 Hello. Here's a look at some of what's happening at TriMet.
As the TriMet Board of Directors searches for our next general manager, we want to hear from you. We’ve launched an extensive community engagement effort, including a 5-minute survey available in six languages.
What experience, values and priorities do you think the Board should look for when selecting someone in this role? Take the survey and share it with others. Feedback will help the Board’s GM Search Committee update the GM draft job description [PDF] on March 24 and continue to inform their search after that.
Please consider joining us for a virtual listening session the week of March 8. Learn more at trimet.org/gm.
 
 TriMet’s Board of Directors appointed TriMet Chief Operating Office Sam Desue, Jr. as interim general manager as the Board searches for the agency’s next leader. Outgoing General Manager Doug Kelsey leaves next week. Interim General Manager Desue has served as TriMet’s COO for the past two years. He has more than 22 years of public and private transportation experience, including providing visionary and strategic leadership for transportation services in the Seattle and Kansas City metropolitan regions.
Before coming to TriMet, Desue had moved up through the ranks at Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, finally serving as Deputy Chief Executive Officer. Prior to Kansas City, Desue worked at both Pierce Transit and Community Transit in Washington, where he directed transportation services. In his five years at Pierce Transit, where he moved up from Senior Transportation Manager to Vice President Transportation Services, Desue helped redesign a 30-year-old transit route system to better address travel patterns, reduced operating costs and grew customer satisfaction.
 TriMet's Ruby Junction rail yard in Gresham encased in ice
One of the worst winter storms in recent history overwhelmed the region, making any travel dangerous and leading TriMet to suspend all service on Saturday, Feb. 13, for much of the day. It was the first time in recent memory that all transit service in the Portland area stopped, but the dangerous weather and road conditions made it necessary. Our crews stayed busy throughout the storm, working to get service rolling again when safe, and keeping it moving. We began running some buses on a few lines by Saturday night and by Tuesday morning, MAX trains were running throughout the system and most bus routes had been restored, despite many roads still blocked by downed trees and power lines. We appreciate everyone’s understanding and apologize to those riders and operators who had much longer trips than normal during the brunt of the storm.
As an agency, TriMet always focuses on continuous improvement. We will be reviewing the weather-related challenges we faced and identify how we can better assist our riders and employees if we should face another extreme weather event like this in the future.
 As Black History Month wraps up, TriMet will continue to honor Black pioneers who have shaped the nation and our community. We’ve shared a powerful video featuring a few of our Black employees looking back on the people and events that have shaped their lives. Also, throughout the year, a bus featuring Black pioneers will roll throughout the Portland Metro area. Watch this time-lapse video of crews applying the design, which features Martin Luther King, Jr.; Oregon’s first Black woman legislator, Margaret Carter; and Jo Ann Hardesty, Portland’s first Black woman City Commissioner. You’ll also see an image of Rosa Parks, considered the “mother of the civil rights movement” for her act of civil disobedience when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in 1955. Earlier this month, TriMet celebrated our first Rosa Parks Transit Equity Day. On her birthday every year, February 4, TriMet will not collect fares.
 TriMet will begin testing a new type of all-electric bus this spring. We will be getting five GILLIG long-range electric buses, funded in part by a grant from the Federal Transit Administration’s Low or No Emission Vehicle Program. Unlike our current fast-charging electric buses that stop at a charging station at the Sunset Transit Center throughout the day, the GILLIG buses will charge overnight and should go about 150 miles on a single charge. The first of the buses is expected to arrive from GILLIG in the coming month. We’re looking at trying these buses out on Line 20-Burnside/Stark, one of our longest bus lines.
 Plans are in the works to replace the aging Interstate Bridge across the Columbia River with a modern, seismically resilient, multimodal structure. Replacing the two-span bridge, the oldest of which dates back to 1917, is a high priority for Oregon and Washington. The Interstate Bridge Replacement program is hosting an online open house and interactive survey. Lend your voice and vision to build a program that looks to solve transportation issues and address much-needed improvements.
The TriMet Pedestrian Plan provides guidance for how agencies can work together to create a more efficient, region-wide transportation system that works better for everyone. Funded by a grant from ODOT, it’s a roadmap to make walking and rolling to transit throughout our service area safer, easier and more comfortable. Among the improvements: New sidewalks, brighter lighting and safer crossings. Learn more at trimet.org/walk.
 TriMet continues to encourage riders to use face coverings to stay safe, not only on transit but in the community. In addition to handing out masks at transit centers, making them available free on board our buses and trains, and enlisting some familiar covered faces to help spread the word, we’ve also created some TriMet cloth masks available for purchase in the TriMet Gear Store. The latest design, chosen by our Facebook followers, features buses, trains and streetcars.
By the way, TriMet has distributed more than 4.4 million masks to riders, employees and community members since the start of the pandemic.
 MAX trains have been running through the Portland Metro region since Sept. 1986. MAX was the third new ‘second-generation’ light rail system in the U.S., following San Diego’s, which opened in July 1981, and Buffalo’s, which opened in Oct. 1984.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, MAX trains traveled roughly a combined 4.6 million miles a year. Take a look at a day in the life of a MAX train.
Look for our second Equity on the Move newsletter next week. We’ll have more updates on TriMet’s ongoing equity and inclusion efforts, new initiatives, partnerships and upcoming community engagement opportunities. Stay tuned!
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