Doug Kelsey, TriMet’s general manager, visits The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board on June 19, 2018. (Anna Spoerre/Staff)

Buses “must get priority” over cars in the city of Portland and elsewhere in the agency’s tri-county service area.

That’s not just a bored and frustrated bus rider talking. That’s Doug Kelsey, TriMet’s general manager.

The TriMet chief made the bold comment Tuesday in a visit with The Oregonian/OregonLive’s reporting staff and editorial board. In a wide-ranging discussion, he discussed the region’s exploding growth (400,000 new residents by 2035), how the transit agency can help keep up, and what he thinks could and should be on an expected 2020 transportation bond measure.

He comes to the top job as TriMet is seeing its coffers rise thanks to an increase in the payroll tax on employers benefitting TriMet and the $5.3 billion statewide transportation bill, which will funnel money to expand bus service.

We asked the transit chief, who formally took the job in February, what he thinks of electric scooters: "They're awesome. Anything that helps people get where they want to go in ways that work for them and give them activity, those are good things."

We asked about ride-hailing and technology: “I’m of the belief that TriMet needs to evolve from being in the transit business to being in the total mobility business. How do we help the Ubers and Lyfts and cycling, integrate all of it?”

We talked about a lot.

Here are some key takeaways:

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A bus moves along Southeast Division Street at 122nd Avenue in Portland (Andrew Theen/Staff)

Buses should cut to front. Anyone with vision can see buses sitting in congested traffic throughout downtown Portland and elsewhere. Kelsey said it's clear why travelers would choose their own car instead of sitting in a bus if cars are playing on the same level. That's why he said one increasingly rare phenomenon serves as the best advertising TriMet can buy: Traffic is jammed up, but a bus smoothly moves by in its own travel lane or otherwise cuts to the front of a backed-up travel lane. "The buses must get priority over the car," he said. Portland transportation officials are inching toward that future. The city's Central City in Motion project include proposals to give buses traffic signal priority on the Burnside Bridge, Steel Bridge and on the Martin Luther King Jr. and Grand Avenue corridor. Kelsey said that's a good start, but it will take more to move the needle regionwide. "I would suggest we collectively need to go further," he said, saying the changes need to be a "total culture" approach to giving busses a leg up.

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The Kings Hill/SW Salmon Street station in Southwest Portland (Andrew Theen/Staff)

Remove MAX stations downtown. Kelsey said Portland "absolutely" has too many light rail stations downtown, particularly on the Red and Blue lines, and the agency is starting to have discussions about removing some to speed up the train network. Those decisions will not be made unilaterally, he said, and the agency is starting to have those chats with Portland officials. "Skidmore [Fountain] is one of them," Kelsey said. Kings Hill/Southwest Salmon Street, which sits between the Goose Hollow/SW Jefferson Street and Providence Park stations, is another potential removal target.

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Bridgeport Village in Tigard (The Oregonian/File)

Bond. Transportation bond. Expect a big-ticket transportation bond to head to metro voters in 2020. The bond is expected to number in the billions of dollars, potentially in the tens of billions, depending on the project list. For comparison, Seattle voters approved a $54 billion transportation bond in 2016, and Los Angeles in the same year passed a $120 billion package. Those packages included several decades of transit projects. The Portland area's project list is not set yet, but it is expected to include a $2.6 billion to $2.9 billion light rail line to Bridgeport Village in Tigard and a bus-rapid transit project in Southeast Portland along Powell Boulevard and Division Street. When asked if a revived plan for a new bridge between Oregon and Washington over the Columbia River should be on the project list, Kelsey deferred to state leaders. But he said, "there's a need, no question," about the long-tortured project. Kelsey said his focus would be broadly on bringing more bus service, helping to transition the bus fleet to electric or alternative fuels, and money to speed up frequency on lines.

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The Big Pipe project involved extensive tunneling in Portland (The Oregonian/File)

Tunnel under the Willamette. Kelsey hinted that there may be a bigger fish out there that could help address transit bottlenecks in Portland. "At some point we may have to have the conversation about going underground," he said. As in tunneling under the Willamette River. The tunneling discussion has long been a pipe dream, but it's not out of the realm of possibility to put light rail or other transit underground. That idea could be part of the long-term project list in a 2020 bond. "It depends on how big the region wants to go," Kelsey said.

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The Westside Experess Service train has Wifi. Could others as well? (Andrew Theen/Staff)

Amenities like Wi-Fi. TriMet has Wi-Fi service on its WES commuter rail, the long-overlooked heavy rail line connecting Wilsonville to Beaverton. Kelsey hinted that the agency may be looking at ways to bring internet to its transit service as well. Transit users have asked for more "amenities," he said, with things like Wi-Fi and better bus shelters ranking high on the wish list. TriMet also plans to put more buses on the road in the next eight years, with an eye on boosting the fleet from 600 to 900 vehicles.