page_title: Transportation in Portland, Oregon
section_title: Mass transit
hierarchical_section_title: Transportation in Portland, Oregon / Mass transit
caption_attribution_description: English: Buses on the southbound Portland Transit Mall (in Portland, Oregon), 5th Avenue, with cyclists crossing on Morrison Street. Photo was taken after MAX light rail tracks were added to the mall but before they were brought into use. Bicycles are also being carried on the fronts of the buses.
context_page_description: Like transportation in the rest of the United States, the primary mode of local transportation in Portland, Oregon is the automobile. Metro, the metropolitan area's regional government, has a regional master plan in which transit-oriented development plays a major role. This approach, part of the new urbanism, promotes mixed-use and high-density development around light rail stops and transit centers, and the investment of the metropolitan area's share of federal tax dollars into multiple modes of transportation. In the United States, this focus is atypical in an era when automobile use led many areas to neglect their core cities in favor of development along interstate highways, in suburbs, and satellite cities.
context_section_description: Portland has a public transportation system. The bus and rail system is operated by TriMet, its name reflecting the three metropolitan area counties it serves (Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington).  Portland's rate of public transit use (12.6% of commutes in 2008) is comparable to much larger cities like Los Angeles, and higher than in most similarly sized U.S. cities, but is lower than in some others, such as Baltimore and Seattle. Transit service between Portland and Vancouver, Washington, the second-largest city in the metropolitan area, is provided by C-Tran, with a small number of express routes.
  Within the downtown area (the city center) is the Portland Transit Mall, a transit-priority corridor on which buses and light rail trains from many different parts of the region converge.  First opened in 1977, and for three decades served only by buses, the transit mall underwent major changes in 2009.  Tracks for light rail (MAX) were added, bus stops spaced farther apart, and the left lane opened to general traffic (but with right turns prohibited).  To facilitate this major renovation and rebuilding, lasting more than two years, all bus routes using the mall were diverted to other streets (mainly 3rd and 4th avenues) starting in January 2007.  The transit mall reopened to buses on May 24, 2009, and operator training runs on the new light-rail tracks took place during the late spring and summer. Light rail service on the transit mall was introduced on August 30, 2009, when the MAX Yellow Line moved to the mall from its previous routing.  The new MAX Green Line opened 13 days later, on September 12, and it also serves the downtown transit mall.
  From 1975 to 2010, all of downtown Portland was in Fareless Square, a fare zone within which all rides on buses, light rail and streetcars were fare-free, and starting in 2001 this zone also covered a portion of the adjacent Lloyd District.  In 2010, free rides became limited to light-rail and streetcar service – no longer covering bus service – and the zone was renamed the "Free Rail Zone". In September 2012, the fareless zone was discontinued entirely, due to a $12 million shortfall in TriMet's annual budget.
  Ben Holladay was the first person to offer public transportation to the city of Portland when in 1872 he opened the Portland Street Railway Company, a horsecar line on First Street extending to a garage at the end of Glisan.  In 1882, a second horsecar system was built for Third Street. Ferries such as the O&CRR Ferry#2 were used to cross the Willamette River before the construction of the first Steel Bridge in 1888. At that point, rail expanded into Albina and East Portland.  Horsecars took passengers across the river and steam trains took them further into the suburbs, but both modes were soon replaced by electric streetcar lines, the first of which began operation on November 1, 1889, between St. Johns and Portland.
caption: Buses and bikes in downtown Portland.
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