid electric buses. The first two hybrid buses entered service in 2002, but in 2008 TriMet stated that the buses had not performed sufficiently better than its newest diesel buses to justify the estimated 50-percent-higher purchase cost, and that consequently the agency had no plans to purchase additional hybrid buses at that time. These first two hybrid buses were retired in 2012. However, with hybrid technology having improved since that earlier purchase, TriMet acquired four new hybrid buses in 2012 and placed them into service in January 2013 on line 72, a long, mostly level north–south route. TriMet acquired four more hybrid buses in 2015 with even greater electronic technology on board.

Since October 30, 2006, all TriMet buses and paratransit minibuses have been fueled by a B5 biodiesel blend. Plans to increase to a B10 or higher mix were later put on hold as a result of cost increases and problems experienced in a trial use of B10 blend in about one-quarter of the fleet.

The agency delayed new bus purchases for four years due to the Great Recession and the resulting decrease in income from taxes. In 2012 TriMet began to replace buses on an accelerated schedule. By that time some of the buses in the fleet were more than 20 years old and had become more expensive to maintain and less reliable. The first order of 55 40-foot Gillig buses began to enter service in fall 2012, followed by 70 buses in 2013, 60 in the summer of 2014, followed by another 30 in October 2014. In early 2015, TriMet received its first new 30-foot buses in more than 20 years. These 22 Gillig buses are similar to the rest of TriMet's new buses, but their shorter length allows them to serve routes with tighter turns and difficult terrain.

By mid-2016 TriMet planned to have 326 buses on the road under four years old, which would allow the agency to meet the industry standard of an average age of eight years. TriMet's 3900-series buses, an order of 64 diesel buses built in 2018 and 2019 and entering service in February 2019, introduced a new paint scheme for the agency, of all-over blue with a trio of semi-upright orange stripes near the rear on each side.

The Frequent Express service operates a fleet of 60-foot (18.3 m) articulated buses; they were manufactured by Nova Bus in Plattsburgh, New York. Each bus can carry up to 115 passengers, 60% more than TriMet's standard 40-foot (12.2 m) bus, and features all-door, right-side boarding via three doors along the front, middle, and rear. Up to two bicycles can be stored inside the bus using roll-in racks located near the rear.

TriMet's buses operate out of three garages:

Center Street Garage (in inner Southeast Portland); current facilities opened in 1978, replacing former RCT facilities at same site

Merlo Garage (in Beaverton to the west); opened in 1980 with temporary facilities, and full-service maintenance building opened in 1983

Powell Garage (located in East Portland); opened in 1977; completely rebuilt 2018–2022 (with main building and most other structures replaced)

Light rail (MAX)

TriMet's fleet includes 145 light rail vehicles, of 5 general types: TriMet Type 1, Type 2/Type 3 (almost identical), Type 4 and Type 5. The first two cars of Type 5 entered service in April 2015. TriMet placed an order for new cars to replace the Type 1 trains in 2019. The first car arrived in December 2022, to be tested.

Notes on capacities:

The capacities given are for a single car; a two-car train has double the capacity.

The Type 2 cars originally had 72 seats, but eight seats were later removed, to make space for bicycles.

All of these capacity figures are based on "normal" loading conditions (defined as 4 standing passengers per square meter by industry standards); under so-called "crush" loading conditions (6-8 standees per m2), all of these cars are capable of carrying many more passengers than stated here.

Commuter rail (WES)

The commuter rail line between Beaverton and Wilsonville is operated primarily with trains made up from a fleet of four Colorado Railcar Aero diesel multiple unit railcars. TriMet also owns four Budd RDC diesel multiple-unit railcars, of which two have entered service and are used as a backup.