CPO 1 Intercounty commuting forum
generates a brainstorm
By Mary Edwards
The 25-30 Cedar Mill residents who attended the September 13, 2016 meeting of Community Participation Organization 1 (CPO 1) offered a variety of opinions on ways to deal with growing rush-hour congestion facing east Washington County residents driving to work in Portland along area roads and highways.
The regular monthly meeting included a forum on inter-county commuting in which representatives of Multnomah and Washington counties, TriMet and the Oregon Department of Transportation spoke of the ongoing struggle of area roads to handle rush hour commute traffic, and measures they were taking to plan for improvements. After the representatives outlined their agencies’ views of the state of the inter-county transportation system, residents brainstormed their ideas for ways to improve commuting.
Following are ideas residents shared, grouped by general topic:
Mass Transit
- Improve the drop off and pick up area at the Sunset Transit Center (STC)
- Bring back the Cedar Mill shuttle for residents not served by buses to get to the STC
- Provide a shuttle service for Bethany area residents to get to the STC
- Get a private entity to build a parking garage near the STC
- Institute paid parking at STC
- Provide a park and ride lot near Barnes/Burnside (near the zoo)
- Institute a cardkey access for locals using the STC parking garage
- Reduce bike parking in STC to allow more motorcycle/scooter parking
- Max stop between zoo and STC
- Extend the Red Line farther west
- In Portland, more park and ride lots, e.g. Lloyd Center
- Streetcar or other HTC from existing light rail to Tanasbourne/Bethany
- Express bus through downtown Portland
- Increase frequency of bus Line 48 so it runs more often from Cedar Mill Bible Church park and ride lot to STC
Roads and road users
- Extend bike lanes on Cornell Road
- Institute congestion pricing for parking in downtown Portland
- Improve access to St. John’s Bridge from Germantown Road/Hwy 30
- Create a clearinghouse for carpooling: using a dating model to pair like-minded car poolers; use Uber or Lyft for car pools
- Employer-based programs: carpools, park & ride, etc.
- Shuttle along Cornell Road to Portland
- Extend bicycling artery on south side of US 26 to 185th or farther west
- Extend left-turn lane on Cedar Hills Blvd southbound to allow more cars to turn left on Barnes Road during rush hour
- In Portland, put a stoplight at NW 25th and Lovejoy
Reducing the need for commuting:
- More companies offer telecommuting to employees
- More companies offer employees flexible work schedules, 4-day work weeks
CPO 1 residents were told that additional information on transportation funding and the Transportation Demand Management (TDM) study results would be shared in a future meeting. The list of suggestions and a form for collecting additional ideas was placed on the CPO 1 website. More comments are welcome!
CPO 1 meets on the second Tuesday of every month at Leedy Grange Hall in Cedar Mill. They’ll skip the November meeting, as it would take place on election night and they expect most of their members will be watching election results. The October meeting will offer speakers on some of the ballot measures in the November election.
Meetings are open to anyone wanting to learn more about how Washington County works. To vote on issues, you need to join your CPO by signing up for the newsletter (print or email). For more information, and to sign up to join your CPO, visit the website.
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