PORTLAND, Ore. — MAX Red Line service to Portland International Airport will shut down for four months starting Sunday, June 18, while crews work on a project to rebuild the airport light rail station and add a second track nearby. The closure is scheduled to last through Oct. 21, according to TriMet.
The Parkrose/Sumner, Mt Hood, Cascades and PDX Airport light rail stations will all be closed for the duration, with a shuttle bus loop running between them and Gateway Transit Center. The rest of the MAX Red Line will continue to run normally from Gateway to Beaverton Transit Center.
The shuttle buses will run about every 15 minutes, according to TriMet, but they may be more crowded than the light rail trains normally would be, and the transit agency is urging riders heading to the airport to plan ahead.
Credit: TriMet
The service disruption is the latest and longest in a series of temporary closures connected to TriMet’s A Better Red project, which aims to expand Red Line service to the west of Portland and fix a pair of bottlenecks on the city’s east side.
One of those bottlenecks is on the approach to the airport, where the Red Line shrinks down to a single track, forcing trains to take turns. The airport’s ongoing $2 billion renovation project freed up more space around the light rail line and crews have already begun working to build a second track.
But the additional track also requires a rebuild of the airport station, because the original platform was built in an odd wedge shape due to the two tracks merging into a single one just past the station. Project illustrations from TriMet show the rebuilt station will have a more conventional shape with parallel tracks.
Credit: TriMet
The previous service disruption in April focused on the other big bottleneck: another single-track segment where the Red Line approaches Gateway Transit Center from the airport. During the closure, crews added tie-ins for a new track and platform that will serve inbound Red Line trains at Gateway.
Credit: TriMet
Illustration of the new track and Gateway platform for westbound Red line trains.
The Better Red project also includes upgrades on the system’s west side that will allow the Red Line to be extended from Beaverton Transit Center to a new terminus at the Fair Complex/Hillsboro Airport station, adding Red Line service to 10 stations that are currently only served by the Blue Line.
Those two components are both scheduled to wrap up construction in 2024, according to TriMet, with service at the new Gateway platform starting early in the year and extended west side service starting later in the year.