Tualatin's $250 million plan to fix its worst traffic bottleneck has hit an engineering wall, with city engineers calling most options fatally flawed.
The road project is one of several challenges clouding the city's broader downtown revitalization effort, which also faces unresolved questions about the future of the Tualatin Commons and whether TriMet bus service meets residents' needs.
The issues came into focus in a Tualatin Life column published Saturday, Sept. 5, in which columnist Jonathan Crane described a wide-ranging conversation with an unnamed city official about the obstacles ahead.
"If we could just move the freeway, the railroad tracks and the Tualatin River it would be easy, but until then we're kind of stuck," a former Tualatin City Council member told Crane.
$740,000 grant launches Phase 3
The city does have momentum on one front. Metro awarded Tualatin a $740,000 planning grant in July to fund Phase 3 of the Downtown Revitalization Project, which launched in April 2025. The effort covers roughly 300 acres centered on the Lake at the Commons, an area the city calls the Core Opportunity Reinvestment Area.
Phase 1 produced a downtown identity study through community engagement.
Phase 2 brought in University of Oregon Sustainable City Year Program students, who created renderings and recommendations including a bridge across the lake.
Phase 3, set to begin in fall 2026 and run through spring 2028, will turn those ideas into an urban design framework and updated development standards.
Mayor Frank Bubenik said in the city's July 13 press release that downtown Tualatin is positioned for significant new investment.
But the Tualatin Life column suggests the path forward is far from clear. The unnamed official raised unresolved questions: What should happen with the Commons? Where exactly is the downtown core? What about the dirt lot at Tualatin-Sherwood Road and Boones Ferry Road, currently used for sporadic plant and tree sales?
Road project hits 'fatal flaw'
Transportation looms large. At the council's Monday, Aug. 24 meeting, city engineers and consultants from Kittelson and Associates presented an early analysis of the Tualatin-Sherwood Road Crossing project.
The $250 million proposal would raise Tualatin-Sherwood Road over Boones Ferry Road and the Portland and Western Railroad to relieve a bottleneck.
Engineers told councilors most options contained a "fatal flaw." The only viable approach would simply shift the bottleneck to 90th Avenue, Tualatin Life reported.
"The hard one for me was the number one thing you got feedback on was community development and none of these meet that criteria,"
Council President Valerie Pratt said at the Monday, Aug. 24 meeting, according to Tualatin Life's coverage.
The Oregon Department of Transportation ranked Tualatin-Sherwood Road in the 10th percentile for frequent car crashes among Washington County roadways, according to data cited at the meeting.
A virtual open house on the project runs Sept. 14 through Sept. 28.
SMART merger talk resurfaces
The column also flagged a transit question with regional implications. Crane wrote that dwindling TriMet bus service has revived discussion of Tualatin merging with South Metro Area Regional Transit (SMART), the Wilsonville-based system.
The column noted that Tualatin residents pay into TriMet through payroll taxes but "do not seem to get their fair share of bus service."
No official city proposal or council action on a SMART merger has been identified.
But the timing aligns with a broader regional conversation: Washington County is conducting a Transit Development Plan survey open through Sept. 13 that explicitly lists "stronger regional connections, including TriMet, SMART, and local job shuttles" as a topic for public input.
The county's transit priorities include the Tualatin Shuttle and connecting areas outside the TriMet and SMART districts.
The Washington County transit survey closes Sept. 13. The Tualatin City Council is next scheduled to meet Sept. 28 to review a separate food cart pod plan.
