TriMet polls its riders at Rosewood

Find out why many folks came to this outer East Portland open house at the Rosewood Initiative building …

Those arriving at this TriMet “listening session” in the Hazelwood neighborhood sign up to get email notifications of progress – and future meetings.

Story and photos by David F. Ashton

The building housing the Rosewood Neighborhood Prosperity Initiative’s district offices was the place where, on October 17, TriMet hosted one if its many outreach sessions.

The focus of the meeting concerned improving service to riders. That’s what we learned from TriMet Manager of Media Relations Tia York.

Helping to facilitate the meeting, and answer questions, is TriMet Manager of Media Relations Tia York.

“This outreach is about our year-2025 service changes; which start July 1, 2024 and go through June 30, 2025,” York told East Portland News. “We’re looking at future service improvements that will roll out as part of our Forward Together Service Plan.

Those at the meeting listen to presentations about proposed TriMet service changes in their neighborhoods.

“We hold these [meetings] for riders and residents to share with us their feedback,” York commented. “At times we’ve gotten a lot of passionate responses; but only after the comment periods have passed and decisions of already been made it. So, now, we really want to hear people’s ideas for the proposals.”

During the session, multilingual TriMet employees spoke with attendees, answered questions, and showed them the various options being considered.

Attendee Micah Wright writes his comments on forms provided at the open house.

“The feedback that we hear will be incorporated into our planning; then, we’ll do another round of outreach next year. In early 2024, we’ll come back and show how we reset and revised the plans, based on their input, and present what we’re ready to move forward with.”

TriMet Director of Service Planning Tom Mills answers questions about route changes.

After the meeting, York told us that the full implementation of their “Forward Together” initiative can take from three to six years. However, here are they changes they plan for 2024-25:

+ Add two new Frequent Service lines, with buses arriving every 15 minutes for most of the day, every day.

+ Improve service on nine lines with buses coming more often, for more of the day, every day.

Riders will see the first bus service changes from these proposals as early as August of next year.

On our Front Page: TriMet’s Amparo Agosto shows proposed route changes at this open house.

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