The Portland Parks and Recreation bureau has finally had enough with people driving cars onto the Peninsula Crossing Trail in north Portland. This path is a key part of the 40-Mile Loop and an important north-south route that offers a carfree option for walkers and rollers between North Willamette Blvd and North Columbia Blvd, a distance of just over one mile.
Unfortunately, many people have erased this from their list of preferred routes because they feel it has become unsafe due to the cars some camp residents use and park on it illegally. For over two years now other neighborhood residents have voiced concerns through official channels. In May 2020, four neighborhood associations (Bridgeton, Arbor Lodge, Overlook and University Park) sent a joint statement to City Hall that stated, “We request that the City of Portland clear campsites located in parks, waterways and public paths.”
In the last year, the problem of cars on this path has become larger. When I biked on it in July 2021 I saw two people pull right off of N Lombard onto the path and numerous cars and trucks parked at campsites (see photos below). With narrow path openings and poor visibility, there has been alarming potential for a collision between an unsuspecting path user and a car driver. Now that potential has been all but erased.
Heavy-duty gates now block the entrances to the path. Parks has cleared a few feet and added pavement to the edges so path users can get around the gates, but the path looks much less welcoming now. The entrances are also much narrower than before and people pulling trailers, riding trikes or other large cargo bikes might not be able to maneuver around them (see update below for details). Parks faced a similar conundrum on the Columbia Slough Path back in January when they installed large concrete barriers to prevent driving, but made it nearly impossible to bike around (those barriers are now gone).
That might be welcome tradeoff, based on reactions from some neighbors in a KATU a story about this last week:
“The city’s Street Services Coordination Center tells KATU that keeping vehicles off the trail is the first step in the push to clean up and clear the camp, where neighbors have complained about cars speeding through and doing damage for years… ‘It’s been a nightmare for us here,’ said Corah. ‘They roar up and down the road, all hours of the day and night. Right now, it’s quiet because of the jersey barriers that are going in, and the gates.’
Corah’s wife was so happy to see the boulders, blocks, and gates, she hugged the workers installing them.”
One factor that has upped the urgency of this issue is the announcement earlier this year of a Safe Rest Village that will be located adjacent to the path. Commissioner Dan Ryan, who oversees the Joint Office of Homeless Services, is under a lot of pressure to restore a sense of safety to the path as that village site gets constructed.
I’ve asked Parks for a comment and more details about the gates and will update this story if/when I hear back.
UPDATE: 12:01 pm, 8/10: I’ve gotten more details from Parks:
There are a total of six gates installed ; they are at the entrances to the sections running from N Princeton to N Lombard, N Lombard to Fessenden, N Fessenden to Columbia Blvd. (gates at each entrance, total of 6)
There are 75 boulders, 30 “superblocks” (cast concrete blocks with chains that can be locked together, or stacked, but are hard to move), along with six gates to prevent car entry. All the barriers of any sort that are installed still allow for entry by people on bikes, with mobility devices, and/or on foot.
Regarding the cycling community comments on the gate bypasses, we identified this condition and facilitated repairs which made the bypasses meet the project specification of 48” width. This work was completed by 10 am on Tuesday morning (yesterday, 8/9/22). This project has been completed at the direction of elected officials and as such, we refer you to Commissioner Rubio’s office for any information on the rationale for this project.”
Thanks for reading.
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This is great! Teh bike access looks very sub-standard, though. Now do this on Greeley! And pave a route around the gates on Mt Tabor!
To add another reason to stop allowing people to drive vehicles roughshod through natural areas, the “Brood Gang” graffiti popping up on Greeley suggests that the “white power” tweakers previously menacing Schmeer Road are claiming new territory.
And keep the Tabor gates closed all the time. We don’t need roads and parking inside our parks.
I do much prefer Tabor when it’s closed to cars. But it should still be accessible. There should be a shuttle or an aerial tramway (or a tunnel with an elevator to the summit) for those that aren’t capable of making the climb.
