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On Monday, TriMet unveiled the specifics of a plan to reduce bus and train service in the Portland metro area to help fill a gaping budget hole. The upshot? Twenty bus routes altered, another 15 eliminated, and a light rail line that will stop at its halfway point, requiring a transfer to get from Clackamas Town Center to downtown Portland.
“It’s going to be a real slow death of transit in the Portland area,” said Doug Allen, board member of the Association of Oregon Rail and Transit Advocates. “It’s unfortunate.”
The cuts, which include reductions to bus and light rail service, were hardly a surprise to many in the know. TriMet announced in July it faces a $300 million budget shortfall. Inflation has caused costs for the agency to rise by more than 50% since 2019, and aging infrastructure and public safety considerations played a role, according to TriMet.
On the revenue side, TriMet hoped to get a financial boost from House Bill 3991, the transportation funding package lawmakers passed in a special session in September. That bill included a doubling of a statewide payroll tax that provides funding for TriMet and more than 40 other transit agencies around the state from 0.1% to 0.2%.
In the past, Oregon Department of Transportation figures show, TriMet received more than half of its total revenue from the payroll tax. Lawmakers projected doubling the tax would generate nearly $200 million in new revenue from Jan. 1, 2026, to June 30, 2027. (Based on previous ODOT estimates, TriMet would have gotten about $110 million of that new money, or about $6 million a month.)
But the financial picture for TriMet and other transit agencies dimmed considerably in December, when a group called No Tax Oregon turned in about 250,000 signatures, well above the threshold to qualify a referral of parts of HB 3991 to the 2026 ballot. Although the results of the referral won’t be known for some time, the opponents’ success in gathering signatures will prevent the new revenue from HB 3991, which also included doubling some fees and a 6-cent-per-gallon gas tax increase, from going into effect.
“We know you depend on us and service cuts are always our last resort,” reads a statement by the agency. “But with rising costs and less money coming in, we must reduce spending now to avoid more severe cuts down the road, which would affect many more riders.”
The latest cuts combine several routes and reduce the frequency of others.
Targeted routes include the 72 line—one of the busiest bus routes in the state—which runs along Killingsworth Street and 82nd Avenue; Line 97-Tualatin-Sherwood Road; Line 82-South Gresham; and Line 153-Tualatin-West Linn.
TriMet used ridership data to “focus our service investment where it is needed and used most,” it said in a statement.
“Our new service change proposals center on network efficiency, combining lines or reducing where lines run near others. We propose eliminating some bus lines and moving routes to maintain as much service as possible.”
Clackamas County is among the proposal’s big losers, according to transit consultant Jarrett Walker, who penned a Bluesky thread about the cuts. Under the proposal, the MAX Green Line will run only from Clackamas Town Center to the Gateway Transit Center and no longer run downtown. The line was completed in 2009 at a cost of $575 million.
“This is sad and will raise questions about whether the line should have been built at all,” Walker wrote.
Under the plan, the Providence medical complex on Northeast Glisan Street will lose direct service. Providence patients will need to cross Interstate 84 via a bridge to access the MAX line. Walker writes that if the change stands, this could be the first time a U.S. transit agency has abandoned such a large urban medical center.
TriMet is accepting public feedback on the cuts until Jan. 31. Its board of directors is expected to formally consider the reductions at hearings in the spring before changes take effect Aug. 23.
Allen of AORTA noted that Portland has fared better than many rural parts of the state. Rogue Valley Transportation District laid off 82 employees last year and reduced services by 60% in the face of targeted cuts by the Trump administration.
Transit advocates who spoke to WW were dismayed TriMet is cutting core services even as a pair of billion-dollar freeway projects move forward in the metro area: the Interstate 5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project—expected to cost $2 billion—and a plan to replace to replace two aging I-5 spans over the Columbia River, which is expected to cost between $5 billion and $7.5 billion.
Chris Smith, co-founder of the group No More Freeways, had braced for the TriMet cuts since summer. But Monday’s announcement still stung.
“It’s pretty devastating,” Smith told WW. “It’s not like there’s not some money out there. We’re just spending it on cars.”
Oregon’s transit situation is further hampered because revenue from the state’s gas tax can be spent only on transportation infrastructure, and the state doesn’t have a sales tax. In other states, Smith told WW, these two sources commonly fund transit programs.
