A woman was hospitalized with serious but non-life-threatening injuries Monday morning after her car collided with a TriMet MAX train near North Interstate Avenue and North Alberta Street, triggering a major emergency response and disrupting rail service across North Portland.
Portland Fire & Rescue crews responded to the crash just before 9 a.m., according to KPTV. Fire officials said there was “significant intrusion” into the car, underscoring the force of the impact, though they said no one riding the MAX train was hurt. The driver of the car, a woman, was taken to a hospital for treatment, the station reported.
KATU similarly reported that emergency crews were on scene near North Interstate Avenue and Alberta before 9 a.m., with the crash blocking the northbound lanes of Interstate Avenue for several minutes as first responders worked. Separately, KOIN reported that emergency officials responded to the incident around 8:45 a.m.
Road And Rail Both Disrupted
North Interstate Avenue was expected to remain blocked at North Alberta Street while emergency crews worked the scene, per the earlier KPTV report. Service on the MAX Yellow Line was disrupted as a result of the crash, snarling commutes for riders along that corridor during the morning rush.
What led to the crash remains unclear. Police said the circumstances were still under investigation, the koin.com report noted, without offering further detail on how the vehicle and train came together.
Not The First Car-Versus-MAX Incident This Year
The North Portland crash follows a similar collision earlier this year in downtown Portland, where an Orange Line MAX train collided with an SUV near Southwest Lincoln Street and Southwest Naito Parkway, according to the same koin.com report. In that incident, the car's driver was arrested at the scene, and the train was deenergized and disconnected from the overhead wires as a precaution. No injuries were reported there, and TriMet said the Orange Line resumed service by 9 a.m. that day, though delays lingered into the morning.
Collisions between cars and MAX trains are not unusual across the system. TriMet's own performance dashboard notes that its collision rate covers all incidents involving MAX trains without distinguishing preventability or fault, and that trains travel roughly 11,600 miles on a typical weekday. A separate OregonLive analysis of TriMet collision data found that drivers average one collision for every 82,000 miles traveled on the agency's routes, according to the transit agency's own figures.
Officials have not said how long North Interstate Avenue or Yellow Line service remained affected following Monday's crash. No further details on the driver's condition or identity have been released as the investigation continues.
