Save Tualatin Road

NEWS: Hearings have been RESCHEDULED!

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Summary: Lam Research has proposed a massive expansion in Tualatin using CHIPS Act funds that would add an estimated 2036 daily vehicle trips to our local roads. Lam is trying to dump 70% of their traffic (1425 daily trips) through a new entrance on Tualatin Road, causing safety and livability problems throughout the community.

We are asking for:
• NO new roadway access on Tualatin Road
• Keep Lam's Leveton Driveways

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Lam site rendering showing massive new buildings.

Impacts: Lam's proposal would remove the primary driveway that currently connects their main parking lots to Leveton Drive (an industrial access road). Instead, Lam proposes using Tualatin Road (an overloaded neighborhood street) as their primary employee access. This traffic change would create a cascade of negative impacts across North Tualatin, increasing bypass traffic on Jurgens Ave and Hazelbrook Road, increasing cut-through traffic in the neighborhoods, clogging the local Hazelbrook onramp to Highway 99W and putting in harm's way the students of Hazelbrook Middle School. Lam is refusing to engage with the community to find a resolution. Traffic is the #1 complaint here in Tualatin, and Lam's proposal threatens to make it worse.

The Solution already exists: Leveton Drive!

Lam's proposal would violate the Tualatin Development Code, as documented in our December & January sample letters to the City. This is Front Page News. Make sure to sign up for our updates. Next steps are public hearings. Speak out!

Hearings have been RESCHEDULED!

Lam and Mackenzie requested a delay in the hearing schedule. The March 19th and April 2nd hearing dates are cancelled. New hearing dates are scheduled below. Stay tuned for updates. Signup for our email list to stay informed.

Tualatin Planning Commission
Wed, May 21, 2025 at 6:30 pm
Tualatin Service Center
10699 SW Herman Road
Tualatin, OR 97062

Architectural Review Board
Wed, June 11, 2025 at 6:30 pm
Tualatin Service Center
10699 SW Herman Road
Tualatin, OR 97062


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Tualatin Road is a busy street that runs along the north side of Lam's campus and the south side of the Riverpark neighborhoods of north Tualatin. It's heavily burdened with cut-through commuter traffic, and is the only local access route in and out of our neighborhoods. The last thing Tualatin Road needs is more traffic.

Leveton Drive is a lightly-used industrial access road that runs along the south side of Lam's campus. Leveton Drive is concrete, built to handle tractor trailers and heavy vehicle loads, and currently carries 3 entrances to the Lam campus. Leveton Drive has more than enough capacity to handle all the traffic from Lam's expansion.

Traffic counts (Vehicles per hour April/May 2024)
• Tualatin Road (PM peak at 112th Ave)   1313
• Leveton Drive (PM peak at 118th Ave)   370

Lam currently has a driveway that connects Leveton Drive straight to the parking lots on the north side of their campus, but the proposed site expansion would eliminate that driveway. This is the crux of the issue. Lam’s new site plan needs to include at least one usable driveway that connects their main parking lots directly to Leveton Drive.

For months, we have been asking Lam's planners to modify their proposal:
Use Leveton Drive not Tualatin Road.

Lam's site plan showing new buildings and location of new proposed traffic signal at Tualatin Road and SW 115th Avenue.

Satellite photo showing the size of the new site in comparison with the surrounding neighborhood. Arrows showing traffic impacts on Tualatin Road and SW 115th Avenue.

Jurgens Avenue and Hazelbrook Road

To avoid the existing congestion on Tualatin Road, some drivers are already taking SW Jurgens Avenue to SW Hazelbrook Road to reach northbound 99W. A traffic signal on Tualatin Road at 115th, combined with more congestion near 124th, will increase travel times and make the Jurgens/Hazelbrook bypass even more enticing. As we know from experience, commuter traffic (aided by mapping and navigation software) will find the quickest route, even if that means speeding through a School Zone in front of Hazelbrook Middle School. Similar concerns about cut-through traffic have also been raised by the residents of David's Fox Run and Tualatin Woods.

Student Safety

Many Hazelbrook Middle School students live in the apartments west of 115th Avenue and walk to school. In the morning and afternoon during the school year, Tualatin Road, Hazelbrook Road, 115th, and Jurgens Ave carry a stream of school buses. Adding more commuters to these roads would cause longer delays and traffic backups, and increase the risk to students.

Increased Air Pollution

Research published in the journal Atmospheric Environment measured air pollution in urban and suburban areas and found that intersections with traffic signals have up to 29 times higher concentrations of particulate matter than open roads. Acceleration and breaking generate much more air pollution than free-flowing traffic. A recent study shows that brake pad dust is more toxic than exhaust emissions. Signalizing the intersection at Tualatin Road and 115th, in combination with the added traffic volume and longer traffic delays, will cause a degradation of air quality in and around Jurgens Park Senior Living, Tualatin Woods Townhomes, Hazelbrook Condominium, Woodridge Apartments, Rivercrest Meadows Apartments, and David's Fox Run. Prevailing winds from the south and southwest will carry this pollution further into Riverpark neighborhoods.

Industrial Truck Routes

Lam's neighbor to the west, Japan Aviation Electronics (JAE), currently sends truck traffic (semi tractor trailers and warehouse deliveries) away from Leveton Drive with signage instructing truck drivers to use Tualatin Road. Lam is proposing that the new entrance on Tualatin Road at 115th would be jointly used by Lam and JAE. Leveton Drive was built for heavy truck loads, and we are asking that all truck traffic use it.

