Save Tualatin Road

Save Tualatin Road

Summary: Lam Research, using a taxpayer-funded Oregon CHIPS grant, has submitted plans for a massive facility expansion in Tualatin that would add an estimated 2036 daily vehicle trips to our local roadway network. Lam's proposed site design would send 70% of that traffic (1425 daily trips) through a new entrance on Tualatin Road. We are opposed to this new entrance.

Action Item: We are currently raising funds to hire a traffic engineering and consulting firm to perform a Traffic Study. We can’t trust Lam to provide a complete and accurate picture of the full impact of their proposed entrance on Tualatin Road. If you are able to donate, please contact us. Together we can Save Tualatin Road!

Lam site rendering showing massive new buildings.

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 by cut-through commuter traffic, and is also the main access road 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 unacceptable. 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. 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 using a taxpayer-funded CHIPS Act grant 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.

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)