New renderings and open house for carfree bridge over Columbia Blvd in St. Johns

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

4 years ago

Screen Shot 2020-05-11 at 9.32.15 AM — Drawing from Parks bureau shows gradually-sloping ramp from Chimney Park up-and-over Columbia Blvd.

Screen Shot 2020-05-11 at 9.47.08 AM — Map from PP&R shows location of future carfree bridge with Kelley Point Park at the top, St. Johns Bridge in lower left.

The Portland Parks and Recreation bureau has a new survey and online open house for their Bridge Over Columbia Blvd project.

This project will construct a new path and bridge that will connect Pier/Chimney Park in St. Johns with Metro’s St. Johns Prairie trails. This is a key piece of the North Portland Greenway that will also close a gap in the popular 40-Mile Loop Kelley Point Park route. Once the bridge and adjacent paths are complete, we’ll be one step closer to 100% carfree access between north Portland neighborhoods (Piedmont, Arbor Lodge, Kenton, St. Johns) and Smith & Bybee Lakes

Planning on the bridge began in earnest last fall and today PP&R has opened up a public comment period. There’s a new online open house presentation (PDF) to peruse and a survey to collect your data and feedback (online open house closes May 31).

As you can see in the renderings, the bridge should be very bikeable. It will not have stairs or an elevator and will instead have an ADA-accessible ramp that Parks says will allow, “for the widest possible range of user experiences”. The path itself will be 12-feet wide with one-foot gravel shoulders. In addition to the crossing, the project will include new sections of path on either end.

Here are a few more slides from the open house:

Look at all that space to park those big steel vehicles some people use!

Bridge will be just southeast of existing entrance to Chimney Park.

The project is being led by PP&R with funding from system development charges, Metro and the Oregon Department of Transportaiton. Construction is likely to begin in 2022.

— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
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