There’s no common sense reason why every natural place has to be accessible for people with disabilities.
Mike,
I disagree- I believe in Universal Accessibility, but that does mean an elevator is required. Mt Tabor is a great example: When they close the gates to exclude cars, the paved road remains beyonda gate, providing a reasonable surface eto anyone who who can get around the gate to access the top. There are low-cost, standardized ways of creating an accessible by-pass toa gate that would allow a motorized chair user, a strong wheelchair user, a sight-impaired person, a person using a walker for stability, or a person pushing a stroller to access the road and still preclude cars. Instead, PP&R closes the gates and leaves a narrow dirt path (not universally accessible) for everyone else. Although it is ethically reprehensible to this at Tabor, PP&R gets away with it because it is an existing condition. The Peninsular Crossing Trail appears to be in violation of the ADA, but I cannot say for sure, I have not seen it yet. PP&R has aterrible track record of designing for universal access so it would not surprise me if they failed here.
“Every” natural place can’t be made accessible to people with disabilities, due to physical limitations of the places. That in no way means that we shouldn’t do everything we can to make as many natural places as possible accessible.
Sure, but we shouldn’t spend 99% of the resources to accommodate 1% of the population, who may not even be interested in going.
Please note that the stats are simply used to show there is a point where something becomes absurd.
I have a bachelor’s degree in parks and recreation and worked in the field a lifetime ago.
You’re partially right. There are dividing lines on how much to fund/provide such things; but prior to the Americans with Disability Act, handicapped individuals had very very little access.
The law improved such things as restroom accomodations, curb cuts, railings. Things that far more than 1% use.
You mean 26% of the population. Probably higher.
Middle of the Road Guy, do you even listen to yourself?
Mount Tabor has natural areas within it, but it also has basketball courts, playground, and picnic areas. Picnic areas are rented out months in advance. Car access is needed for things like family reunions, day care groups, etc.
So maybe not all natural areas has to be accessible for people with disability, but there are several common sense reasons why Mount Tabor needs to be accessible to all
No common sense reason? Really?
Sounds (reads) like Utah…
Great, now do this for the entirety of the 205 and Springwater MUPs.
There is no acceptable reason to allow cars and trucks on the path and it’s outrageous that we’ve normalized this phenomenon.
The prolific evidence of drug and alcohol abuse on the trails also makes it clear that the people operating these vehicles are likely intoxicated.
I do not expect the “Safe Rest Village” to improve the usability of the trail. Spillover activity will be difficult if not impossible possible to prevent. It’s my opinion that no sanctioned camp should be located where it will immediately impact others. Too bad our elected leaders don’t care about their constituents.
I understand the frustration and concerns for safety with camping on MUPs, but this statement is truly bewildering.
If we want to end the epidemic of homelessness then we need to provide people with shelter; tiny house villages are one step in that direction. But obviously they will be living somewhere where they will “impact others” because we all coexist in society and in this city. Moreover people experiencing homelessness are still people and need to have access to things like jobs (many people have jobs and still lack housing), transportation, social services, medical care, recreation — all the things to which every person deserves to have access.
Comments like yours, similar to the NIMBY excuses from every neighborhood that sees a Safe Rest Village coming their way, imply that we should just send people to some encampment on the edge of civilization so that “they” don’t affect “us” or our neighborhoods in any way. Besides being deeply inhumane it should be immediately obvious that this won’t result in a departure of people camping in the places they are in now — because again, they need access to all of the things that are in the neighborhood.
People who have no other options camp where they do because of a combination of access to necessary resources for survival and less chance (perceived or actual) of being harassed or evicted. Given that we know we can’t simply arrest everyone — and we wouldn’t have anywhere to put them if we did — housing has to be a neighborhood affair or the same people will simply move back to those neighborhoods.
