Portland-Milwaulkie Light Rail Conceptual Design Report – index to the full report

View the Conceptual Design Report

Clinton Street, Rhine Street and Holgate Boulevard station areas

System Elements and Preliminary Engineering Recommendations

- see page 8 and 9, Quiet Zone

Feel free to attend a Light Rail Open House to learn more about plans for your neighborhood, and to thank TriMet and City stakeholders for taking our concerns to heart. The meeting notices are in the calendar to the left of this post.

Thanks to the Hosford Abernethy Neighborhood Association for this update.

Please join Senator Diane Rosenbaum, Representative Carolyn Tomei, Multnomah County Commissioner Deborah Kafoury and METRO Councilor Carlotta Collette for a joint town hall meeting.

Topics include current legislative issues, with a special emphasis on the new state transportation package and what it means for the Sellwood Bridge.

We look forward to seeing you all there!

SEPTEMBER 23rd
7:00 – 8:30pm
Sellwood SMILE Station

MAP HERE

Title: TriMet Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Open House

Therefore, this would be a good event to attend if you are able. Please feel free to forward this announcement, or to bring other concerned neighbors with you.

You may have seen complaints from Tigard and Tualatin neighbors about the new train horn noise from Tri-Met’s WES commuter rail line. SE Corridor trains would run much more often, as well as all night long (a train each way every 15 minutes in the day, and every 30 minutes at night, or 170 trains a day). TriMet may propose quieter horns (reducing them from the 110 decibels of Union Pacific Trains to the 96 decibels used by WES), which will not help nearby neighbors.

Message points:

• We cannot tolerate any additional train horn noise;

• Nothing short of an approved Quiet Zone can assure that result;

• TriMet should do whatever is necessary to assure that light rail is a healthy addition to our community and preserves neighborhood livability.

Start Time: 17:30
Date: 2009-03-10
End Time: 19:30

Tualatin policymakers hope to use federal stimulus money as part of a new and cheaper plan to eventually end the use of train horns by TriMet’s Westside Express Service.

City officials now say they can create a citywide quiet zone for about $2.5 million, half the original budget-busting price tag. But the lower cost comes with fewer safety enhancements, and the horns probably would continue blowing for another two years until improvements are made.

“I’m really cautiously optimistic,” said Tualatin City Manager Sherilyn Lombos.
Unlike TriMet’s light-rail system, the 14.7-mile commuter-rail project travels a freight line and is required to sound horns four times at each public crossing.

Since service began Feb. 2, Tualatin is being rattled by as many as 1,280 weekday warnings of at least 96 decibels a blast.

Officials considered safety measures at nine of 10 city crossings to create quiet zones. But leaders now say they can do a cheaper version, making median and four-quadrant gate improvements at only four crossings, while still complying with federal regulations for quiet zones, eliminating the need for horns.

“I’m thrilled,” Tualatin Mayor Lou Ogden said.

Even if Tualatin moved forward with its plan today, the lengthy review and construction process means a quiet zone is probably 18 months to two years away, said Dave Lanning of the Oregon Department of Transportation Rail Division.

Although preliminary, the plan would tap as much as $1.3 million from the city’s urban renewal fund. Tualatin will receive another $700,000 of federal stimulus money through Washington County.

“We all sympathize with the city of Tualatin,” said Anne Madden, a county transportation spokeswoman.

Meanwhile, TriMet is considering a $250,000 contribution from its share of federal stimulus funds. The transit agency had anticipated using the money for wayside horns at WES crossings — thought to be less intrusive than the train horns.

The possibility of quiet zones is bittersweet for residents who live near crossings in Tualatin.

Erin Stadick, a regular at City Council meetings, said he is encouraged but said the ongoing horn blasts will make for a long two years.

“I believe that due to pressure, they now realize that they have to do something,” Stadick said. “I don’t think it should have ever gotten to this point.”

Brad Schmidt: 503-294-5199; bradschmidt@news.oregonian.com

A rude awakening for Tualatin, and for TriMet
by Editorial Board, The Oregonian
Monday February 16, 2009

The Westside Express Service is a welcome addition
to the region, but the noise problem can’t be shrugged off

In hindsight, Chris Barhyte wonders if they should have rented a freight train.

That sounds extreme, but Barhyte is a Tualatin city councilman. In the two weeks since the Westside Express Service started running, he’s been asking himself how the city could have fully anticipated — or simulated — the noise WES would inflict on the city.

The city’s leaders were, and are, excited about the commuter rail line’s transportation benefits. Yet Barhyte also understands why many along the WES tracks don’t see it — or hear it — that way.

