Fiscal Year 2026 Proposed Budget

The budget will reflect key priorities, including:

• Mission-critical staffing needs
• Service level requirements
• System and facility maintenance
• State of Good Repair investments
• Capital project planning and construction

TriMet has also updated our financial forecasts, evaluated revenue assumptions, and analyzed multiple funding scenarios to prepare for potential funding cuts. Given the uncertainty at the federal level—where grants have been frozen and FTA staff reductions have occurred—we are increasing the budgeted amount of contingency funds to allow time to adjust, if needed.

Like other public transit agencies across the nation, TriMet is facing financial challenges and has been operating on reduced revenues since the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic led to a dramatic drop in ridership with stay-at-home orders followed by an increase in remote work. TriMet’s ridership has also been impacted by community-wide challenges including civil unrest, extreme weather events, crime, open-drug use and the homeless epidemic. TriMet has made considerable investments in response.

Today, TriMet has more safety and security personnel on our transit system than ever. As we have increased that personnel to more than 490 over the past three years — double the number of personnel we had at the end of 2022, calls for police services have decreased more than 40% during that same time. Calls for police services are dispatched calls for both potential crimes and non-criminal concerns needing a police response. They have dropped from 7,345 in 2022, to 4,572 in 2023, to 4,387 in 2024.

TriMet worked with the community to restructure our bus service in response to changes in people’s travel patterns due to COVID-19. Our Forward Together service plan has brought more service to areas where more people with lower incomes rely on transit to connect them with opportunities.

While bus service improvements and return to in-person work and events have generally led to year-to-year increases in monthly ridership since 2020, TriMet’s ridership remains about 30% below pre-pandemic figures. Lower ridership equals lower passenger fare revenue. Federal pandemic relief funds proved a lifeline for public transit agencies, including TriMet. Those one-time stimulus funds covered the reduction in fare revenue through our fiscal year 2024, but they have now been depleted.

TriMet will continue to identify efficiencies to this financial plan as we move forward in the budget process before the TriMet Board adopts a FY2026 budget, which is expected to occur at its May 28, 2025 business meeting.