Metro has secured rights to easements through four properties near the Portland-Gresham border that will allow them to expand the popular Marine Drive Trail.
(Photo © J. Maus)
Using funds from their $227 million, 2006 voter-approved natural areas bond measure, Metro plans to build about 1,000 feet of trail out near NE 185th Avenue (see map above).
Here’s more information about the project from Metro:
Metro’s four new trail easements will help close a one-mile gap, one of several in the paved pathway tracing Marine Drive and the Columbia River. Eventually, the Marine Drive Trail will stretch 20 miles from the St. Johns neighborhood in North Portland eastward to Troutdale, offering spectacular views of water, wildlife and mountain peaks.
Metro negotiated agreements for the easements with four different landowners and the parcels are in both Gresham and Portland. The new trail segments are expected to be built in the next 3-6 years.
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awesome!!!
That’s terrific. I hope they do a better job than they did on the all but useless new path west of Kelley Point.
Great news! Does this mean they’re working to fill in the gap between 122nd Avenue and the I-205 path as well?
sweeeeeeeeeeet!
I live in St Johns, my parents in Troutdale, and all of us bike. This will be seriously awesome.
Beautiful!! That would make the good parts of life one step better. As a veteran user of the Trail, I’ll raise a glass to Metro. This will also make that part of the road feel a lot more secure. Roaring traffic can make me a little uneasy at times.
In fact, as I rode near one of the marinas yesterday, I saw frontage property for sale and daydreamed about being able to buy it outright and donating it as public land for use as a trail and/or picnic area… I get generous when I bike…
In response to fredlf:
No, the gap between the I-205 path and NE 122nd Ave will be part of the Sullivan’s Gulch Trail project. But we need to keep reminding the City of that because they have been focusing on the part west of I-205.
How about finally finishing the Columbia Slough Trail? It’s got holes all over!
@ #2fredlf
What new path is that? I haven’t ridden out there in about a year.
Woo-Hoo! Those gaps can be snarkey to get around. That will be such a nice path when it is complete!
This is awesome! It’ll be nice to bike out to Larch Mountain without having to do the zig and the zag on Marine Drive. Go Portland, er, I mean: Go Metro go!
I’m glad to hear of this news. And I really hope they do whatever is necessary to make the paved path smooth the first time. Most of the sections of the trail East of that point are not fun to ride on because they are so rooted and bumpy. I tend to take the shoulder on Marine Dr. instead.
Dang! All these new routes & paths, after I just bought my new bike map.
Craig @ 9, there is new MUP running from roughly Lombard to Kelley Point Park. I find it poorly implemented at best. It makes you cross a bunch driveways, forcing you to slow and exposing you to right hooks and outright collisions from side traffic. There are big grooves in the surface, so you feel like you’re riding on rumble strips. Basically, it’s slower, more dangerous and less comfortable than the roadway. And I bet it cost a fortune… oh well.
fredf @14, Craig @9–
I believe this was a Port of Portland project. One of P.o.P.’s members is a concrete company; I don’t believe it has any asphalt paving companies. It is regrettable that this will be used as another example of P.o.P.’s continuing graft and corruption (they’ve got about 100 years of that to live down).
How hard would it be to get a requirement that the plans for all bikeways and MUPs be reviewed by at least one experienced bicyclist before the work is done??
Of course that probably would do no good wrt P.o.P. They have always been a law unto themselves.
The simple fix would be to require P.o.P. to blacktop over their massive concrete pours. Until then I’m mostly continuing to ride the street. That’s less punishing, and probably safer than the weaving across intersections that the MUP forces one to do.
Linda #7 —
“I-205 path and NE 122nd Ave will be part of the Sullivan’s Gulch Trail project.”
seems to me Portland Parks got some Metro funding 4 or 5 years ago to complete this gap… but that’s the last i’ve heard about it? Anyone know?
Fred means east of Kelley Point; west of Kelley Point requires a canoe or packraft to get your bike to Sauvie Island.
I wonder why Metro doesn’t work with landowners to get easements through private lands more often. It’s not like it can’t happen; Little Bighorn Battlefield National Park is actually two parcels separated by private land, with an easement for a road to connect the two NPS-owned parcels.