[Updated at 8:02pm on 6/30 — see end of story.]
In a brilliantly ironic bit of activism, two strategically placed cars helped created a three-block stretch of carfree streets during last week’s Last Thursday event on Alberta Street.
The event was first reported by Stephen Upchurch, who shared what he saw on the Shift email list.
He noted that the cars seemed to be, “painted for the occasion,” and that they were stopped in the intersections of NE 24th and 27th streets. This, wrote Upchurch, “effectively created a three block car free zone.”
It didn’t take long for the busy Alberta Street crowds to take advantage of the situation. “The newly created space filled with people, enjoying the Thursday Parkways vibe.”
Calls for a carfree Last Thursday have bounced around the community for years.
(Photo © J. Maus)
In July of 2006, a group of concerned citizens took over a car parking spot on Alberta Street and asked passersby if Alberta had “outgrown the sidewalk.”
A few months later, I reported that there were so many people on the street that an impromptu dance party started.
Then, last April, another dance party that erupted in the street resulted in a bit of a fracas which was then reported in some media outlets (and treated by the police) as a riot.
In this most recent incident, Upchurch snapped several photos of the cars and the crowd they attracted before police and a tow truck arrived.
One photo shows a note taped to the windshield on one of the cars. The note (text below) explains much more about the motivation for this guerrilla action but says nothing about the identity of the individual or group behind it (besides an email address).
Here is the full text of the note:
“We’re blocking off the street!
As an act of advocacy for Last Thursday, we declare the NE Alberta Street is closed to all motorized traffic from 7pm — 10pm tonight (June 26)
Why are we doing this?
Last Thursday has become so popular that it is just not safe for cars and busses to coexist with vendors and the crowd of thousands…Last year, TriMet voluntarily re-routed their buses during Last Thursday because they recognized it was just impractical to run bus service through such a large crowd. However, the City made TriMet resume their normal service as a method of crowd control. We believe this is absolutely the wrong direction to take, so we are taking the street back ourselves.
How will this work?
We will block the street on 15th Ave and 30th Ave to prevent East/West traffic. All side streets will be open to traffic going North/South.Can I help?
Yes you can. Here are some suggestions:
— Enjoy Last Thursday in the same spirit of respectful community celebration you always do.
— Be responsible for your safety…
— Be polite to drivers and event attendees. If a driver comes onto the street, you might let them know the street is closed and suggest they take an alternate route like Killingsworth.
— Call it quits at 10pm. Last Thursday officially “ends” at 10pm. It is a weeknight after all, and people that live here need to get up and go to work tomorrow.What do I do if…?
— A driver wants to know how to get through?
Tell them they can cross Alberta St. going N/S from 15th and below and 30th and above. All other E/W streets are open.
— A car refuses to turn away?
Let them pass peacefully. Most cars will find an alternate route.
— A police officer tells me to leave?
Follow their instructions.So, what happens next?
We hope that this small action helps convince more people in the community and the City that not only does closing Alberta St. for Last Thursday not end the world, it makes the event safer, more enjoyable and encourages it to grow into an even more wonderful celebration on Portland’s cultural calendar.
[Update] The person behind this act of carfree advocacy was Alberta street property owner and self-described “founder of Last Thursday” Magnus Johannesson.
He says the closure was the culmination of two years of negotiations with the City that ended with a “strongly worded” letter from Commissioner Sam Adams’ office.
Johannesson claims that Adams wrote him a letter saying that PDOT has reviewed doing an Alberta Street closure for Last Thursday “on several occasions” and that, “unfortunately, no street closure has been authorized… and no street closure approval is planned for any time in the foreseeable future.”
I’ve got to follow-up with Adams’ office and Johannesson to find out more, but with the coalescence of the local carfree movement thanks to the recent Carfree Cities conference, the success of the Sunday Parkways event, and with existing efforts like this one, perhaps the time has come to finally make Last Thursday on Alberta carfree.
Thanks for reading.
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TAKE BACK THE STREETS!
did they tow the cars away? how long did it last?