But we have been doing it that way and it’s not working. I just saw a report that many of the rest villages are not even at capacity nor are the shelters – they are not even using the ones available now. People just want to set up and claim wherever they want on public spaces regardless of the impact to everyone else – they really just don’t care. I never thought I’d say this even 4 years ago, but I feel we have gotten to the point that we need a across the board city wide ban that is enforced on unsanctioned camping.
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/homeless/portlands-homeless-shelters-arent-always-at-capacity/283-1b3dcb88-6742-45ba-9111-98eb2f76b17d
Free housing for up to 12 months? Curious that it isn’t totally full. I wonder why?
This is not ‘Nam, Chris. There are rules.
Housing First! https://endhomelessness.org/resource/housing-first/
Then required drug treatment programs.!
Then what?
We have, and I cannot stress this enough, not been “doing it that way”. Every time some NIMBY complains about how we’ve been “doing things” and it isn’t working it absolutely blows my mind. It’s either willful ignorance or plain dishonesty.
We haven’t been “doing” anything to address homelessness. Nothing that anyone actually thought would actually fix it.
What happens is someone makes a big show of putting up a couple of tiny homes or doing some such other cosmetic bandaid, they make a big show of it and give people the impression that this was a “fix” and then people are surprised that we haven’t solved all the problems with the snap of a finger.
We have things like that Agape Village where nobody could possibly reasonably be expected to use it. Be sober? Half the people in this city are not “sober” by their rules, it’s dehumanizing and unrealistic to expect that kind of nonsense to put a dent in homelessness.
Comment of the week!
Totally agree. We cant just allow people to set up camp any where they want. We do people a disservice allowing them to wallow in their own filth. If people want to “camp” they need to be forced to act like “campers” and only possess the basics like a tent, sleeping bag ect.
The epidemic is getting worse almost daily.. the shelters they built are not filling up because if you give people a choice to camp wherever they want, they will and are going to do so.
I am not sure what you and others are even advocating for? Allowing tent camping has quadrupled the number of people that are in the situation.
A complete failure. A complete lack of compassion.
The city owns or has leases on many large parking garages that could be used to house people in sanitary safe conditions to triage them and give them the services and help in 1 or 2 facilities for those that are trying to transition to real housing. We have the money, just need to do it.
The people who choose not to will have to leave the city and get a life somewhere else. There is not more we could do for them. If they can find private property owners that allow them to camp, they can.
Allowing Tent camping is the worst option, unsafe, unsanitary, hopeless.
Why would anyone want to continue the status quo?
I think a lot of people here are longing for the days when people locked up their disabled & “eccentric” relatives in the attic.
Like John said, the idea that we have been “doing” anything is either willful ignorance or plain dishonesty. We haven’t been “doing” anything to address homelessness.
There are many reasons that the shelter is not filling up. Sure, we have programs for people. In reality, there are *so many* roadblocks built in! First, you have to meet the qualifications, which might be very strict & leave a tiny window. Then there are rules. Everything has rules, right? No big.
Every so often, they add a new rule or change old ones. People may or may not tell you about it. Then what? You’re out, and have to start all over again
This is comment of the week material. Thank you for this well worded reply.
“It’s my opinion that no sanctioned camp should be located where it will immediately impact others.”
How does this even make sense? There is no land in the city that fits this description. This is a very short sighted positioned as sanctioned sites are far, far better than the unsanctioned street camping status quo.
“No sanctioned camp should be located where it will immediately impact others.”
If residents are well behaved, and the camps well managed, they won’t impact neighbors.
I ask my neighbors to behave well, is that too much to ask of residents in “sanctioned camps”?
You have no actual recourse if your neighbors don’t “behave well” whatever that means. So you can ask all you want, just like you can ask people without a home. This is what it means to live with neighbors.
I do in fact have recourse; if they leave piles of junk in their yard, for example, I can call the city and they will take care of it. If they’re outside screaming all night in a drunken rage, there is at least a chance the cops will show up to tell them to keep it down. If they do something dangerous, or damage my property, I can sue them.
