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Podcast: Cascade CounterPoint
Episode: QP: Westside MAX, Still a Dream at 25
Description: Full-text: TriMet’s Blue rail line to Hillsboro opened on September 12, 1998. Westside MAX was unlike any light rail line previously built in America: It was deliberately routed through vacant land with the expectation that it would be a catalyst for so-called “Transit-Oriented Development” (TOD).
TriMet planners claimed, “The success or failure of the public’s nearly $1 billion investment in Westside MAX will be determined in large part by what happens around its 20 stations. Unlike the East side MAX line, a substantial amount of land around the Westside is primed for development.”
After 25 years, has the strategy succ...