Hey,
Did anyone get photos of the stilt walkers during Last Thursday? We are looking for good photos for the Ship of Fools outing. It was our first sail!
Please send any photos or links to bluenew0804@hotmail.com
thanks,
bob new
It seems to me that if the city made Last Thursday car-free, it would go a long way towards alleviating some of the pressure to create more Sunday Parkways right now (when there isn\’t the budget for it). IMO, that would be a politically astute move…
I heard from someone in the know that Sunday Parkways will happen again, but not this year, not only because of budget reasons, but because of the time and resources needed to plan for it. But I also agree completely with Donna\’s comment… no time like the present to satisfy what the masses obviously want and stop this ridiculous must-keep-cars-flowing mindset at Last Thursdays. (And did anyone notice they brought in TWO fire trucks this time?)
Someone mentioned on the shift list that it would be nice to set up a temporary fund to pay for the towing/ticket costs that these modern day Robbin Hoodists racked up liberating OUR streets. I think it\’s a great idea.
gas @ $4.50/gal
Sunday Parkways, free
Alberta Street carless, free
Living in Portland as cars are going the way of the Dinosaur?
Priceless
I see this spreading and growing with time into a 24/7 carfree network across Portland. People will pay more for houses on the streets without cars. Greed and self interest will make the network grow. Portland will show the country how it is going to be done.
*blink* what? did I have another vision? gotta get more sleep…MCBF be darned…
It seems that every time a city creates a car-free zone, there\’s an initial outcry from businesses and other, well, \”less inclined\” folks. Then, once the area has thrived and foot traffic has increased exponentially (making for much more $$), people can\’t remember why they took so long to implement it.
Here\’s a quick link for other car-free areas (I hope the html works. I\’m a neophyte at it):
Google Search
There are many examples of streets around the world that have been closed off to cars. Every one that I\’ve visited has been filled with people and thriving businesses.
Motorists were pissed fo sho! What else is new. Go empowered hippies! YAY.
I was walking my dog around my neighborhood (Sellwood) this weekend and I came across three kids who had found some road barriers left lying around from all the construction. They pushed them into the street, and set-up their kiddie pool right in the middle of the road!
So, just a reminder that this sort of thing can be done *anywhere* and with pretty much *anything.*
What\’s the bill for leaving your car in the road (citation for illegal parking + towing charge)? I\’m guessing around $500?
Hmmm, World Naked Sit-In?
We were on 24th and Alberta when the Stop/Yield painted car \”parked\” across the road, and then wondered down to 27th after that car arrived, picked up some take-out, and sat on the curb eating until the tow truck arrived to remove the car on 27th. Probably took 40 minutes for that car to be towed. The first police car we saw encounter the car on 27th was driving West on Alberta, talking on his cell phone, and laughing. He drove away without stopping. The bus driver behind him, however, was quite annoyed.
Looked like the car had expired tags, and our assumption was whomever owned the cars had no intention of getting them back. My husband saw the guy who parked the car on 24th walking around and talked to him a bit. He was quite pleased that he\’d managed to get the street closed for 20 minutes at that point, and considered it a success. There were definitely some others who were getting a little verbally confrontational with the police officer who was placing a number of tickets on the car, claiming the car was freedom of expression, rather then blocking a public roadway, as it was from the officer\’s point of view. I was impressed that the officer walked away, and said something to his partner to the effect of, I\’m not going to say what I really think because there are million video cameras around.
Hey Sam, shortest honeymoon ever! You\’re not even mayor yet, and you vote for the CRC, cancel the Flanders Street Bridge (1/1000th the cost of the CRC) for \”budgetary\” reasons, and now say that ALberta must continue to be a street that prioritizes cars over people. Please, Sam, help me figure out why I passionately supported you. So far, it\’s not because of your transit policies!
I had a chat with some fellows on the Hawthorne bridge for the breakfast stop about this. Most everyone who I\’ve talked to about it seems more than willing to donate some money to help get whatever cars out of the tow yards and to pay whatever tickets come as a result of this. I think it\’s a brilliant idea and I fully support it. I think that there would be plenty of Thursday-goers who would no doubt chip in a few dollars to bring the street closure to fruition.
