Photo: Ford, Brad
In the wake of the Oregon Legislature’s failure to pass House Bill 2025 — the Oregon Transportation Reinvestment Package (TRIP) — TriMet will make a series of budget reductions beginning this year, including service cuts, to address a significant, growing fiscal challenge.
Service cuts are necessary now for TriMet to avoid drastic cuts in the future and continue providing the vital transit service our riders rely on to get to jobs, schools, services and other vital destinations across our 533-square-mile service district.
The failure of HB2025 leaves many of Oregon’s transit agencies, including TriMet, without the sufficient funding needed to sustain service levels in the years ahead. We are encouraged by Gov. Tina Kotek’s call for a special session to address funding for the Oregon Department of Transportation, local jurisdictions and transit districts. But the absence of legislative action in June has forced TriMet to make service cuts this November and in March 2026, with additional reductions necessary in the years ahead to begin closing a projected $300 million gap between our annual expenditures and revenues.
“We are facing a fiscal cliff in 2030, so we must act now to balance our budget for the long term,” said TriMet General Manager Sam Desue Jr. “As Oregon’s largest public transit provider, we have a tremendous responsibility to keep people in our region moving. Cutting service now means avoiding sudden, catastrophic cuts in the future.”
TriMet’s budget for the current year, fiscal year 2026, adopted by TriMet’s Board of Directors on May 29, 2025, did not assume an increase in the Statewide Transportation Improvement Fund (STIF) that helps fund public transit, which had been included in HB 2025. TriMet began taking steps during the development of that budget to reduce the deficit for the year, identifying $24.2 million in savings via cuts to discretionary spending.
As TriMet continues to work to close the projected shortfall in our annual operating and capital maintenance budget, we will continue looking at internal savings, but other budget reductions are also necessary. We are committed to balancing our budget in three years, by July 1, 2028, meaning our expenditures will be equal or less than our revenues.
TriMet must begin reducing our service this winter, with a series of further cuts over the next few years resulting in at least a 10% overall cut to service by the end of August 2027. Without additional revenue, TriMet will be forced to cut another $48 million in service and other spending.
Despite the budget reductions, TriMet will prioritize safety, reliability and essential maintenance needs.
Initially, service cuts will focus on reducing frequencies on some bus lines. Following that, TriMet will need to eliminate some bus lines, adjust some bus routes and adjust MAX service. Because of the changes to bus and MAX service, our LIFT paratransit service will also be reduced.
If TriMet is unsuccessful in increasing our revenue by fall 2027, more service cuts will be needed.
Source: TriMet