Frequent horn blasts, beginning at 5:45 a.m. each workday, may or may not have diminished property values, as some fear. But the 1,280 horn blasts a day in the Tualatin area have shattered equanimity. People are looking to the city for answers, and the city has one — but it doesn’t have the money to pay for it.

TriMet doesn’t either, really. But TriMet does need to take the lead in solving “Tualatin’s” problem. Otherwise, WES will not only be the first commuter rail line in Oregon.

WES will also be the last.

Unlike the MAX light-rail system, which runs fairly quietly in accordance with federal transit rules, WES operates under federal freight rules, requiring four horn blasts for safety at every public crossing. There are 25 such crossings along the rail line, and WES runs 32 times a day.

Multiply that out and it means a horn is now blasting 3,000 times more than before. The freight train horns that went through before (and still go by, on the same tracks) registered in the distance as a “kind of neat anomaly,” as Barhyte put it Friday.

They were tolerable, even pleasant for some. But the decibel levels now make people bellow, “Stop!”

In the long run, this is a problem that could put the brakes on hopes of expanding the commuter rail line in this state. Other city leaders are watching, and they’re very concerned.

Forest Grove Mayor Richard Kidd, for instance, is a strong transit advocate who hopes to bring a light-rail line to Forest Grove some day. But he said Friday that TriMet must investigate the true extent of the noise problem WES has inflicted.

Part of the problem, right now, of course, is the novelty of the interruption. There’s a chance the noise will fade into the background, at least for some people along the route. But for those closest to the track, that isn’t likely. And it’s not enough just to say, “Oh well, it’s only a few people.”

As Kidd put it Friday, “Just a few people are my constituents.” (Forest Grove has 19,565 people to Tualatin’s 25,465.)

Putting safety equipment at the Tualatin crossings to establish “quiet zones” is the answer. But it would cost somewhere between $4 million and $5 million, which Tualatin can’t afford.

The city has hopes of obtaining some money from the federal stimulus package. And the prospects were looking good on Friday, Tualatin officials said.

We hope the money comes through, but even if it does, it would be a big mistake for TriMet to write this off as Tualatin’s headache.

This is a stopper for commuter rail. TriMet shouldn’t be the caboose — it should be at the front of the train in coming up with answers.

Thanks to Kamala Bremer of the Hosford Abernethy Neighborhood for these notes!

Train Facts:
• Currently 25-30 freight trains and 6 Amtrak trains run through the SE Division area.
• There are 6 intersections in the SE Division area (from the Highway 99 overpass to the 17th street rail overpass): SE 8th, SE 9th, Division Place, SE 11th, SE 12th, and Clinton,
• South Corridor light rail trains will run every 15 minutes in the day, and every 30 minutes at night.
• This means an additional 170 trains per day through the SE Division area – a train approximately every 7 minutes.
• Light rail trains will be required to follow federal train horn regulations for these 6 crossings because they are along the Union Pacific right of way.
• Federal Railroad Administration regulations require a train to sound its horn with 2 short and one long signal, beginning ¼ mile before the intersection and lasting until the front of the train is through the intersection.
• Light rail will be required to use the same 110 decibel horns and the same frequency of signals as the heavy trains.

Neighborhood Situation:
• Many people are already bothered by the train horn noise from the freight trains and Amtrak, and have wanted a quiet zone for years.
• Many people are awakened at night, and have had the quality of their lives reduced in major ways.
• Research shows that repeated loud noise is damaging to health in numerous ways, and to quality of life. Noise that prevents a full night sleep is especially damaging.
• Pedestrians at the proposed Clinton light rail station and bicyclists would be especially vulnerable to the loudness of these horns.
• Only this section of light rail track through SE Portland (from OMSI to the Brooklyn Rail Yard), and the section through Milwaukie, will be required to follow federal train horn regulations. Other light rail tracks follow local regulations

Other Neighborhoods:
• The City of Milwaukie wrote into their agreement with TriMet that all crossings in Milwaukie would be designed to Quiet Zone specifications; they are planning to have a quiet zone all the way through their city.
• The City of Portland did not write any protection for SE Portland into their agreement with TriMet.
• This train noise will not just affect HAND; Brooklyn, South Waterfront and SW Portland are also affected by the train horns from the SE Division area.

