The Sunset Transit Center is one of the Portland region's major light rail and bus transfer stations. The impact of the transit center is expected to occur in the future, when the market for the denser development required by the zoning immediately around the station reaches this suburban location. A major goal of the Portland region is to reduce sprawl and create mixed-use communities that can benefit from transit access, reducing dependence on automobiles. More important to the region than economic growth around the light rail and highway corridor improvements (which would have occurred anyway) will be the impact the transportation investments and supportive land use regulation have on the density and design of future development. The development that has occurred to date has been auto-oriented, and is include pedestrian connections to the transit center.Īt the time of planning for the West Side Rail project, the west side was identified as the area within the region that would develop most rapidly over the next two or three decades, regardless of the transportation investment.

Of these totals, an estimated 1/4 can be attributed to the improvements to the highway and interchange, leading to the creation of approximately 400 jobs. To date, 506 housing units, 170,000 square feet of retail space, and 289,842 square feet of new office space have been developed by the Peterkorts. The Sunset Transit Center was sited 5 miles west of Portland along the new line, adjacent to a 250 acre parcel of land in Washington County owned by the Peterkort Family, who had long range plans for development of the parcel. The light rail extension was purposefully located through undeveloped land in unincorporated Washington County in an effort to provide large development sites in the vicinity of light rail stations. The West Side Corridor Project extended light rail 18 miles to the west of downtown Portland to Hillsboro, and included improvements to US 26 as far west as Hillsboro as well as improvements to OR 217. The Sunset Transit Center and US 26/OR-217 Interchange projects are part of Portland's Westside Corridor project. NOTE: All impact dollar values are in 2013$ Measure

Sunset transit center