A bit of a fracas?
Wow.
Be thankful you don\’t live here. I sure wish I could call a surging mass of drunk hipster shits throwing bottles at cops, treating out neighborhood as their favorite toilet and trash can was a \”bit of a fracas\”. I think my favorite part was those that don\’t even live here telling those of us that do that we should move if we don\’t like it.
Last Thursday was fast becoming an embarrassment before the Police wisely showed up. I hope they\’re here to stay for a long time.
Go Magnus!
really? magnus?!
– Enjoy Last Thursday in the same spirit of respectful community celebration you always do.
do I laugh or do I cry at this statement?
I haven\’t seen the respectful community celebration at a Last Thursday in many moons.
I was sitting at the corner of 27th when the first car/barrier was pushed into place. Unfortunately, the organizers had not coordinated the closing at both ends, leaving several cars unable to go either forward or back. Several eventually drove onto a part of the sidewalk to get around the barrier.
Some time later, once all the cars had cleared in the 3 block zone (though buses were still stuck), I witnessed an interaction between two black women and one of the organizers (perhaps Magnus?). They challenged him on several points (I\’ll paraphrase as best I can): \”What do you mean you\’re taking back the streets? These aren\’t YOUR streets. We\’ve grown up here and lived here our whole lives. There are people on those buses that are stuck here and they can\’t get home because of this.\”
There are a lot of gentrification issues at play in Portland right now, and I have to say, there was some arrogance in this act. We live in a diverse community, but have all the resources available to bring about thoughtful and progressive change to our city. We can\’t just force whatever we think is right.
sam adams needs to grow some bigger cojones if he really wants to represent the car free faction
re. Sunday Parkways – please email / write City Council and tell them you want this to be a monthly event at different locations throughout the city, and it needs to last longer, e.g. 8 AM to 6 PM. and no reason it can\’t start NOW!
Closing the streets for something like this seems to cost a lot of money. From O writer Dylan Rivera\’s story about Sunday Parkways:
\”Sponsors covered the city\’s $150,000 tab for Sunday\’s activity.\”
$150,000 for what was it…8 hrs? No wonder Adams is taking pause. I seem to remember someone responding to a question about the Sunday Parkway cost by explaining that it represented the entire cost; pre-event planning plus day of event expenses; police overtime and all.
Still, closing Alberta for last Thursday also probably involves expenses. Hopefully something much, much less than $150,000, but even if it was $5000, that seems like a lot of money someone\’s got to cough up. Who will pay?
People who demand that others obey the letter of the law when their own desires are concerned, but who disregard the law by taking into their own hands when it suits them, regrdless of the rights of others, are pure hypocrites.
Last Thursday has outgrown itself, drunk little sh*ts from all over town disrespecting the neighborhood.
I\’m 100% for making this car-free every Last Thursday, but there\’s a bus route there guys. Fine, cars can go around, but the busses cannot. Stupid, selfish.
Don\’t forget that the busses WERE going around until the City decided it liked them better as crowd control.
Jeff,
I\’m not sure if you read any of the story, but trimet set up an alternate route to accomodate Last Thursday and the city forced them to reinstate the original route. Seems like buses aren\’t really the problem. If last thursday isn\’t your scene, maybe you can set up a neighborhood event for all you older folks who enjoy \”dancing with the stars\”, coin collections, and talking about white wine. You could even do it early in the morning before all the \”drunk little sh*ts\” people wake up.
Thanks for flushing the story out Jonathan! I await your follow up with Adams\’ office.
Hey Also,
No I missed that. But the point is that there was a bus route running on Alberta when this happened? Yes?
Nice little dig there, if that\’s how you want to think of me, great. It has nothing to do with folks drinking, having a good time, staying up late, making noise. Awesome. It\’s about respect for the neighborhood and everyone there, something lost long ago on LTs.
I don\’t associate that phrase with bicycle activism – I associate it with reducing violence on the streets. It might be the same thing.