And, as you say, sometimes just talking will sort out the issue (this has always worked for me). If a sanctioned camp is well run, that should be enough to resolve the few issues that aren’t handled proactively by the management.
If the camps are unwilling or unable to be a good neighbor, they have no business setting up in places that will impact others.
Uh, you actually do
Chronic Nuisance Property
Of course, if my neighbor was shooting guns in the middle of the night, dealing drugs, blocked the sidewalk, and threatened people walking by, they would (in normal cities) be dealing with the police.
Stop trying to normalize the idea that living next to camps made up of drug addicted transients who are allowed to do whatever they want is somehow just ‘city life’.
That’s nice – can we get them on Greeley bike path, as well?
Welp, if past performances are any indication, I’m sure someone will sacrifice a stolen car or two and bulldoze the posts down – Like the ones on the bike path near Kelly Point Park – so the ‘camp residents’ can get on with their busy lives.
And this insinuation that the concrete blocks made getting onto the slough path via bike extremely difficult is beyond hyperbole. They were easy to slip through and they made the path seem that little bit safer.
It’s funny, I used to think I was so liberal and progressive. This site makes me feel like my views are to the right of Bob Dole, sometimes.
.
Bob Dole today would be left of a lot of US Congress folks…
That gate will be removed and sold for scrap by the end of summer.
my portable angle grinder could take care of that in 10 minutes.
It was easy for trikes or trailers to slip through?
Will my trike and trailer work on the jump lines at Gateway Green? No? What an outrage!
Perfect is the enemy of good, as the saying goes. You can’t take a moving van through drive-through at Burger King, but you can park it and walk up to the counter.
If you’re going to ride a non-standard bicycle, expect some adaptation. I’m sure there’s a Neighborhood Greenway nearby that will accommodate your needs.
please keep these gates as-is. who at Parks do I email in support?
it’s a huge relief to be able to have these spaces remain car-free and the impact to the neighborhood in just the short time they’ve been up has been immediately noticeable. for the first time in over 8 months I’ve been able to regularly use the trail instead of avoiding the area. there is a noticeable decrease in trash, human waste, abandoned cars, and motorized vehicles on the path.
On a related note, anyone know what happened to the gate at Kelley Point Park? Last time I was there, it looked to have been sawed off.
sawed off and sold for scrap.
And now we are all persons experiencing gatelessness
I’m generally in favor of infrastructure that diverts autos away from where they shouldn’t be. But, if it’s at the expense of also diverting the intended users then it’s not really fit for purpose. From these photos, it looks like access around that gate would be difficult or impossible with a wheelchair or walker (in addition to the aforementioned trikes, trailers, etc). If it’s not ADA compatible then I don’t see how this can — or should — stay. There have to be solutions that greatly reduce the possibility of unauthorized car access which don’t reduce the allowed audience to a select band of abled walkers and bikers with the “right” type of mobility device.
I agree. The solution before as shown in one of the pictures was a pole in the middle of the path that was locked and removable. It was great, I rode my bike there many times. But it was destroyed. I don’t see how this gate is going to do any better as far as being angle-ground away, so I don’t see why they didn’t just fix or maybe reinforce the old solution. E.g. if the poles that the gate is attached to are somehow sturdier, why don’t they just use that same pole in the middle of the path?
I remember taking a nice walk and picking some cherries off a big tree along this path before it became what it recently was. I also seem to remember cars not being an urban campsite staple but that was several years ago. I hope they can improve the access points while still keeping cars out.
Awesome! Last time I was on Lombard at that trail crossing, it was a total mess. Mud all over the road from cars going in and out of the park. Shame that trailers and cargo bikes will have trouble navigating the entrance, but it’s a necessary evil. Hopefully this trail will become an amenity that will be usable by the whole neighborhood from now on.
I went camping this weekend. Needed a permit, though.
And I’ll bet you got one.
Camping is a human right! And by camping I mean stripping stolen cars in the middle of a MUP
First there was “camping”, then “glamping”, and now “stramping”.
