about bike access in Beaverton.
(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)
If you missed seeing the city of Beaverton’s plans for the redesign of SW Broadway you have another chance to talk about the project with a powerful city official.
Beaverton’s Mayor Denny Doyle is coming to Neighborhood Association Committee (NAC) meetings in February and March to give an update on the city and answer questions from citizens.
It will be interesting to see what questions are asked of Doyle now that Beaverton is closer to solidifying a plan to revitalize it’s downtown.
Beaverton also recently received the dubious honor of being named the “Least Romantic City” in the United States. The title comes from location-based service Foursquare analyzing how many people checked in at “romantic” destinations, like wine bars or French restaurants, around the city.
Many people who live in and around Beaverton know how difficult it can be to travel in the city on foot or by bike. Could it be that a lack of safe and convenient (and perhaps romantic) travel options is pushing lovebirds to businesses outside Beaverton’s city limits?
Doyle will be attending the next NAC meetings scheduled for this Wednesday (February 15) at 7pm at Nancy Ryles Elementary School and March 22nd at 7pm at the Edgewood Downs Retirement Center.
More information about the NAC meetings can be found on Beaverton’s Neighborhoods website.
Check out more of our Washington County coverage here. Send feedback and tips to will [at] bikeportland [dot] org.
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Hall Street Bar and Grill is both a) romantic, and b) frequently packed, so I dunno…
Poor Beaverton and its romance ambiance deficiency. Didn’t seem to be bothering the frogs over at the THPRD Nature Park near the Westside Regional Trail. Believe you me, they’ve been whooping it up, singing like crazy in the evenings for the last week.
Humans have it tougher finding romantic ambiance in Beaverton. But the nature park seems to kind of fill that bill though…at least, I seem to see a fair amount of hand in hand couples on the trails when I go through the park.
The walk up (bikes, and skateboards strictly forbidden.) or elevator ride isn’t very romantic, but if you want a nice, clandestine overview of the city, park your car, or pretend you’re retrieving your parked car from the big parking structure at the round; go to the rooftop level and enjoy the 360 degree view of the city.
I managed to miss the last Broadway redesign meeting. Went into the History Center on Broadway afterwords to ask about it. People there said it was mostly pictures and drawings to look at…maybe ideas being winnowed down to a manageable number.
If I got it straight, next meeting is on the 5th of March at the History Center.
I live near Beaverton, and yeah, it’s not the most charming place. Traffic is always hideous, largely due to the Chaos Theory of Traffic Management (no effort whatsoever to coordinate traffic lights). I test rode a couple of bikes at the Beaverton Bike Gallery last year, and it was not fun (not due to the bikes, which were great, of course). If they can find a way to make central Beaverton more livable, then kudos, but right now, I tend to take my business elsewhere.
“…(no effort whatsoever to coordinate traffic lights). …”
Last fall at one of the city’s candidate’s forums, I talked briefly with one of the people that’s working with plans for urban renewal. Coordinating traffic lights is one of then things this person said is in the works.
Kind of curious why you didn’t find some good location to test ride bikes around the Bike Gallery’s Beaverton shop, because it seems to me the opportunities there for test riding are decent…just not on Canyon, Hall, or Watson.
East-West running Millikan Way on the northern boundary of BG’s parking lot is one option. Take Millikan, west across Watson, hit Rose Biggi and go north over the light rail tracks. For off-road, there…a huge undeveloped partially dirt land parcel with some little humps and bumps can be found.
For road, staying straight on Millikan is generally low-stress traffic.
For the cruiser, comfort bike crowd, the section of Millikan just north of BG is closed off to through traffic on the east end, meaning there’s very few cars even traveling the street there.
The same plan that contains the redesign of Broadway also includes a section devoted to bicycle improvements. The adopted strategies, and the appendix with a list of projects can be found here: http://www.beavertoncivicplan.com/wp-content/uploads/LandUse_Trans_Strategies_web1.pdf
Top 10 least romantic? Really? I mean, “romantic” isn’t what pops into my head when I think of the Beave, but it’s not bad for a suburb. I’ve been to an awful lot of places FAR LESS romantic. There are far more soulless suburbs, far more desperate, decayed industrial towns than Beaverton. I think tallying up spending at businesses deemed “romantic” by some moron is a bizarre methodology.
Case in point: Duluth, MN is also included on this “bottom 10” list. I visit family in Duluth at least once a year, and I’ve been to plenty of nice romantic restaurants downtown and up the nearby lakeshore. It’s also one of the most scenically beautiful places in the midwest, with plenty of romantic potential outdoors in its many lovely parks (which might escape notice of this flawed survey). How about a nice picnic spread on the sandy beaches of Park Point, where you can watch huge ocean-going ships come into the harbor? Or on the edge of downtown, watching the romantic old lift bridge as tourists pass by on the lakeshore bike path? Or up at Enger Park, overlooking the world’s largest lake hundreds of feet below you? Athletic types? No long drive to spoil the mood .. you can have your apres-ski cocktails and dinner within minutes of finishing up your runs at Spirit Mountain, one of the biggest ski areas located within a city. OK, so the outdoors aren’t for everyone … you could always go for a dinner train trip on the romantic North Shore Scenic Railway. Or in the fall, cruise Skyline drive or almost any nearby rural road for fall sugar-maple color that blows away anything in the Northwest. I’d say that of all the places I’ve been in America, Duluth ranks among the top 10% most romantic.
So take comfort, Beaverton. You’re in good company.
I grew up in The Beav, and when I returned to Oregon and crashed at my parent’s house in 2003, I was pleasantly surprised at the ease of getting from our house near Hart/Murray Blvd to the Beaverton Transit Center. It wasn’t like riding in NE PDX, but The Beav deserves props for trying to retrofit an inner ring suburb and providing at least some facilities.
I’m sure I’d have a less sanguine view if I lived there now.
And it might not be romantic, but the plaza across the street from the public library (two lovely civic spaces that the city totally lacked in the 70s and 80s) was always full of families in the summer and made my civic heart flutter.