SMILE – Sellwood-Moreland Improvement League

SMILE has learned that the long-established and seemingly solid plan to widen the new Bybee Bridge, to provide a bus load/unload area for commuters interfacing with the new MAX line at the future Bybee Station, has been removed without publicity from the TriMet plan for the MAX line, as a means of saving money. This would mean traffic blockage by buses on the bridge servicing the MAX line – even though the new bridge was specifically constructed to allow this expansion. The excuse given for this serious change was that “there was no neighborhood feedback for keeping it in”, even though the neighborhood understood that it was a firm part of the light rail construction plans, and had no reason to believe it was not.

In addition, SMILE has joined Ardenwald in concern about how the suddenly-larger planned1,000 vehicle Park-And-Ride structure at McLoughlin and Tacoma Street will impact traffic in and around the neighborhood – particularly for commuters trying to approach the structure from southbound McLoughlin, or trying to depart it on southbound McLoughlin. The Tacoma structure has been expanded, reportedly, to reach the minimum parking on the MAX line required by the federal government, after yielding to pressure not to construct adequate parking for riders at the end of the line in Clackamas County.

Consequently, at the September 2nd SMILE General Public Meeting a quorum of neighborhood residents, after discussion, passed unanimously two motions to express neighborhood sentiments involving both of these concerns. The first motion strongly requested that TriMet and the Citizens Advisory Committee replace the funding of the expansion of the width of the Bybee Bridge to provide bus loading space; the second requested that TriMet conduct a formal evaluation of the traffic impact on Sellwood caused by traffic trying to access the Tacoma Park-And-Ride or southbound McLoughlin at Tacoma Street, and additionally that TriMet also conduct a formal evaluation of constructing additional parking at the end of the MAX line in Oak Grove, to be more responsive to the needs of commuters in Clackamas County.