Portland Bus Riders Union

Working to improve transit service in the Portland Metropolitan Area
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About the Portland Bus Riders Union
We are TriMet bus riders who care about continued bus service, and want to improve our transportation system by ensuring continued investment of the bus network and encouraging ridership of our mass transit system as an alternative towards driving on our congested highways and negatively contributing towards our area's air quality.

Sound Transit MCI D4500 commuter bus operated by Pierce Transit (Tacoma) near King Street Station, Seattle, Washington.  Photo by Erik Halstead.
 
Our mission is to push for more investment towards Portland's bus system.  Investment includes ensuring that Portland has a modern, well-maintained, efficient bus fleet, bus stops that welcome and invite passengers, and service that is accessible and available to the entire Portland metropolitan area.
Our Goals
  1. Portland should have the best, most modern, and cleanest bus fleet in the United States.
  2. Portland should have the highest percentage of bus ridership for daily trips of any city in the United States.
  3. Portland's bus service should be a symbol of pride and a service that local residents are proud to use and proud to show off to visitors to our region.
  4. Portland's bus service should be accessible to all residents and visitors to the Portland Metropolitan Area, without regard towards time of day or location within the area.
  5. The growth in bus service should lead towards ridership corridors that will invite Streetcar or MAX route construction, or possibly even heavy rail or commuter rail service.
  6. Taking the bus should not mean sacrificing time - a bus ride should at best take only a small increase in travel time than other forms of transportation.
We are NOT anti-Light Rail (MAX)!
In fact, we view improved bus service as a stepping stone towards MORE light rail, not less of it.
 
However in recent years MAX and Streetcar projects have been built that have taken dollars away from improving the bus system.  The result has been older and less reliable busses being used in everyday service, half of TriMet's bus fleet lacking air conditioning (while 100% of the MAX/Streetcar fleet is so equipped), cutbacks in bus service, increases in bus fares (Portland has one of the highest transit fares on the west coast)
 
Our goal is to ensure that the bus network is properly invested upon, so that anyone in the Portland metro area has access to transit, not just those fortunate enough to live near a MAX or Streetcar line (especially considering the cost of housing in the Pearl and South Waterfront areas).