While Northeast Portland has had a few iterations of a bus line along Fremont over the decades (33-Fremont and 41-Fremont) the 24 is TriMet’s current edition of its attempt to provide service to this swath of Northeast Portland.
The 24 is an interesting concept for a bus line, connecting Northwest Portland with Northeast Portland for the first time ever since the expansion of the line in 2019. It’s a nice horizontal line cutting across Northeast Portland from the Fremont Bridge, following the straight line of Fremont all the way to 92nd.
It’s a route that makes sense on paper; with many routes in Northeast Portland going north/south, having a line that goes east/west makes sense for completing the grid. However time and time again I am surprised at how few people ride Line 24. I think its lack of ridership can be narrowed down to three things: bad frequency, low density housing, and its odd Northeast to Northwest connection.
While the 24 fits well into the system’s grid system, without better frequency, it cannot be used as a connector in the grid system. No one will wait 40 minutes for a bus to complete their journey. Let’s say you live up by Dekum and 15th in Woodlawn and you want to meet a friend for dinner in Beaumont. The 8 along 15th is frequent service, but to connect for the second half of the trip, you are depending on connecting with the 24, a once every 40 minute bus. A grid system only works with frequent buses, otherwise they are just nice lines on a map.
The route also moves through a lot of low density neighborhoods in Northeast Portland, and where it intersects with density, that part is served by a frequent service line (the 4, 6, 8, 12, 75). The lack of density limits the amount of potential riders in addition to the terrible frequency. Either the 24 goes exactly where you need it, or it isn’t a useful bus.
The third limiting factor is its Northwest to Northeast connection. A few longtime residents of Northeast I’ve spoken to remember fondly the 33-Fremont and taking it downtown to work before it was cut during the Great Recession. Looking at the old timetables I can see why they remember it fondly: 15–20 minute frequency during AM and PM rush hour, with 30 minute service midday and late night, the first eastbound trip leaving downtown at 5:32 am, and the last at 12:32 am at night.
While most agreed it was better to have the 24 go to NW Portland rather than turn around at Emmanuel Hospital like it did for a number of years in the mid-2010s once service was restored to Fremont, they also questioned how useful this connection actually is. Northeast Portlanders rarely go to Northwest and vice versa. Not that these trips don’t happen, but they are rarer than you would think. Maybe this connection would make more sense with better frequency but who knows.
The 24 along Fremont is like much in the TriMet system, a hull of what it once was, but still trundling along in an ersatz fashion as ridership is a fraction of what it once was. It’s too bad, I wish more people would ride this bus, but with its frequency and destinations, it’s hard to.
The Journey:
The 24 starts its journey westward at Gateway Transit Center, heading east on Pacific Street to 102nd. There is no hiding it, the Gateway neighborhood is having a rough time. There are many encampments, drug use is widespread on the street, and there is a pervading sense of lawlessness in the streets from traffic scofflaws. The wide roads encourage speeding, and no number of plastic pylons, and lowered speed limits, crosswalk signals, or no turn on red signs, seems to get people to drive safely. Despite this, there are still plenty of people shopping in the neighborhood or looking to save the walk from the transit center to Winco on 102nd.
After 102nd, the bus loops onto Halsey, and over the freeway to 92nd. While fine for the 77 and 24, this bridge is a connection fail point in Portland’s bike and pedestrian infrastructure; Gateway now has pretty good bike lanes, and the neighborhood east of I-205 has its own greenway paths, but to get from one to the other you have to walk or ride up a narrow sidewalk on Halsey to get over the freeway while cars zip past doing well over the speed limit — it never feels very safe.
At 92nd, the bus goes north for what is probably the most annoying part of the route for the operator. NE 92nd from Halsey north to Fremont is blessed with a speed bump or two every block. Combined with a slow order from TriMet to not go over the bumps faster than 10 MPH, the bus travels very slowly through this portion, inevitably creating a long line of cars behind it, revving their engines or passing on the double yellow out of rage. I understand why the speed order exists (so the houses don’t shake when the bus goes over them), and why the speedbumps are there (because too many people speed through there), but it does make the bus not much faster than walking through the neighborhood.
After completing its journey past Rocky Butte, the bus then turns left onto Fremont, entering the long section of the route. At 82nd, it intersects with the Line 72. This stretch of 82nd is rougher than most, encompassing what the Oregonian described as the “most deadliest” block in the city. Besides the motels and fast food restaurants, there are also massage parlors and strip clubs, and who knows what else going on.
West of 82nd, the Line 24 enters the Roseway neighborhood. Roseway has a Safeway (there’s a convenient bus stop next to the store to catch the 24) and the classic Portland doughnut shop Annie’s Donuts (their maple covered old fashioneds are my favorite). The intersection at Sandy, Fremont, and 72nd is a doozy, with so many streets intersecting all at once and with one of the longest lights in the city. Sometimes when sitting at that intersection, I daydream that it is a giant roundabout with a triumphant arch or statue in the middle of it — a Haussmannesque touch for the City of Roses.
