Hillsboro: Council to Weigh $2.95M Federal Grant for Train-Warning Tech at 185th MAX Crossing

The Hillsboro City Council is set to consider an agreement Tuesday night that would accept a federal grant of about $2.95 million for train-tracking technology at the MAX crossing on SW 185th Avenue near Baseline Road. The deal with TriMet and Washington County is item 4.5 on the Oct. 20 consent agenda, and it is still pending council approval.

The crossing is where MAX Red and Blue Line trains cross 185th at street level. A city staff memo says it “imparts significant delays” to bikers, pedestrians, vehicles and buses, while calling it “operationally safe” with “no known fatalities.” The packet also counts the local match two ways, and an earlier packet traces the city’s push for an overcrossing there.

GPS on the trains, and a signal study

The money comes from the Federal Highway Administration’s ATTAIN program, short for Advanced Transportation Technologies and Innovation. FHWA describes it as competitive grants to “deploy, install, and operate advanced transportation technologies.” The agreement says the partners received an award notice dated Feb. 13, 2026.

According to the memo, the project “will install GPS technology on light rail vehicles to allow for more advanced notice of approaching trains.” The agreement calls this cloud-connected vehicle-location equipment, and says TriMet would equip as many light rail cars as possible within the funding it had as of July 1, 2026.

The city’s part is an engineering study of how best to run the traffic signals “either before a train approaches or after it departs” the crossing, the memo says. The aim of the wider 185th technology effort, in the memo’s words, is to make the rail and traffic signals “talk to each other.”

By our calculation, the $2,360,000 federal share is exactly 80% of the $2.95 million total, which includes the $590,000 local match. That is the top federal share FHWA’s fact sheet lists for ATTAIN. Separately, the memo says, a $567,850 Metro award came May 13, 2026, to plan county signal upgrades along 3 miles of 185th.

Two documents, two match totals

The memo and the agreement agree on the federal amount but not on how to describe the local match. The memo cites a “$590,000 local match,” with $370,000 from TriMet and $250,000 in city money it calls “already budgeted.” Those two shares add up to $620,000, by our calculation.

The agreement says the original proposal paired TriMet’s $370,000 with $220,000 from the city, which totals $590,000. A later section has the city paying that $220,000 “plus an additional” $30,000, for $250,000 in all. Neither document says what the extra $30,000 covers or whether it raises the local share to $620,000.

Oct. 20 council packet, pp. 46, 49 and 53. Totals not printed in the documents are our calculation.

Four tries at an overcrossing

The grant is the technology half of a two-part plan. Since 2018, the memo says, the city, county and TriMet have pursued both a permanent MAX overcrossing above 185th and shorter-term signal upgrades.

The partners have been “much more successful” winning technology grants, according to the memo. It says federal money for new rail overcrossings has gone mainly to places “where people have been injured or killed,” and that gate knock-downs and near misses “are not high on the list” for Federal Railroad Administration funding.

The Oct. 6 council packet fills in the record. In September 2023, the city asked Washington County’s Major Streets and Transportation Improvement Program, known as MSTIP, for $17 million in matching funds. In June 2024, the county board put the overcrossing on a list of five projects “eligible for up to $30 million” in matching money.

Resolution 2937 says the city has filed four grant applications for the overcrossing since 2022 without winning federal, state or regional funding. It would make the TV Highway Transit and Safety Project the city’s priority project for MSTIP matching money instead, saying that project has “a higher chance” of a federal construction grant of at least $149 million within two years.

The memo adds that up to $12,898,000 “or more” in MSTIP money is “on the table” and that “four out of ten riders on Route 57 are Hillsboro residents.” The city expects to put at least $6.2 million toward TV Highway construction, on top of $3.4 million committed to its development phase in 2025. The switch also needs approval from the Washington County Board of Commissioners.

Resolution 2937 was on the Oct. 6 council agenda. The Oct. 20 packet includes council minutes only from Sept. 15, and the city’s news page listed no release on the item as of Oct. 19.

How to weigh in Tuesday night

The regular session starts at 7 p.m. in the Civic Center Auditorium, 150 E. Main St., and on Zoom, meeting ID 851 4863 9488. The agenda says the agreement is also subject to final approval by the city attorney.

Consent items can be approved together in one vote. On Sept. 15, the council passed its whole consent agenda on a single motion, 6-0, according to minutes up for approval Tuesday. This week’s list also includes a lease extension for the Tanasbourne police precinct.

Public comment is limited to three minutes. To speak on Zoom, register before 3 p.m. Tuesday by emailing [email protected] or calling 503-681-6269; in person, fill out a yellow card and hand it to the City Recorder.

Top image: File photo, 2009: a MAX Blue Line train crossing 185th Avenue into Hillsboro. Photo: Steve Morgan, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).