The purpose of this award is for project development of the tualatin valley highway transit project

Metro received a $6.69 million Formula Grant award from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) under the Federal Transit Formula Grants program (CFDA 20.507) on July 24, 2025, for project development of the Tualatin Valley Highway Transit Project. The award funds preliminary design and planning activities necessary to advance the project toward a Small Starts capital investment grant. Deliverables include completion of National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) compliance documentation, preliminary engineering and design plans, Federal Transit Administration rating materials, cost estimates for design alternatives, and public engagement activities. TriMet, the regional transit agency, will serve as the subrecipient and lead project management, engineering, design, outreach coordination, and preparation of all FTA Small Starts materials for the competitive Construction Investment Grants (CIG) rating and funding application process. The project is scheduled for completion by December 31, 2028.

The expected outcomes focus on obtaining local planning agency (LPA) adoption of the project into the fiscally constrained transportation plan while achieving environmental compliance. The engineering and design work is intended to increase passenger capacity, enhance service reliability and operational safety, improve Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accessibility, expand bike and pedestrian access, and improve overall system efficiency along the Tualatin Valley Highway corridor. Primary beneficiaries include current and future transit riders and pedestrians utilizing the corridor.

Activities

Activities to be performed include preliminary design addressing nepa requirements development of FTA rating materials and other activities needed to support the next stage of obtaining a small starts grant for the project

Expected outcomes

The expected outcomes from the project is the final LPA recommendation and adoption into the fiscally constrained transportation plan as well as compliance with nepa and related environmental laws. The engineering and design plans developed during this project phase are intended to increase passenger capacity increase service reliability increase operational safety improve ADA accessibility improve bike/pedestrian access and improve system efficiency.

Intended beneficiaries

Intended beneficiaries include current and future transit riders and pedestrians using the tualatin valley highway corridor.

Subrecipient activities

Trimet the regions transit agency will be a subrecipient under this award. Trimet will be responsible for project management outreach/public engagement design/engineering and cost estimating of the alternatives and design options and will be the lead author of all small starts materials submitted for the CIG rating and construction grant application.