Clackamas Town Center Transit Center

Buses at the first location in 1985

The first Clackamas Town Center Transit Center opened in 1981 and was located on the north side of the shopping mall, next to the movie theater and Meier & Frank store. Buses began serving the site of the transit center (TC) on June 14, 1981, but construction of the TC's passenger facilities was still under way at that time.[2] An island with a large passenger shelter in the middle was constructed, with buses looping clockwise around it and serving stops designated for each route. This was completed in the fall and came into use on November 22, 1981.[3]

The transit center was funded by a combination of a $350,000 grant from the federal Urban Mass Transportation Administration and $50,000 from the mall's owner, the Hahn Company, but $90,000 of the UMTA grant was for transit improvements elsewhere at the then-new shopping mall, including a park-and-ride lot to the east of the mall (near where the MAX station was built many years later) and a signalized bus-only exit road onto Sunnyside Road.[2] Only three bus routes served the transit center originally, routes 72-82nd Avenue, 76-King Road and 78-Linwood, but other routes were added later, including 79-Canby in 1982. In 1985, routes 31-Estacada and 71-Killingsworth-60th were diverted or extended to the Clackamas TC, route 78 was renumbered 28, and route 76 was replaced by 29 Lake-Webster and a change in route 31.[4] Other changes to the bus service have been made in subsequent years, and a list of routes currently using the TC is given later in this article.

Expansion of the mall brought about the closure of the original transit center in June 2006, with the TC temporarily moved just to the east of the 1981 site,[5] and then in December 2007 settling on a new "permanent" configuration in which all bus routes served a single westbound stop or, in the case of route 31 only, eastbound stop, still located next to the movie theater but on the main roadway, not using a bus-only road or loop. By this time TriMet had given final approval to the extension of the MAX Green Line to Clackamas Town Center and planned to construct a new transit center at the site of the MAX station, which would be next to the I-205 freeway on the east side of the mall.

Along with the MAX Green Line, the transit center is served by the following bus lines:[6]

• 29 - Lake/Webster Rd.
• 30 - Estacada
• 31 - Webster Rd.
• 33 - McLoughlin/King Rd.
• 34 - Linwood/River Rd.
• 71 - 60th Ave.
• 72 - Killingsworth/82nd Ave.
• 79 - Clackamas/Oregon City
• 152 - Milwaukie
• 155 - Sunnyside
• 156 - Mather Road