Saturday, March 29, 2014

The Barbur Transit Center - The Good, Bad, the Ugly, and the Really Ugly and how it doesn't fit into the urban form


In my first entry on how transit centers fit into the urban form and how they can they can fit better into a strong vibrant urban form I showed a worse case example with the freeway based Parkrose-Sumner Transit Center near the Portland International Airport on the MAX Red Line. 

Today's entry is an even worse example and that is the Barbur Transit Center which is stuck between Interstate 5 and its predecessor Barbur Blvd which was once US Highway 99W. The Barbur Transit Center is currently the oldest transit center in the Trimet system having opened in 1977 and as you will see it is showing its age. The transit center is actually nothing but a glorified Park N' Ride lot as the area around the transit center is very auto oriented and hostile to pedestrians and is not designed to blend into the community or the community to blend into the transit center.