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MAX VERSUS BANFIELD FREEWAY

A COMPARISON OF ACTUAL PASSENGER USAGE

Summary

The freeway carries 10.6 times as many passengers during the three hour commute period in both directions and 7 times as many passengers during peak hours in only the peak direction.

One freeway lane carries 2.3 times as many passengers as MAX during the peak hours, peak direction.

Only 27% of MAX ridership occurs during the peak, congested hours.

MAX operates at less than 3% of capacity taking passengers from the transit mall and "Central City" to work destinations in the suburbs during the entire three hour morning peak period.

Discussion

The Banfield Freeway and Portland's light rail system called MAX serve east Multnomah County . The corridor served is known as the Banfield corridor. For about 45% of MAX's length, it abuts the freeway. The rest of the light rail line runs parallel to the freeway but not directly alongside.

In 1995, average weekday boardings on MAX were reported by Tri Met as 26,100. In 1995, average weekday traffic on the Banfield was 170,854 vehicles. These counts were measured by a permanent Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) counter installed .12 miles east of the Lloyd Center MAX Station, the eastern boundary of what is known as the "central city." Multiplying the number of vehicles by a low estimate of passengers per vehicle (1.1 reported by the 1990 Census for journey to work trips in metropolitan areas) tells us that the Banfield carried about 188,000 passengers compared to MAX's 26,100 passengers, 7.2 times as many.

However, by itself, that information provides relatively little information that can be used to better understand the impact of MAX on congestion or the times and types of MAX trips. Among other things, MAX daily boardings do not distinguish between a one or two block trip in fareless square, which has no effect on freeway congestion and a negligible effect on vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and a trip from one end of the line to the other end.

In 1994, Tri Met conducted its last census to determine how many people get on and off at each station. We used this data in the following analysis. In 1995, representatives of the Oregon Transportation Institute made counts at key stations and found that there was no significant change from the 1994 Tri Met counts.

PEAK PERIODS

The focus of our inquiry was directed at the peak periods. That is the time that most people incur work trips and when our roads are congested. While transit and roads are needed for other than peak hour trips, trips at other times would not give rise to consideration of high capacity alternatives and would not motivate large transportation investments.

The following shows the peak period (6:00 AM to 9:00 AM ) passenger counts for both the Banfield Freeway and MAX measured at the point where MAX and the Banfield enters the "Central City" (the Central Business District [CBD], the Lloyd District and the No. McAdam District). That point is immediately to the east of the Lloyd Center MAX Station. The MAX counts come from Tri Met's 1994 census. The Banfield counts come from the Oregon Department of Transportation vehicle counts multiplied by the 1990 census' most conservative multiplier to convert vehicles to passengers in metropolitan areas (1.1).

During the peak period, the Freeway carries 7 times more passengers than MAX towards the Central Business District. Each lane of the freeway carries more than 2.3 times as many passengers as MAX in the peak direction. Bidirectionally, the freeway carries 10.6 times more passengers than MAX during the three peak hours.

In 1994, 28% of MAX ridership occurred during the morning and evening peak periods. In 1995, only 27% of MAX ridership occurred during peak periods. This, as well as other indicators, show that increases reported by Tri Met for MAX ridership are occurring during nonpeak times and do not affect peak hour congestion on the freeways.

Contra-Flow: The Future

In the contra flow (opposite of the traditional heavy flow to the CBD in the morning) direction, the freeway carries more than 82 times as many passengers away from the CBD than MAX. This shows, clearly, the often-cited weakness of rail systems -- its inability to serve when destinations are not packed tightly, as they are in traditional downtown hubs.

In the contra flow direction, the 18 MAX trains carry only 166 passengers for the entire 3 hour peak period, an average of 9 passengers per train that has a capacity of 332 passengers. For the years 1990 to 1994, in excess of 95,000 were created in the region but only 800 were added to the Central City due to government relocations which were one-time events. The number of private sector jobs decreased in the Central City during this period of record-setting economic and population growth in the region.

There are no indications that new businesses will not continue to locate in the suburbs. Short of taking away all alternatives, there are no signs that give the slightest hope that users will use rail to go to suburban work destinations.