Who Can Remedy:
• TriMet is willing to design these crossings to quiet zone specifications, but is unlikely to do so unless requested by the road authority.
• The City of Portland is the local road authority for the SE Division area streets.
• Thus the City of Portland would need to request TriMet to design to Quiet Zone specifications.
• The City of Portland would need to eventually find funds for the modifications, but costs are not known. Intersections differ, but for some of them, costs could be minor. Some intersections may need to be changed significantly to handle the light rail traffic, and some of these changes may be covered under the light rail upgrades.

Federal Quite Zones:
• The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has created regulations that allow the local road authority to apply for a federally approved quiet zone.
• The local road authority (City of Portland) would need to put in place additional safety measures negotiated with the FRA to decrease the risk of the intersection.
• There is special consideration for areas which used to have local quiet zones. Portland had a “no whistle zone” in effect for this area until about 1995, when federal regulations superseded local quiet zones.
• The Oregon Department of Transportation will also need to approve the change.
• Once the Quiet Zone is implemented, neither light rail nor heavy trains would routinely blow their horns at the improved intersections (although they would of course still honk if there was a danger.)

Design/Engineering Options:
• Safety measures would need to be implemented to reduce the risk of the intersection.
• Measures could include: medians to keep people from going around gates, or “quad gates” that block traffic from all lanes.
• Measures would require special signal software to manage the flow of the trains – but this is already in place or would be upgraded in the light rail design process.
• Intersections would be signed to indicate that no horn will sound to warn of trains.

Our Request:
• Many people are already seriously disturbed by the current train horns.
• The level of additional train horns expected from light rail would be intolerable.
• We want the City of Portland to request TriMet to design the light rail crossings from 8th to 12th to Quiet Zone standards. There is no cost to add this to the design plans.
• Engineering contracts have already been let and the design process has just started.
• It is critical that these initial designs be planned to Quiet Zone standards, in order to avoid the cost of having to do this work twice.
• It will be much less expensive to make Quiet Zone changes in conjunction with light rail improvements, rather than doing this separately.
• The City of Portland is the only entity that can make this request.

Upcoming Meetings:
All the following meetings need people to attend, raise the issue and state our request. Action is needed NOW, in January, to influence the design process that has already started.

1. City of Portland Noise Review Board
Wednesday, January 14, 2009, 6:00 PM
1900 SW Fourth Ave. Room 2500 B (2nd floor)
Item 3 on agenda: Discussion from Board member Susan Pearce on the concerns in Hosford-Abernathy Neighborhood in regards to potential Light rail warning device noise in combination with existing train whistle. Item 7: Public Testimony

2. Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Project, Citizen’s Advisory Committee
January 15, 2009, 6:00 to 7:30
Location: Holgate Plaza, TriMet Sellwood/Ankeny Training Classroom, 1625 SE Holgate Blvd. Portland
6:10 (5 minutes) and 7:20 (10 minutes), Public Comment

3. HAND Board Meeting
Tuesday, Jan. 20, 7 – 9 p.m.
St. Paul Classroom at the Paulist Center, St Philip Neri Catholic Church
2408 SE 16th Ave, Portland, OR 97214
Train Horn issue on agenda, time not known.

4. Petition to Mayor Sam Adams
Not yet scheduled.

What you can do:
• Come to the meetings listed above
• Check this site for future involvement opportunities, such as meetings, petitions to sign, and leaders to contact.

photo credit: eyeliam

TriMet has launched ther new website for the Portland to Milwaukie MAX light rail project.  This new site can be accessed at http://www.trimet.org/pm/

Administrators at the Federal Transit Administration have been reluctant to approve funds for the Portland Streetcar so far.  The existing streetcar line has been funded with a mix of city and regional funds.   City and Regional officials are hopeful that this time around that the Federal Government will pay for $75 million of the needed $147 million needed to extend service to the Central Eastside.

Federal officials contend that the streetcar moves very few people, and at speeds that are too slow to be condisered effective public transportation.  Local officials contend that the streetcar serves its function well as a local circulator that promotes livability through increased pedestrian activity.  The streetcar line also appears to be successful in promoting economic redevelopment.

Final Engineering on the Eastside Streetcar project will now move forward.  Assuming that the Federal funds do in fact come through, than construction would begin in the June of 2009.  Service would then begin sometime in 2011.

Future streetcar extensions could have a lasting impact on the Brooklyn neighborhood.  The extension to the Central Eastside will provide a direct transit connection for riders using the new Portland to Milwaukie Light Rail line.  A new transit center will be built near OMSI to provide connections between the streetcar, MAX, major bus lines, and the Springwater Corridor trail.  Bike and pedestrian access to this planned transit hub will also be much improved once the new MLK/Grand Viaduct is complete in a few years.

