Sorry but I have to disagree. 217 itself doesn't go anywhere, once you leave 217 you have to use arterials or other streets to get to your destination. Likewise, WES itself doesn't go anywhere, to be fully functional it has to connect somewhere.

217 is busy because much of that traffic takes the Greenburg, Scholls Ferry or Hall exits to get to...drumroll...Washington Square. But the WES Hall/Nimbus stop is the worst performing stop. Why? Absolutely piss-poor connections and a total lack of integration into the travel needs of those in the area. TriMet literally forgot that a bus actually used Hall Boulevard and had to install a new bus stop (sign) so that riders transferring from WES to the 43, 76 or 78 buses didn't have to walk a quarter mile; however those wanting to transfer to the 43 bus to go into the heart of the Nimbus Business Park were blessed with a bus stop located in the middle of an ODOT maintenance yard driveway. (And now the 43 trips to Nimbus are being cancelled alltogether.)

The Tualatin stop is another perfect example - while the destinations are along Tualatin-Sherwood Road and Meridian Park Hospital, there's only one bus that you can connect to at the WES station - the 76 bus, which is only every 30 minutes during the day, and 60 minutes on weekends. Awful. There is no bus service out Tualatin-Sherwood Road to Sherwood; no bus service along Tualatin Road, only the 96 bus out Boones Ferry Road (weekday rush hour only); no bus service out towards Wankers Corner. You can add all the WES service you want, but what's the point - nobody is going to ride WES from Beaverton to go shopping at Haagen's (which will probably be closing pretty soon, anyways) in Tualatin.

Wilsonville's train station is in a light industrial area. Tigard's is downtown, but nothing else is. I live in Tigard and have absolutely NO reason, unless I need to go to the Post Office (rarely!), to go to downtown. And the last thing I want to see is my 94 bus to go away and be forced to take a twice-as-long roundabout trip on a bus, then a dual-mode WES train, then another MAX train, Streetcar or bus, to get to my downtown Portland destination, which would take at least twice as long. And when I go to Beaverton, rarely am I going anywhere near the Beaverton Transit Center, and I don't want to be limited to buses that only show up once an hour (and do so with two young children, while transferring at the Beaverton TC - the #1 location for police calls in all of the city of Beaverton.)