Also from the neighborhood,
Part of treating others with a modicum of respect is NOT demanding that they live your life or clean up after your laziness. You don\’t blast your music, you don\’t leave your dog\’s shit in their yard, you don\’t litter, you don\’t piss in my yard, you don\’t howl at 3 am (or 9 am), etc. Many if not most people have jobs that require them to be up and out of the house before 8 am. This isn\’t about being \”old\”, this is about being an adult. I know that\’s boring.
This is a city of sorts. I expect a certain amount of dirt and mayhem. But that in no way excuses disrespectful behavior.
One of the divisions we\’ve noticed in how people react to Last Thursday is between those that own or have lived here for a long time and the \’new\’ renters. While I\’m speaking in generalities, the latter are more transient, younger, and thus understandably less invested in this community as a comfortable quiet place that once could raise children and so on. As we see a resurgence in families in the area, and there are more and more strollers to be seen, don\’t be surprised if there\’s a stronger push against the so-called \”fun\” and those that want to party all the time and let someone else clean up their mess.
Having said all of this, I\’m much more interested in addressing the drug problem that\’s still an issue in much of our area.
Last year, TriMet re-routed all of their busses off of Alberta, & onto Killingsworth a few blocks to the north.
TriMet were at the meeting with Commissioner Adams, & had decided, of their own accord, irregardless of whether Alberta went carfree for Last Thursday or not, to remove their busses, due to liability issues (aka, they did not want to get sued for one of their bus drivers hitting a pedestrian forced into the road because the sidewalks were too jammed with people).
When did TriMet put their busses back on Alberta again then for Last Thurs?? And why??
Civil disobedience is the alternative forced upon people when their government does not respond to them. It\’s a tricky strategy, because it can breed resentment and backlash if not properly handled. The organizers should have pulled in more members of the local community on this one.
The whole idea that it costs a lot of money to close a street for a day is a big joke. Closing a street shouldn\’t cost a single dollar – what it does cost money is to pay for all the beaurocrats and other types of vampires that keep sucking on society\’s blood. You may as well live in communist country, since the public here really has its hands tied, the state creates a real gridlock for any action.
In my opinion this is the most disappointing thing about Portland: the widely accepted idea that manufactured problems are a real thing; and that you can\’t \”take a piss\” without having to ask for permissions, wait for months of deliberation and pay a lot of money.
peejay, Civil Disobedience, as practiced by Gandhi and Dr. King, was practiced ONLY after all alternatives had been exhausted, and only when the aggieved party was denied basic human rights, not simply because the government is not \”responsive\” to you–it may be that your desires conflict with the rights or desires of others.
Also, Civil Disobedience means winning over your enemies by blessing where you are cursed. Dr. King never expected or advocated Civil Disobedience as a get out of jail card–he taught that everyone needed to respect the law enough to pay the penalty for disobedience.
Civil Disobedience during the Civil Rights movement was justified because citizens were denied basic human rights based on the color of their skin, and during the Vietnam and two Iraq wars because millions of innocent people were being unjustly and unneccearily killed.
Wanting to take over someone else\’s neighborhood for a party is not the same thing.
Your votes only have power BEFORE you use them folks. The time to pressure a candidate is while they are still campaigning.
You all gave sammy adams a free pass, cause he wears little glasses and blows sunshine up yer bums. Same thing with obuma, minus the glasses.
Now that they no longer need you, their true masters take the reigns. Suddenly they veer rightwards, singing the praises of the corporatocracy.
Write all the letters and whine all ya want. Maybe have Elly organize a useless protest or something. Try and get some more grant money for leeches like scotty bricker to slurp up. Or..
Perhaps next time around you will pressure a candidate to make ironclad commitments, BEFORE you vote for them. You know, while you can still vote for someone else.
This country is filled with slaves and cowards.
Wake up!
last thursday on alberta
is the epitome of portland
in all its blissful freakishness,
better enjoy it now before
it turns into what first thursday
has become, as an artist i love
being able to display my work
right out on the street without
a license, and i believe it would be
more enjoyable without car traffic,
we need to find a way to make it
happen, people obviously love this
night there, the sidewalks are
overflowing, if the streets were
closed to cars they could wander
around happily with ease,
how do we make this happen?
if we don\’t i\’m sure the city
has some ideas for changes there,
can you say pearl district?