Work is also moving forward on a potential streetcar line along SE Milwaukie Avenue.  This line would follow Milwaukie Avenue from Powell Boulevard to SE Tacoma Street.  Service could continue west along Tacoma to the Sellwood Bridge, and/or east to the planned Tacome Street Transit Center planned for the area near McLoughlin Boulevard.

Please see the following website for more streetcar related plans: http://www.portlandonline.com/transportation/streetcarsystemplan

Dear Congressman Blumenauer,

I’m writing as a long time resident of the Brooklyn neighborhood in southeast Portland.  Over the last couple of years, the frequency of freight trains using the Union Pacific railroad tracks that run between the Brooklyn train yards and the OMSI area has increased dramatically.  In addition, the train horns have been “upgraded” to louder, omni-directional horns over the past couple of years.  As such, the Brooklyn and Hosford-Abernethy neighborhoods have become increasingly exposed to this nuisance.

The noise levels generated by the trains violate the spirit and the letter of Portland’s noise ordinance law.  The train horns wake up hundreds if not thousands of people several times a night in these neighborhoods, they harm our ears, they impact wildlife, they lower our property value, and they drown out emergency sirens from police, fire trucks, or ambulances.

Federal legislation allows communities to establish residential quiet zones to mitigate this unwanted noise.  The quiet zone laws require communities to pay for additional gates or other mitigation efforts in order to obviate the need for train horns at those crossings.  I am confident that the residents in these neighborhoods would wholeheartedly endorse whatever crossing improvements may be required.

I’d like to request your personal support and help on this issue.  I’m copying Mayor Elect Sam Adams on this letter, as well as Metro Commissioner Robert Liberty.  This would be an excellent time to attack the issue, since the new light rail lines proposed for the neighborhoods will run parallel to the railroad tracks between OMSI and the Brooklyn yards, and the area will be undergoing construction over the next couple of years.  In addition, the presence of the light rail stations in proximity to the railroad tracks will mean that riders waiting at the station will be exposed to the unhealthful and annoying horns unless the quiet zone is established.

I have already contacted the City of Portland Noise Office, along with Metro.  They have indicated that it is politically difficult, but not impossible to establish the quiet zones.  I have confidence that with your support and the support of Mayor Elect Adams, we can solve this problem and make our inner southeast Portland neighborhoods as livable as the rest of our city.

Please let me know how you can help us with this effort.
Thanks for your consideration on this issue.

Sincerely,

Michael O’Connor
Brooklyn Neighborhood Resident

I’d like to hear from others within earshot of the trains.  Do they wake you up at night?  Do they interrupt conversations even indoors?  Are you ready to join me in writing to our local, state, and federal officials for help on this?  Are you ready to form a new neighborhood committee?

The County Commission has also failed to show any leadership in the planning of the Portland to Milwaukie light rail line.  Although every other municipality held lengthy hearings and discussions for this Federal mega-project, the Multnomah County Commission didn’t even bother to hold a formal vote on the issue.  However, County Chair Ted Wheeler did submit a standard, one page letter of support to avoid complete embarassment.

Most of the blame for this lack of leadership falls back on to Commissioner de Steffey.  Although she was named to the powerful Milwaukie Light Rail Steering Committee, by some reports she has only attended two of their meetings.  During the critical discussions of the past 12 months, she never bothered to show up. 

During this next week, the Sellwod Bridge will be closed to traffic during several evenings so that a construction crew can literally glue the bridge back together with apoxy so that it can hopefully last a few more years unitl a solution can be found.  Area residents area advised to keep their fingers crossed for a real solution sometime before the existing bridge has to be closed for good.

Lance Lindahl, Chair of the Brooklyn Action Corps

Dear Friends of Ross Island,

The Oregonian Editorial Board did an outstanding editorial this morning calling for Portland Parks and Portland Bureau of Environmental Services to petition the State Marine Board to create a no-wake zone in the Ross Island Lagoon and the Holgate Channel (between Ross Island and Oaks Bottom).  We urge you to write both the Oregonian and the Portland City Council in support of a modified version of this proposal that would make the Holgate no-wake and the Ross Island Lagoon non-motorized (except for activities associated with Ross Island Sand and Gravel operations and restoration activities).

