The North South Line (NS Line) is a streetcar route of the Portland Streetcar system in Portland, Oregon, United States. Operated by Portland Streetcar, Inc. and TriMet, the line runs in each direction between Northwest 23rd & Marshall and South Lowell & Bond, serving 39 stations and connecting Northwest District, Pearl District, downtown, Portland State University (PSU), and South Waterfront. Its cars operate daily on headways of 15 to 20 minutes. In May 2025, the NS Line had an average weekday ridership of 4,519.
Efforts to restore streetcar service in Portland, which had ceased operating in 1950, began in 1990 with the formation of a citizen advisory committee. After nearly a decade of planning, construction of the Central City Streetcar project began in 1999. The initial segment opened on July 20, 2001, to become the first line of the Portland Streetcar system and the first second-generation streetcar service in the United States.
The NS Line has since been extended to RiverPlace and the South Waterfront. Originally unnamed, it was designated the "North South Line" in September 2012 following the opening of the system’s second route, the Central Loop Line, later rebranded as the A and B Loop.
History Early planning
Planning for the restoration of streetcar services in downtown Portland, which had ceased operating in 1950, was considered as early as the 1970s, when businessman and philanthropist Bill Naito led an effort to convince downtown property owners to help build a vintage trolley line. In response to recommendations to develop a streetcar network by Portland's 1988 Central City Plan, a citizen-led advisory committee was established in 1990 that would convince the city to the conduct a feasibility study. Early plans envisioned three lines, with the first running up from John's Landing near the South Waterfront through downtown Portland to Northwest 23rd Avenue in the Northwest District. This proposed line, initially referred to as "Central City Trolley", was predicted to run replicas of cars that once served Council Crest. Project supporters and planners later renamed it the "Central City Streetcar", after opting instead to employ modern, low-floor trams in the hopes that it would be seen as a transit system rather than a tourist attraction.
Several alternative routes were considered in downtown, including the Portland Transit Mall on 5th and 6th avenues, as well as Park and 9th avenues. Both routes were rejected by nearby neighborhood associations. In January 1994, the Portland City Council adopted a route between Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center on Northwest 23rd Avenue and PSU via 10th and 11th avenues, and the following year, called for bids to design, build, and operate the service. The nonprofit Portland Streetcar, Inc., which consisted of leaders from the city's businesses and public institutions, was the only firm to respond to the bid request.
Funding and construction
The city council authorized the streetcar project in July 1997. The cost of the project amounted to $56.9 million (equivalent to $ in dollars), with the city covering the largest share. City parking bonds provided most of the city's contribution at $28.6 million. In September 1998, the city council created a local improvement district to collect funding from properties situated within two blocks of the streetcar alignment, providing $9.6 million. The Portland Development Commission redistributed $7.5 million in tax increment funds from the South Park Blocks urban renewal area that had been earmarked for TriMet's cancelled South/North Corridor project; this was used to extend the streetcar route through the PSU campus to Southwest 5th Avenue. Only $5 million came from the Federal Transit Administration for construction, reallocated from TriMet to the city in exchange for a system giving TriMet buses transit signal priority. Procurement and installation of tracks and wiring and the construction of a maintenance barn beneath the Fremont Bridge were estimated at $28.2 million and $4 million, respectively. In 1999, Czech manufacturer Škoda was selected to provide the line's first five streetcars, valued at $12 million. The streetcar order was expanded to seven in 2001 to provide enough cars for a planned extension of the line from PSU to RiverPlace.
Construction of the Central City Streetcar began on April 5, 1999, marked by a groundbreaking ceremony. Crews from Stacy and Witbeck started utilities relocation work along Northwest Lovejoy Street that same day; relocation work on 10th and 11th avenues followed in June. Track-laying occurred one week after the start of roadway demolition and progressed southward through downtown. Workers reached the PSU campus in June 2000, by the time university officials resolved the alignment of the tracks, placing the northbound segment diagonally though the newly built Urban Plaza and the southbound segment along the northern end of the campus. Construction of the extension began in late July 2000. Although the last passenger stop would be on 5th Avenue at Southwest Montgomery Street, the track would end on Montgomery Street at 4th Avenue, with a short section of two-way single track between 4th and 5th avenues in which the bi-directional streetcars would reverse directions at the end of each southbound trip and spend any scheduled layover time. The maintenance barn that would house the streetcars was 90 percent complete by August.
Line testing commenced in January 2001 using one of two replica-vintage trolleys that would be transferred from TriMet's Portland Vintage Trolley for planned weekend use on the streetcar line. The project's completion, initially targeted for February, was pushed back to May due to delays in pole and power line installation. The delivery of the first streetcar, which had been expected in late February, was also delayed by the acquisition of a line-of-credit deal, established as a form of insurance in the event the cars did not work out. The first car finally arrived in April.
