TriMet proposes MAX system improvements

TriMet is moving forward on two efforts aimed at improving MAX light-rail service.

One focuses on speeding up MAX Blue and Red Line trips through downtown Portland, Oregon, while the other centers on allowing more overnight maintenance work to reduce planned and unplanned disruptions to all MAX lines.

TriMet plans to establish a network of night buses in place of late-night MAX trains, expanding on its Line 291-Orange Night Bus that has been in service since the MAX Orange Line opened in 2015, TriMet officials said in a press release.

Adding night buses across all MAX lines and moving late-night/early-morning MAX trips to those buses would accommodate more overnight maintenance projects on the MAX system and reduce unplanned service disruptions, as well as multiday disruptions for MAX improvement projects. TriMet has the second-shortest overnight maintenance window of any U.S. transit agency that operates light-rail service, agency officials said.

By providing late-night trips on MAX night buses instead of trains, TriMet expects to complete more standard maintenance, repairs and improvements on the MAX system without impacting a vast majority of riders.