Water skiers, jet boats, jet skis and wake boarders have the entire Willamette to enjoy their sports. It is entirely reasonable to set aside a small area between Ross Island and Oaks Bottom for quiet enjoyment of nature. Establishing a no-wake zone in the Holgate Channel and a non-motorized zone in the Ross Island Lagoon would:
·        Increase safety in an area that is very heavily utilized by canoes, kayaks and other non-motorized boats
·        Create a rare oasis of relative calm and quiet on an otherwise very busy river—a place where people can hear the birds… see an otter… have an intimate experience with nature
·        Protect in-water and  riparian restoration efforts along the channel and in the lagoon
·        Protect sensitive nesting avian species such as bald eagles and great blue herons from disturbance
·        Reduce a serious erosion problem on Ross Island which is largely a result of wave action from boat wakes

We urge you to write the Oregonian and City Council today to support making Ross Island Lagoon Non-Motorized and the Holgate Channel No-Wake.

Thanks,

Bob Sallinger
Conservation Director
Audubon Society of Portland

Oregonian Letters to the Editor
letters@news.oregonian.com

City Council E-mail Addresses
mayorpotter@ci.portland.or.us
dsaltzman@ci.portland.or.us
randy@ci.portland.or.us
adams@ci.portland.or.us
fishnick@comcast.net

Public and political support for the project is stronger than ever.  The following advisory votes took place in the month of July:

Portland Development Commission: Unanimous support for the project by members of the commission board.  Several members expressed concerns about businesses in the Central Eastside and in Brooklyn that will be displaced by the project, but these members still supported the overall project.  Development Commission staff were directed to assist these displaced businesses in finding new homes within the Central Eastside.

Portland Planning Commission: Unanimous support for the project by commission members.  Several members expressed concern over the decision to delay construction of a station at SE Harold Street.  The Commission submitted a letter of support to City Council with explicit instructions to both the Office of Transportation and the Planning Bureau to develop a plan for how to fund a future station at Harold Street.

Portland City Council: A unanimous vote in favor of the project by Mayor Pottor and the other members of the Council.  Commissioner Randy Leonard commented that this is an important project and that light rail transit is an important tool in keeping transportation affordable to working class people.

Metro Council:  Metro President David Bragdon and the other members of the council voted uanimously to support the project.  Councilor Carlotta Collette acknowledged that some residents in Milwaukie remain opposed to the project, but that there has been a fundamental shift in recent years and that the ”heart and soul” of the city is strongly supportive of the project.

Officials at TriMet and Metro will now submit their findings to the Federal Transit Administration for their approval.  If approved, construction would begin in 2011 and passenger rail service would open to the public in the fall of 2015.

Mayor, and former Brooklyn Action Corps member, Tom Potter spoke highly of the project and its ability to transform inner southeast Portland.  The other members of City Council were also supportive.

Brooklyn Action Corps board member Marie Phillipi spoke on behalf of the board, and was thanked for her years of hard work on this project by City Councilman Dan Saltzman.

The project will introduce frequent, rail transit to the Brooklyn neighborhood by the end of the year 2015.  SE 17th Avenue will be widened to include a rail right of way, bike lanes, and wider sidewalks.   Light rail stations will be added at both Rhine Street and Holgate Boulevard.

This is the third major milestone for this project in the past week.  The City of Milwaukie City Council and the Portland Development Commission Board have aslo given their approval to the approximately $1.3 billion dollar transit and road improvement project.

The next major milestonefor the project will occur in the last week of July when the Metro Council makes their final vote on the proposed alignment.

The map in the article has the following errors:

- The line will not end in Milwaukie at Lake Road.  Current plans call for it to extend an additional mile south to Park Avenue in unincorporated Clackamas County.

- The line will follow the Tillamook Branch Alignment through the City of Milwaukie.

- There will not be a station at the Southgate Theatre site.  The only station in Milwaukie will be at Lake Road.

Plans to build a station at SE Harold Street have been put on hold at this time.  This despite an amazing outpouring of support in recent weeks among local residents, neighborhood association leaders, Reed College, and local transportation and land use planners.  City Commissioner Sam Adams acknowledged community support for this station, but in the end agreed with others on the steering committee that a station would be too expensive to build in this area at this time due to the need for pedestrian bridges over both the rail tracks and McLoughlin Boulevard.

Other stations have been removed from the alignment as well.  The City of Milwaukie will now be served by a single station at Lake Road.  Other stations in the downtown Milwaukie area were removed due to opposition from local property owners and schools.  A station at Bluebird street has been removed due to high costs and safety concerns.   A station on SW Harbor Drive in Portland may be elmimated due to similar concerns.

Light rail plans for the Brooklyn Neighborhood remain relatively unchanged from previous plans.  The line will run down SE 17th Avenue between Powell and McLoughlin.  Stations will be located at SE Rhine and SE Holgate Streets.  Additional engineering and design work will occur in the months to come.