Opening and extension to South Waterfront
The first of the Central City Streetcar, later renamed to "Portland Streetcar", opened on July 20, 2001, from Northwest 23rd Avenue to PSU. The line was notably the first "second-generation streetcar" system in the United States and Portland's first new streetcar service in fifty years. Opening day celebrations were held at various points along the line, and free rides were offered for three days. Four streetcars initially operated on weekdays, while three streetcars and one vintage trolley ran on weekends. The Portland Streetcar had recorded 6,000 to 8,000 daily riders by September 2001, exceeding 1996 projections of between 2,700 and 4,700 riders per day.
In 2004, construction began on a extension south from PSU to RiverPlace. It cost $16 million and opened on March 11, 2005. It extended the short length of two-way single-track operation along Southwest Montgomery Street onto Southwest 4th Avenue, making it about in length, equipped with signals for the streetcars to ensure that only one direction was in use at any given time. This segment also includes the steepest grade on the system, 8.75% in the block of Southwest Harrison Street between 1st and 2nd avenues. Another extension of south to the lower terminus of the Portland Aerial Tram on Southwest Gibbs Street in the South Waterfront opened on a temporary ballasted track on October 20, 2006. It was initially a bidirectional single track, operating on a right-of-way used until the end of 2003 by the Willamette Shore Trolley, a heritage streetcar that continues to operate between Portland and Lake Oswego. On August 17, 2007, an extension of the line south of Gibbs Street to Southwest Lowell and Bond opened to better serve the South Waterfront district. This extension is a 10-block loop, from Southwest Moody and Gibbs proceeding south on Moody Avenue, east on Lowell Street and north on Bond Avenue to OHSU Plaza at Gibbs. This final extension of the line cost $14.45 million. The extensions collectively increased the one-way length of the line to .
On November 3, 2011, the streetcar line began using new double-track on a realigned section of Moody Avenue, which was built as part of the $66 million Moody multimodal project. Two stops—OHSU Plaza and Southwest Moody & Gibbs—were built directly adjacent to the entrance to the Portland Aerial Tram, linking the lower campus of Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) to its campus atop Marquam Hill. These stations received a connection to the Lair Hill neighborhood that was otherwise cut off by Interstate 5 (I-5) with the opening of the Gibbs Street Pedestrian Bridge on July 14, 2012. Until 2012, the north–south streetcar line had no route name, being referred to only as the Portland Streetcar line, because it was the only line in the system. However, with the opening of the system's second line on September 22, 2012, the original line was designated the North South Line (abbreviated as NS Line) to distinguish it from the newly built Central Loop line (CL Line), later renamed A and B Loop.Tramways & Urban Transit, July 2012, p. 276. UK: LRTA Publishing.
Extension to Montgomery Park
On December 11, 2024, the Portland City Council approved the Montgomery Park extension, as a key component in a plan to transform the area near the planned new terminus from a mostly industrial area into a high-density residential district, with more than 2,000 new housing units. Most of the funding for the project has yet to be secured, but the approval clears the way for the city to apply for grants from federal and various regional and local sources. The extension will be served by the NS Line. It will be around long, and construction would begin in 2028, for opening in 2030, if all of the needed funding is secured and the plan receives final approval. The exact route was finalized in December 2024. The extension will not be equipped with overhead wires, and only streetcars equipped with storage batteries allowing operation on battery power will be able to serve it. The fleet currently includes no such vehicles, but the city plans to buy 11 such streetcars in 2026–2028.
Service
The NS Line runs for approximately 18 hours per day on weekdays, 16 hours on Saturdays, and 15 hours on Sundays. During weekdays, NS Line trains begin service at 5:45 am heading southbound from Northwest 23rd & Marshall station; the first northbound train departs Southwest Lowell & Bond station at around 6:27 am. Service begins later on weekends at approximately 7:24 am. End-to-end travel takes approximately 35 minutes. Headways run from as short as fifteen minutes between 10:00 am and 7:00 pm on weekdays and Saturdays to a maximum of 20 minutes for all other times. The final southbound train to run the full length of the line on weekdays departs from the northern end at 10:30 pm while the final northbound train departs the southern end at 11:15 pm. The last five trains on weekdays and Saturdays travel southbound from Northwest 23rd & Marshall and terminate at Northwest 18th & Lovejoy, with the last train arriving at 11:53 pm. On Sundays, service ceases earlier at 11:07 pm.NS Line schedules:
The NS Line is the busiest streetcar route, averaging 8,751 riders on weekdays in September 2018, before the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to a drop in ridership. The Portland Streetcar achieved a new system-wide record for average weekday ridership in April 2018, with the NS Line carrying 9,226 passengers.
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