Future Growth

JAE's parcel contains an abundance of open space available for future development, and Lam has proposed that the Tualatin Road entrance would be shared with JAE. Therefore, future development at JAE could cause an increase in the number of vehicles using Tualatin Road. Because of this, we are asking the City of Tualatin to consider not only the impact of the TUX project, but also consider future developments that could use this entrance. For example, if the JAE parcel were built up to a similar density that Lam is using for the TUX project, how would that impact traffic on Tualatin Road?

Noise Pollution

Lam currently generates continuous noise pollution from two identified sources: (1) The nitrogen gas plant near the north side of campus, and (2) the rooftop air handling equipment on Building D. The nitrogen plant makes a high-frequency hissing sound that is clearly audible across Tualatin Road and deep into the neighborhoods. During winter, when prevailing winds are from the south, multiple noise signatures from Lam's rooftop air handlers are clearly audible downwind in the neighborhoods during day and night, both outside and inside homes more than 1500 feet from the source. This equipment runs 24 hours a day 7 days a week, and the off-site noise impacts are invasive, disruptive, and well-documented. Lam's new proposal shows 10 new exhaust stacks atop a new manufacturing building.

Public Funds

Lam Research is a multibillion-dollar microchip company that received $22 million in taxpayer-funded CHIPS Act grant funds to help pay for this expansion. We believe that any project that receives taxpayer funds should be held to a higher standard and not harm the community. A guiding principle listed on Lam's website is to “Act with purpose for a better world”. For those of us who live near Lam's campus in Tualatin, the current TUX project site plan is not in alignment with this principle.

Community Communications

Documents

Quick Links

Past Project Documents

Key Quotes

“Janet said there is no access to Tualatin Road, currently only a fire access is provided on Tualatin Road. Jennifer said we looked at opening that but it’s faster to go down Leveton Drive and up 124th Avenue.”
Neighborhood Meeting (8/16/2022)

“A couple of the other issues that come up, one is the functional class of the road, and this goes back to before my time with Tualatin, but in the previous transportation system plan from 2012-14 there was a lot of objection to traffic on Tualatin Road so it was designated as a major collector and Leveton was designated as an arterial, with the intention that that would be like the major route for traffic and that's where traffic should be going to. Unfortunately what that ended up doing, and that doesn't actually match the traffic volumes, usually the higher volume road is the arterial the lower volume road is the collector. What that does with the access, our code is, access needs to be taken off the lower classification road, and so that would push more access to Tualatin Road, but looking at the practicality of it we're wanting to keep the three accesses on Leveton in order to keep that there.”
Tualatin Traffic Engineer Mike McCarthy (11/19/2024 YouTube)

“Such permitted uses must not cause objectionable noise, smoke, odor, dust, noxious gases, vibration, glare, heat, fire hazard or other wastes emanating from the property. … The purpose is also to protect existing and future sites for such uses by … limiting uses to those that are of a nature so as to not conflict with other industrial uses or surrounding residential areas.”
TDC Chapter 62: Manufacturing Park (MP) Zone: Purpose

“No additional access points are proposed on Tualatin Road. The existing driveway shared with JAE will be utilized for limited on-site access, but will not connect to Leveton Drive, and will be de-emphasized for use as a public access.”
Novellus Land Use Applicattion (1/22/2001)

“The applicant has indicated, in the narrative, that there will NOT be any additional access points on SW Tualatin Road. The applicant, however, will keep the joint access easement over a portion of the JAE property, to the west, for an access point to the newly created north parcel 2. The submitted plans indicate that there will be multiple ingress and egress routes over the proposed newly created lots. These routes also include connectivity through the various parking facilities within the proposed development.”
Novellus Land Use Applicattion (1/22/2001)

Traffic Study Quotes

“At full occupancy of both Phases, the proposed campus expansion is estimated to generate an additional 244 AM peak hour, 233 PM peak hour, and 2036 daily trips.”
Lam Traffic Study, 10/2024 Page 1

“The west access to SW Leveton Drive at the southwest corner of the site will be relocated to the east and repurposed as a truck access for deliveries to the existing and proposed buildings.”
Lam Traffic Study, 10/2024 Page 2

“SW Hazelbrook Road/OR 99W – long delays are expected on the stop-controlled approach to OR 99W during the PM peak hour. Mitigation is not recommended because it would encourage vehicles to travel this route from SW Tualatin Road instead of using SW 124th Avenue to access OR 99W northbound.”
Lam Traffic Study, 10/2024 Page 17

“As shown in Table 7, queues at some intersections along OR 99W appear to be longer than available storage lengths. These intersections are built out to their full capacity, and little can be done to mitigate these queues.”
Lam Traffic Study, 10/2024 Page 23

“The detailed site trip distribution is based on the following assumptions:

Save Tualatin Road

In order to preserve the livability of our neighborhoods and to protect our quality of life, we the people, who live, work, and play near Tualatin Road, including renters, owners, and employees, request the following changes:

  1. Remove Lam’s proposed entrance on SW Tualatin Road at SW 115th Avenue.
  2. Add to Lam's proposed site plan a usable driveway that connects Lam's main parking lots directly to Leveton Drive.
  3. Remove from Tualatin's Transportation System Plan the proposed traffic signal at SW 115th Ave and SW Tualatin Road.
  4. Preserve and extend Lam's berm along SW Tualatin Road.
  5. Require that Lam and JAE use SW Leveton Drive for all non-emergency vehicle access.
  6. Establish a tractor trailer and warehouse delivery entrance on SW Leveton Drive for JAE.
  7. Eliminate noise pollution and offsite sound impacts from Lam’s operations.
  8. Eliminate light pollution and light trespass from Lam and JAE campuses across Tualatin Road.
  9. Remove Lam's unsightly No Trespassing signs posted along Tualatin Road.
  10. Establish 24-hour onsite emergency contacts for Lam and JAE.

What can you do right now?