Next, the 24 bumbles along through the Beaumont neighborhood. While the commercial strip is older and has many of the markers of an old-style streetcar-era commercial strip, this inner-city bus line is unique in not following a former streetcar line for a significant portion of its route. Besides its namesake middle school, Beaumont Hardware, Pips Doughnuts, Amalfis, and a location of Grand Central Bakery hold it down on Fremont. The street is narrow and with so many cars jostling for parking and limited visibility for pedestrians, it makes for probably the most challenging stretch of the route.
At 33rd, the 24 descends down Alameda Ridge on Fremont, passing by several large houses. At 30th, it passes a tall, old Monkey Puzzle tree probably dating from the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition, when the Chilean delegation handed out seeds for the tree native to the Andes. At 29th, it passes by an old Ponderosa Pine, a heritage tree dating from 1885. It also passes Alameda Elementary School where Beverly Cleary was a school librarian. She set her popular Ramona books in the neighborhood with the characters living south of Fremont on Klickitat Street.
At 24th, the Fremont intersects with Line 17. This intersection, one of the few pockets of commercial development in the Alameda Neighborhood, was also where the Broadway streetcar could turn around at Fremont, with the northbound traffic on 24th, and the southbound traffic on 22nd. The Broadway Streetcar would head north on 24th, then climb Alameda Ridge along Regents, terminating at NE 29th and Mason.
At 15th, the Line 24 intersects with Line 8 and another commercial area, complete with a few restaurants and shops including Cafe Destino, A Children’s Place bookstore, and the Backyard Bird Shop. The Sabin neighborhood was once a center of the Volga German (ethnic Germans who emigrated from Russia) community in Northeast Portland, and one of the churches they built can be seen at 9th and Fremont. This beautiful old church, built in 1914, even includes a cornerstone engraved in German.
Irving Park, across the street from this church, is one of Northeast Portland’s most important landmarks. The land for the park was originally owned by Captain William Irving and was later used as a racetrack in the city. Since then, it’s become famous for its basketball courts, which always seem to have someone playing ball on them. The park was also the site of many rallies and protests during the 1960s, as Black Portlanders demanded change in a city rife with racism and police violence.
At Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, the 24 intersects with Line 6. MLK here is dense, with new taller developments towering over the busy street. From here, the Line 24 drives down Fremont past some older smaller houses, and then gets to Williams Avenue where it intersects with Lines 4 and 44. On the southeast corner of the intersection is the Carbon 12 building, the tallest timber building in the country, with Happy Cup Coffee on the ground floor always serving fancy, seasonal coffee drinks.
At Vancouver, the 24 makes a left and heads south past Dawson Park and Emanuel Hospital. In the early 1970s, neighborhood blocks were demolished for a planned expansion of the hospital which never materialized. This destruction displaced scores of Black families from the neighborhood, destroyed a commercial hub along Williams and Russell and has left behind land that remains vacant to this day. The 24 then makes a right at Russell, and another right at Kerby, looping around the backside of the hospital and PBOT’s shops and yards, making a left onto the on ramp of the Fremont Bridge.
The Fremont Bridge was finished in 1973 and the 24 started going over it in 2019, the first bus line to travel over the bridge while in service. The expansion to Northwest was a big change for the bus line on Fremont, which, before the 2009 recession, had gone downtown as the 33-Fremont, and before that as the 41-Fremont.
In Northwest, the Line 24 makes a left on 23rd, left onto Thurman, right on 19th (eastbound, the 24 travels on 18th). It passes by some big old religious structures on its route through Northwest. At 19th and Savier, its dome peeking up near the approaches to the Fremont Bridge, St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, built in 1889, is the oldest Catholic church in Portland. First Immanuel Lutheran Church at Irving was constructed in 1904 and was the first Swedish Lutheran congregation on the West Coast. At Glisan, the large Beth Israel Synagogue, built in 1928 for the congregation founded in 1858, towers over nearby Couch Park with its Byzantine inspired architecture and dome.
At Everett, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, completed in 1906, is the latest church for Portland’s oldest episcopal congregation, with its red doors and gothic revival architecture. Over at 18th and Couch, riders on the eastbound 24 can see the Catholic cathedral for Portland, St. Mary’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, which was completed in 1926 and is built in an Italian Renaissance revival style.
The 24 passes Burnside, intersecting with the 20 and 15 and goes by Providence Park, home of the Thorns and Timbers, before following the MAX tracks to Goose Hollow and laying over at SW 16th and Columbia.
Would I sign it?
Heck yes. This route is a fairly calm one, has interesting landmarks to look at along the way, and comes with some decent breaks. It is an ideal route, just busy and challenging enough, but not too busy or too interesting.
Favorite Moments:
Cruising down Alameda Ridge especially at sunset and seeing the whole city, all the old churches in NW Portland, the old houses in Irvington, Eliot, and Sabin neighborhoods.
Fast Facts:
Does it go to Walmart? No
Does it go downtown? Not really, but it gets you pretty close.
Does it go to the Hospital? Yes, Emanuel Hospital and Good Samaritan.
Does it go to the Bottle Drop? No
Does it go to the mall? No.
Does it go the MAX? Yes, at Providence Park and Gateway.
Favorite Memory:
Signing the 24 for the week and using all those long breaks to read books.
Need to go somewhere else?
This is a personal blog, the views expressed in this blog are solely mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of TriMet.
