MAX Yellow Line
The MAX Yellow Line is a light rail service in Portland, Oregon, United States, operated by TriMet as part of the MAX Light Rail system. It connects North Portland to Portland City Center and Portland State University (PSU) with 17 stops from Expo Center station to PSU South/Southwest 6th and College station. The line travels from Portland Expo Center in the north, south to the Rose Quarter through a 5.8-mile (9.3 km) light rail segment along the median of Interstate Avenue. From the Rose Quarter, it crosses the Willamette River via the Steel Bridge and enters downtown Portland, where it operates as a northbound-only service of the Portland Transit Mall on 6th Avenue. Service runs for approximately 21 hours daily with a headway of 15 minutes during most of the day.
After failing to secure funding for the South/North Corridor project, which would have built a light rail line between Clackamas County and Clark County, Washington, Portland business leaders and local residents persuaded TriMet to revive the portion of the project within North Portland. As a source of funding, the city created an urban renewal area, which has since been partly blamed for gentrifying historically black inner-city neighborhoods. The Interstate MAX began construction in 2001 and opened on May 1, 2004, four months ahead of schedule. From 2004 to 2009, the Yellow Line ran from Expo Center station in North Portland to the Library and Galleria stations in downtown Portland. In 2009, TriMet rerouted downtown Yellow Line service to the Portland Transit Mall.
Since 2015, the Yellow Line has operated as a northbound through service of the Orange Line from PSU South/Southwest 6th and College station and has shared its transit mall alignment on 6th Avenue with the Green Line. Conversely, most southbound Yellow Line trains, which had served the other half of the mall on 5th Avenue from 2009 to 2015, operate through into the Orange Line from Union Station/Northwest 5th & Glisan Street station and terminate at Southeast Park Avenue station in Milwaukie. The Yellow Line is the fourth-busiest service in the MAX system; it carried an average of 12,960 riders each weekday in September 2019.