Max Station

This MAX Station on NW 6^th Avenue & Davis Street is a typical glimpse of Portland’s transportation system. Some uses of the same lines require 5^th Avenue instead, though the adjacent station on 5^th Avenue & Davis mirrors the one on 6^th Avenue & Davis. There are two seats and a sculpture. Plenty is to buy nearby. Plenty of buses are also nearby.
It is great that this nears the Steel Bridge, for a short commute out east. The tucked-​in feel is not as good as say around 6^th & Pine. All kinds of characters can be found on the sidewalk, but that’s not usually too much of a concern.
This humbly serves its purpose.

Well, if Tri Met didn’t chose when they want to send a train and sent them on time I would give them more then one star. Tri Met sucks at putting trains on the right track and the right time. You will learn to except incompetence I Portland, and Tri met it a really big fail

its no pioneer courthouse square Max station but it gets the job done, it really needs ethnic seating though

I like the trains in Portland. They are much easier, cleaner and nicer than the ones we have in the Bay Area.
I easily got from the Airport to my hotel downtown for $ 2.50, as compared to a $ 45.00 cab ride. It was almost just as fast as it was smart to save that money and take the train. It was literally a non-​issue ride and I was there in about 30 minutes.
Another day we took the train over to Widmer Brewing Company. It was easy to find a schedule, this station and get over there. Last time we also took a cab, so the train was fun and we had a great day.

MAX is a great way to get around Portland, and FREE in the downtown core (Zone 1). This service is still pretty cheap outside the free zone– an all day pass is less than $ 5.
One negative aspect of my experience with the MAX was that they don’t run very often late at night, with the last train sometime around 12:30. The schedule posted at a downtown stop listed another one around 01:30, but it never came :(Oh well, walking a couple of miles out of downtown Portland at around 02:00 makes for an interesting experience!

The person at the front desk of our hotel gave us specific instruction to NOT stop at this station (we were going to the city for dinner). Hahaha. Of course that immediately meant we needed to stop there and check this place out. This was like a city within a city. There were hordes of homeless people hanging out, keeping dry and huddling to keep warm. It wasn’t frightening like going to kid row in LA after dark. It was great for people watching. Needless to say, we didn’t stay long. Hahaha.

I will take the midnight shenanigans of this stop over Pioneer Courthouse any fucking day, and I mean that.
The stop seems secluded from downtown, like Old Town is trying to hide it. The street seems almost like a tunnel, or a funnel, collecting all of the characters when the tents of Saturday Market aren’t there to contain them. I have never had an issue with any of the inhabitants, but the yells and shouts from them may make you shiver, as it echos in the dark of the night.
Really Convenient Stop for going to Ground Kontrol, or walking around the pearl, or the Park Blocks. There also seems to be a regular foot and bike patrol by police in the area.

One of the best train systems in the country. Why the best?
You can ride the MAX Light Rail and Portland Streetcar within downtown Portland, the Rose Quarter and the Lloyd District for FREE – all day, every day. Just look at the free rail zones.

This is your average MAX platform in Old Town. During the day, it’s relatively quiet, except for the homeless that seem to heavily populate the area. At night, it’s quite a scene.
As I stood on this platform last night waiting for the Green Line heading east, I witnessed a chaotic scene of clubgoers, homeless, denizens of the night, and fixie riders showing off their sweet, sweet rides, all on the platform, all in the space of about 20 minutes. It was a hectic but entertaining scene. I guess 10pm is a vibrant hour down there.
The confusing part is that I waited out past a Yellow-​Line train, and hopped on the next non-​yellow-​line train to roll through the station. I wasn’t paying much attention — I was distracted by someone doing some bike tricks, so I didn’t realize when I got on that I wasn’t on a green line train. Busy working on my laptop, I looked up and found myself at 122^nd and Burnside! Yikes. Fortunately I wasn’t on the last train, and found my way back to the Green line. Not sure what happened there. I didn’t realize the blue line ran up on 6^th at that hour of the night.
Otherwise, it’s got your usual ticket kiosks, flat screens displaying next train arrival times, and some transit-​tracker information. It’ll do.