Quick railfan ride on WES

[AgentSkelly]

The idea I have in my head of WES operating Beaverton-Hillsboro-Forest Grove would be starting at Beaverton TC (somehow) and making stops at 160th & Hwy 8 (former Park & Ride), Intel Park & Ride (Its a Tri-Met lot already), then of of course stopping at Mark Hatfield Transit Center then make a stop in Cornelius and end in Forest Grove.

Are you sure about Intel? TriMet's website doesn't list any park-and-ride lot anywhere around there. I agree that a stop would make sense at Intel; on the other hand you are missing a huge transfer opportunity at 185th Avenue.

160th Avenue is more a matter of convenience for TriMet having the old park-and-ride lot there (built thanks to the elimination of the OE line through downtown Beaverton), but that's about it. And for someone riding to downtown Portland, they are going to go just a little further north to Beaverton Creek so that is simply duplication of service.

But the bigger issues is getting in/out of Beaverton, and doing a whoop-di-do through Hillsboro - do you force trains to pull into Hatfield Government Center, pull forward (north) and then back onto the OE? Do you build a new track through the front lawn of the justice center (and create a short walk for transfers between commuter rail and MAX)? TriMet wants to push light rail to Forest Grove and they are only two shippers away from being able to do that (although they will have to completely destroy the terminus station and build a new station, likely next to the justice center).

Beaverton...you have no room for additional tracks, you'll have to build a wye through prime downtown Beaverton real estate, you're talking about more crossing blockages cross Canyon Road.

Now...I have a solution to the mess, but it involves abandoning Beaverton TC, relocating MAX to Broadway, building a WES station where the original OE and SP stations used to be...it's only money we're talking about, like about $100 million or so.

Well, that Park and Ride would be in Aloha...which there is not even a listing for Aloha...hmmm...I'll have to go look and see if the blue sign is there still.

I think a backup move would be the simplest thing; since we dealing with double headed equipment (either CRC springs back to life or we use RDCs). But we could even move the stop to Shute Park where there's a big parking lot already as the Hillsboro stop and wouldn't even need that.

There's time that the single platform at Beaverton can be shared.