Starting Monday, TriMet will restore the old promise of a bus every 15 minutes on its Frequent Service lines during weekdays.

With its financial picture slowly improving, Oregon’s largest transit agency will spend $3.1 million on a plan to restore much of the frequent service slashed on its busiest bus routes during the Great Recession.

Kerry Ayres-Palanuk, TriMet’s service planning manager, said the improved service will focus on 10 bus lines during week days. But plans are in motion to continuing boosting service, including at night and during the weekend, she said.

“These investments help all of our riders,” Ayres-Palanuk told the TriMet Board of Directors on Wednesday. “We’re looking at maintaining service; we’re looking at capacity and reliability.”

In fact, starting in the summer, TriMet officials said they plan to add trips to the bus lines with the most severe overcrowding and add extra time to those having the hardest time staying on schedule.

To meet that latter goal, Ayres-Palanuk said the agency will add buses where needed to improve reliability. “Adding extra time doesn’t mean there will be a change in frequency,” she said.

Although a recent audit of TriMet released by Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown reported that the agency is strapped with $852 million in unfunded retirement benefits, General Manager Neil McFarlane has made restoring bus service a priority as the economy improves.

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McFarlane said that advertising revenue and savings in non-union health care costs are expected to produce an extra $2 million for the restoration. Fares will fund the remaining $1.1 million, he said.

Fare revenue is expected to be generated by the additional service, with frequent service widely considered more cost-effective than regular bus service. TriMet estimated that fares will cover 35 percent of the cost of the new trips.

Of course, at a time when mass transit use is on the rise across America, overall ridership on TriMet's buses and trains has seen a steady decline in the past two years.

Frequent bus service costs the transit agency $2.63 per ride, compared to $3.93 on a fixed route bus, according to TriMet.

TriMet's 12 frequent service lines carry 58 percent of the system's bus riders. Starting Monday, frequent service will be restored from the start of the morning commute to the end of the evening commute on weekdays.

Lines 4 and 72 already offer 15-minute "midday" frequent service.

Starting Monday, riders on 10 other lines will get the same service:

6-Martin Luther King Jr Blvd



8-Jackson Park/NE 15th



9-Powell/Broadway



12-Barbur/Sandy Blvd



14-Hawthorne



15-Belmont/NW 23rd



33-McLoughlin



54-Beaverton/Hillsdale Hwy/56-Scholls Ferry Rd.



57-TV Hwy/Forest Grove



75-Cesar Chavez/Lombard.

What's more, TriMet will restore service to 15 minutes on weeknights and Saturdays on Line 4, the system's busiest route.



Ayres-Palanuk said that’s a harbinger for improvements coming soon to other lines -- if the economy continues to improve.

“Our next investment: weekday evenings, then Saturdays and then Sundays,” she said.

Of course, after a long hiring freeze, the training of new bus drivers will prevent TriMet from launching its entire slate of service changes in September, as has been the tradition.

McFarlane told the board to expect "a gradual ramp-up."

“It will be a little more gradual than it has been in the past,” he said.

-- Joseph Rose