Orenco station

Orenco 
MAX Light Rail station
Location NE Orenco Station Pkwy & Cherry Drive, west of NE Century Blvd. (NW 231st Ave.)
Hillsboro, Oregon
USA
Coordinates 45°31′49″N 122°54′57″W / 45.530313°N 122.915769°W / 45.530313; -122.915769Coordinates: 45°31′49″N 122°54′57″W / 45.530313°N 122.915769°W / 45.530313; -122.915769
Owned by TriMet
Platforms 1 island platform
Tracks 2
Construction
Parking 125 park-and-ride spaces
Bicycle facilities Bike racks and lockers
Disabled access Yes
History
Opened September 12, 1998
Previous names Orenco/Northwest 231st Avenue
Services
Preceding station   MAX Light Rail   Following station
Blue Line
toward Cleveland

Orenco station, formerly known as Orenco/Northwest 231st Avenue station, is a light rail station in the MAX Light Rail system in Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. The station is the 14th stop westbound on the Westside MAX and is served by the Blue Line. Near the station is the award-winning Orenco Station mixed-use development, considered a positive model for Smart Growth development. Also near the station are some office complexes and the Intel Ronler Acres campus. Opened in 1998, the stop includes a park and ride lot and public artwork. With the renaming of NW 231st Avenue as NE Century Boulevard by the City of Hillsboro in 2017, TriMet changed the station's name from its original, longer name.

History

TriMet began construction of the Westside MAX project in 1994, with the Orenco station opening on September 12, 1998, with the rest of the line.[1] The station’s location helped to spur growth in the area with transit oriented developments for both commercial and residential usage.[2][3] This includes the 190-acre (0.77 km2) Orenco Station development that opened in September 1997, a year before the MAX station opened.[4]

In September 2017, the station was renamed from Orenco/Northwest 231st to simply Orenco, in connection with street-name changes[5] approved by the Hillsboro city council in October 2016.[6] The changes included the renaming of NW 231st Avenue within Hillsboro as NE Century Boulevard, in January 2017.[7]

Details

Located south of Cornell Road on Northwest 231st Avenue in the Orenco neighborhood, the station was within TriMet's fare zone 3 until the agency discontinued all use of fare zones in 2012.[8] The station has a park-and-ride lot and bus connections to bus line 47-Baseline/Evergreen.[8] Designed by OTAK Inc., the station features an island platform along the two tracks.[8][9] The station also includes bike lockers and bike racks.[8] One block north is the site of the Hillsboro Farmer's Market's seasonal Sunday marketplace.[10]

Public art

Branch bench and glass etchings on the wind screen

Artwork at the station follows the themes of a celebration of trees and the history Orenco, once the company town of the west coast's largest nursery, the Oregon Nursery Company.[11] Part of this comes from a grove of trees adjacent to the station that were purchased at the behest of the artists in charge of the artwork for the stop, Fernanda D'Agostino, Jerry Mayer, Valerie Otani and Bill Will.[11] Individual works of art include the Rings of Memory Plaza which consists of concentric circles of granite inscribed with text by Kim Stafford.[12] Another item is a gravel path with stone seat walls leading to an old oak grove entitled the Witness Tree Rest, which includes another line by Stafford inscribed on the granite threshold to the east end of the path.[12] The Grafted Path which connects the station to NW 231st Avenue illustrates the grafting method that distinguished Oregon Nursery Company trees.[9][12] East of the station is the Grove of Perspective, made up of rows of trees that create optical effects when viewed from the moving train.[12]

On the platform is a piece entitled Branch Benches, located in the passenger shelters, which are custom-made benches designed by Nancy Merritt and are bracketed by wisteria-covered arbors.[12] Also in the shelter are images from the Oregon Nursery Company’s 1908 catalog etched on the windscreens.[12] On top of the systems building sits a hand-forged tree designed by Stuart Keeler & Michael Machnic.[12] This weather vane spreads its roots rises up through a nine-square grid that represents the city plan of Orenco.

References

  1. ↑ Mapes, Jeff. Gore walks tight line on Clinton. The Oregonian, September 13, 1998.
  2. ↑ Suh, Elizabeth. Residents of old Orenco at odds with development. The Oregonian, October 28, 2007.
  3. ↑ Wolinsky, Julian (September 1, 1998). "Good transit is good business; research indicates public rail transit investment offers return on investment". Railway Age. p. 93(1). ISSN 0033-8826.
  4. ↑ Housing Briefs: Orenco Station opens model homes in Hillsboro. The Oregonian, September 21, 1997.
  5. ↑ "TriMet expands popular frequent service bus line, adds service on four other routes". TriMet. August 23, 2017. Retrieved September 15, 2017.
  6. ↑ Loose, Travis (October 24, 2016). "Council approves 150 street name changes". Hillsboro Tribune. Retrieved September 15, 2017.
  7. ↑ "'Connecting Hillsboro' Address Implementation Schedule". City of Hillsboro, Oregon. January 23, 2017. Archived from the original on September 15, 2017. Retrieved September 15, 2017.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Orenco/NW 231st Ave MAX Station. TriMet. Retrieved on July 12, 2008. Archived September 29, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.
  9. 1 2 Colby, Richard N. Tracking art plans. The Oregonian, August 3, 1995.
  10. ↑ Stein, Rosemarie. Five live Beaverton Farmers Market. The Oregonian, May 12, 2006.
  11. 1 2 Gragg, Randy. A platform to reveal the art of the journey. The Oregonian, September 9, 1998.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Art on Westside MAX Blue Line. TriMet. Retrieved on July 15, 2008.
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