This morning, TriMet announced another closure of the Eastbank Esplanade just south of the Hawthorne Bridge. Beginning May 9th, Esplanade users will be detoured onto SE Water Avenue for three weeks while crews prep the area for construction of the new Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Bridge.
The detour will be in place until May 27th. See the detour map and download a PDF below:
– Download as PDF –
Thanks for reading.
BikePortland has served this community with independent community journalism since 2005. We rely on subscriptions from readers like you to survive. Your financial support is vital in keeping this valuable resource alive and well.
Please subscribe today to strengthen and expand our work.
On the bright side, I’m excited to see the bridge project get started!
You had an earlier post about bicyclists crashing on the section of SE Water near OMSI because the bus pull-outs (paved in concrete) adjacent to the bike lane were about an inch or two higher than the asphalt street, and this height difference wasn’t easy to see. The City has smoothed the transition with asphalt, so it should be safer now.
So remind us again why Tri met is building a new bridge instead of using long standing east side rail right of way?
Oh yeah to waste more money.
The bridge is great, the Tri met is not.
I mean there has been a rail corridor directly to Milwaukee from the Rose Quarter for how long? And for some reason Tri Met is not trying to run trains down it…
Old mistake we are going to keep paying and paying for….
Yes, I’m sure Union Pacific would be jumping for joy at the prospect of TriMet running 6 trains an hour in each direction down their tracks.
Yeah. I live in Brooklyn, and those tracks leading out of the Brooklyn rail yard and down into the Eastside industrial district are used constantly. It’s not like they are just sitting there empty…
Thats actually totally illegal, as it violates FRA regulations: light rail trains cannot use the same rails as freight trains.
I can’t remember: will the new bridge have bike/ped lanes??
Yes, I think in the form of a path, like the Hawthorne, only hopefully wider…
There is more right of way than just the tracks being used, people….
Space for more tracks along the same area…..
But the Milwaukie light rail largely does follow the UPRR tracks.
What are you proposing?
Light rail and freight trains can’t share tracks. If they are in the same corridor on separate tracks, there are specific horizontal separation requirements – I believe it is 100 feet. So the only way to run max through the central eastside would be to tear down all the buildings between 1st and 2nd and put max tracks there (the freight tracks are on 1st) or to turn 2nd over to exclusive use by max.
Was on the Death Trolley last night, and saw how all the way up Sullivan’s Gulch, the Tri Met tracks are a mere 30 feet from the freight tracks…
Roll that around your melon while considering what Tri Met should be doing , as compared to what they are doing…
Not sharing tracks but side by side tracks.
It should have been planned to use the right of way long ago instead of rerunning tracks up and down the streets and across rivers….
Of course I was loud about this for many years, but who listens to the messenger?
And Sigma, it could have been pulled off, they didn’t want to do it the right way.
Dabby, re-read my comment. Parallel tracks have to be 100 feet apart if one is used by light rail and one is to be used by freight. There isn’t room to do that in the existing right of way in the central eastside. It doesn’t matter how loud you are if your idea conflicts with federal regulations.
Thanks for adding this. You also need room for passenger stops. The bridge will also be used for bus transit (and bikes). I think as Portland grows we will be very glad we built the bridge.
Sigma, I understand your point as I read it.
I am sure that Tri Met could have gotten around that federal regulation, as they have before.(and really do every day) Federal regulations are regularly skirted For the supposed Greater good..
Look at the medical marijuana laws?
(one small example)
One of the reasons that WES has been such a failure is that TriMet *hasn’t* been able to skirt Federal Regulations. So, for example, instead of using off the shelf lightweight European diesel multiple units, it had to commission expensive custom built solid-as-a-tank multiple units, just so that it could share track with the Portland & Western Freight trains.
Which is just to say that ideas that look simple at first (why not just use the freight right-of-way through the Inner Eastside) are inevitably not that simple.
be prepared for more closings of the area in the future as construction of the bridge takes place.. maybe just make it your regular route now and get used to it early? on the bright side there will be some awesome new infrastructure when all is said and done!
I like the re-route better than riding by the river… the river path is oftentimes crowded, and even if it’s not crowded, you can simply go much faster in the street.
Is it open again?