I do have to give kudos to those behind this action. I do hope it gives more people the motivation to advocate for a car free Last Thursday.
Zag:
That\’s why I said it was not properly handled. And don\’t forget: a lot of the people who celebrate Last Thursday also live there, so there already is some local buy-in. That said, you have to admit that for all the talk of Portland being responsive to the car-free culture, there\’s very little effort to try to do without cars on a given street. The people are leading on this issue, and our leaders are playing catch-up. I totally agree with Diogo that the argument that street closures are expensive is a smokescreen. It\’s the excuse that Sam & Co are using to get out of actually making an effort on this.
Zag:
That\’s why I said it was not properly handled. And don\’t forget: a lot of the people who celebrate Last Thursday also live there, so there already is some local buy-in. That said, you have to admit that for all the talk of Portland being responsive to the car-free culture, there\’s very little effort to try to do without cars on a given street. The people are leading on this issue, and our leaders are playing catch-up. I totally agree with Diogo that the argument that street closures are expensive is a smokescreen. It\’s the excuse that Sam & Co are using to get out of actually making an effort on this.
Maintaining streets to keep cars flowing through them is also expensive.
Who gets to decide when the street outside the Schnitz is car-free?
(just saying, there seems to be precedent)
PCPA has a revocable permit (per a City Council ordinance from 1987) to close SW Main St west of SW Broadway. They can close it after 6:15 pm on the evening of a performance, and also on weekends.
peejay, your original post defended this as an act of civil disobedience. It is not. Not everyone in the city of Portland wants it to be car-free. You may, but your desires conflict with others. If you decide to take the law into your own hands, others have an equal right to do the same thing.
I happen to believe that I should be able to use anything and everything that my tax dollars pay for. If I choose to commit an act of civil disobedience by driving in a bike lane, or taking a motorcycle onto a bike path, I will bet the farm that you will not defend by right to civil disobedience–you will call for my arrest and defend the letter of the law.
Dr. King rightly pointed out that civil disobedience is a slippery slope, and should only be used as a last resort to acts of tyranny, and that the person resorting to civil disobedience should be willing to pay the penalty that the law dictates. Thoreau certainly did when he went to jail rather than pay taxes to support the Mexican War.
I believe in sharing the road. Unfortunately too many people on this thread do not believe in sharing, but wish to take exclusive possession of them. That will lead to conflict and quite probably violence.
No one has the right to violate the rights of others. By blocking a public road, what of people victimized by delayed police or medical response to an emergency? What about the rights of people using public transportation to get to work and earn a living? What about the rights of Jeff and Scott to live in their own community? Are they simply cardboard cutouts?
zagreus, I disagree with you. I think it was an act of civil disobedience.
You may feel that it was different in important respects from those acts by MLK and Gandhi, and you may disagree as to whether this act was justified, as you apparently have, but none of those disagreements, and in none of your explanations for them, have you given any reason why it was *not* an act of civil disobedience. It was.
And, as an aside, I think you\’re exaggerating the seriousness of the potential negative consequences of this act (i.e., delayed emergency response) a little. I also think you\’re mis-characterizing the beliefs of people with respect to sharing the road.
People should check first before insisting it doesn\’t or shouldn\’t cost money to close a street such as Alberta for an evening community event. I\’m not sure off the top of my head where to check, but seem to recall the expense for doing this for Alberta has been determined and was reported last year.
It shouldn\’t be too difficult to understand why it costs money; Alberta is a major through street. Preparations for closing such a street require planning and staffing and equipment to notify, block off streets, and redirect vehicles and transit riders. These things often cost money. Is it completely lost on everyone that an event like Sunday Parkways cost $150,000 to do? That seems like an atrocious amount of money to me, but I can easily understand that some expense was involved.
