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8/24/2020
Portland State University’s Center for Public Interest Design tomorrow will select the winners of a design competition to re-envision the use of Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon’s (TriMet) oldest MAX light-rail vehicles, which will begin to be retired in a few years.
Contestants of the competition were encouraged to find new uses for legacy trains that could help address homelessness, climate change, racial inequality or other social, environmental or public health crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, TriMet officials said in a press release.
The competition grew out of an idea from TriMet General Manager Doug Kelsey to find a way to repurpose the agency’s 26 Type 1 light-rail vehicles and keep them from becoming scrap.
The Type 1s were the original trains on the MAX system and have been in service for nearly 34 years. The agency will begin to retire the vehicles in 2022.
Designers in the contest also had the option to base their designs on TriMet’s Type 2 vehicles, which have been in service since 1997. The Type 2 trains are being renovated over the next five years and their retirement date is undetermined, agency officials said.