(Photo © J. Maus)
The $1.8 million, federal stimulus-funded repaving of the Springwater Corridor Trail is set to begin next month. Portland Parks & Recreation, who manages the trail, issued a statement about the project yesterday and shared details of the imminent closures and detours that will come with it.
The project will lay a 2-inch overlay of porous asphalt over eight miles of the existing trail and it will include new pavement markings, bollards, and signage.
According to Parks, the work will require periodic closures of the trail between SE 28th Avenue, just east of the Three Bridges section, to SE 174th and Jenn e Road near the border with the City of Gresham. In their statement, Parks says, “No continuous segment of the trail longer than two miles will be closed at any time, but several small segments could be closed simultaneously” and, “… the locations of closings may change from week to week during the project.”
I got a look at some project maps of the planned detours. Because of geographical features like the Powell Butte Nature Park and the lack of a road grid in neighborhoods adjacent to the Springwater, some of the detours are going to be circuitous and inconvenient.
For instance, on a segment of the project adjacent to Powell Butte (between SE 122nd Ave and SE Circle) the detour will take people north on 122nd all the way up SE Powell and then back down near SE 166th.
Dry conditions are necessary for this work, but these closures will come during the busiest season on the trail. Perhaps, as a silver lining, the streams of people walking and biking on residential streets near the trail will spur talk of bike boulevards and other necessary improvement.
To keep the public updated, Parks plans to publish updates on their PortlandParks.org website and on a new Twitter account, @springwaternews, set to launch on April 1st (you can start following now).
The closures and detours are expected to last through August.