Volunteers might be able to make up some of the expense here. Someone might ask what\’s been done in that respect to make Last Thursday free streets happen.
It\’s been awhile since I\’ve been to it, but I\’d say Last Thursday is definitely much more a community event than it is a party. The fact that a party element may have been allowed to dominate the tone of the event shouldn\’t be allowed to diminish the importance of what Last Thursday can do for that neighborhood. Alberta should be closed for Last Thursday because there\’s just too many people for it\’s narrow sidewalks. Another problem: not enough streetlights.
I guess it\’s o.k. for some property owner like this guy, Magnus Johannesson, to let his car get towed away to make a statement. He\’s probably got the money to burn, but aside from the fun element it remains to be seen how much a stunt like that in this neighborhood will do to actually realize the creation of Last Thursday free streets. He might have accomplished more by taking the money he\’ll be paying in fines and and whatnot to help cover the inevitable expenses involved in creating a feasible plan Last Thursday free streets.
I was fortunate enough to be walking around the area when it happened; the two car method yielded a car free environment for a little over an hour. It was terrific to experience it!
The first four police officers who responded were in good humor – it was not until about 8:15pm when there were about 20 of them marching up and down the street commanding people off the road that their tone changed. Between the police and the fire department, there must have been over 80 manhours devoted to towing two cars. Surely the city could be involved in a carfree last thursday in a more cost effective manner?
Alberta street was closed to motorized traffic from 11am to 6pm for the Art Hop.
Artsonalberta.org did it with the help of the city. Someone could get a sense of the cost from them.
my understanding, from reading the links that were in this article, is that Sam Adams opposes letting this happen. It will be interesting to see how he explains this.
wsbob
You can spend as much money or as little money you want in any project. You are basically just saying – \”someone said how much it costed and where the money was spent, therefore it means money must be spent\” – but it doesn\’t. Governments are spending money uselessly (is that a word?) all the time.
zagreus
Civil disobedience is not a sacred sacrifice for a higher good as you seem to suggest. Thoureau went to jail but he certainly didn\’t consent or accept the justice of it – so not sure what you mean by \”the person should be willing to pay\”. Civil disobedience means simply that you don\’t respect the law because it deem it unfair, so CD presumes conflict and a chalenge to the established order – not just of tyrants but of the rest of the society that supports that particular state of affairs. Civil Disobedience is not a right in the sense of the law – it is a self-proclaimed right to be agaisnt the law.
You are basically just saying – \”someone said how much it costed and where the money was spent, therefore it means money must be spent\” Diogo
No. I\’m not saying that, and that\’s not what I mean. I\’m saying if people want free streets for Last Thursday on Alberta, they\’re going to have to figure out a way to make that work. If these people want the city\’s paid employees to do the work involved in putting it together, it\’s probably going to cost money.
Money is just a medium of exchange used to obtain labor, goods and services. Something like the Alberta Last Thursday free streets might be able to be mostly accomplished without money, through donations, bartering and volunteerism, but it take lots of energy and co-operation to do it. Lots of people would be giving of their personal time to make something like that happen if doing so wasn\’t part of their paid job.
That neighborhood has a lot of energetic, creative people, so it could probably make it work. There\’s just more to it than someone throwing up their hands, driving their car out into the middle of the street, parking it and proclaiming \’Free Streets\’!
Joe in #46 mentions Artsonalberta.org. Those people might be a great resource for finding out how to proceed on something like this.
the point is that car-free streets should cost a lot less than the city\’s overtime for a bunch of popo to unnecessarily hassle people
\”There\’s just more to it than someone throwing up their hands, driving their car out into the middle of the street, parking it and proclaiming \’Free Streets\’!\”
wsbob(call artonalberta (503) 972-2206) – I hear you on the funding concerns. perhaps you did not read the background to this story(which jonathan did a good job of linking to within the article). There has been an amazing amount of work by many people trying to petition the city to do this including addressing funding concerns. Sam Adams has said \”no\” and I would like to hear more from him about why.
What the two car method did was to show a glimpse of what Last Thursday could be with full access to the street…can the full vision happen in a few weeks?