I’m thankful they installed these gates and blocks, but people stopped using the PCT long before the proliferation of people driving on it. The PCT is one of the absolute worst encampments in the city. I adopted a ‘never after dark’ policy before the pandemic that turned into ‘never’ policy in 2021. I’m a decently strong man. I can’t imagine how uncomfortable vulernable folks were and still will be as the city allows the drug den to continue on.
Unfortunately the Safe Rest Village shanty town will only make things worse. The path is gone forever (or until we get competent leadership), but this is something. It took them two years when it should have taken two weeks, but it is something I guess.
And a gate is a band-aid approach.
Well, glad I never have to use that path – I’m strong enough to pick up my trike and portage over, but that’s just obnoxious. Not enough to keep people from breaking it and driving on it anyway and not designed to allow anything but an ordinary DF through.
How often were you riding on this path in the first place? This is signficantly better. User concerns don’t really matter because the City of Portland has given this space over to transient drug addicts/dealers. No one was recreationally using the path in the first place because its super dangerous. If we provided space for wider things to get through, it would just make it easier for them to get their vehicles in.
If you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile (literally). The path is de facto closed. They should have put up fences as well.
“If we provided space for wider things to get through, it would just make it easier for them to get their vehicles in.”
Why? Aren’t even wide cargo bikes narrower than the narrowest cars?
Indeed – my trike goes 30″ or so in width, 36″ is more than enough to allow me through (I’m [pretty sure 36″ or a bit less is what the gate on the Springwater on the Willamette just south of the bridge is – on Umatilla. I don’t charge through that at speed, but have no problem making it.
Shoot, take 3 jersey barriers and build a chicane. If workers need to get through have them bring a forklift to move the middle barrier.
That would actually do the trick and be passable to all people.
Oh, and while I haven’t used that path in years, my concern is that this becomes a common treatment and is used on paths I *do* use.
I suppose it depends on how its done. Before they they installed the gate they used blocks, but the drug dealers moved them. If they did something substantial and unmovable, it’d be fine, but its CoP, they are going to do the bare minimum, poorly, and years late.
Or conventional bikes with panniers, or recumbents…
Or the motor scooter I used to ride before it was stolen
I used this path recreationally and for regular transportation to get to the store. Yes there was a camp. They didn’t block the path and you could ride right by it. It really wasn’t a big deal.
I honestly don’t know where stuff like this comes from. It feels like you’re trying to gaslight me because they blocked the path all the time. You could see them parked on the path from both Lombard and Willamette without stepping foot into the park. Multiple times while riding on Lombard, I had a motorist almost right-hook me when they erratically turned through the crosswalk and almost hit both me and people walking on the sidewalk. Not to mention the damage they did to the path. The few times I went in there the path was in terrible condition, covered in mud and debri from their tires. Sketchy as hell.
It was a big deal. I’m glad it didn’t bother you but it bothered pretty much everyone else. All of that on top of the fear of the dangerous people who live/deal drugs in there. It made the path unusable.
Wait until Jonathan finds out about all the concrete blocks on the Marine Drive MUP!
I’m tired of being at the back of the line in our housing emergency: paths you can’t ride, sidewalks you can’t use, and parks you can’t go to… yet the streets and highways are wide open.
Yeah! BUT designing trail gates that can be “all-bikes” friendly should not be such a difficult task for parks department if they took more than a moment.
“the path looks much less welcoming now”…as opposed to the hellish landscape it had become? Love the gates.
Glad you followed up on this spot. This isn’t anti homeless or anything though. It has everything to do with illegal motorized vehicle access. Difficulty accessing for cargo bikes is a small trade off for protection of pedestrians and bicyclists from vehicle activities.
I think they should accommodate urban campers that have cars too though. I suggest the center grass median in SE Reed College Place between SE Woodstock Blvd and SE Crystal Springs Blvd. The streets are flat and these are unregulated parking spaces with excessive restrictions. They can park legally along the streets and camp in the middle. Problem solved.
#cotw
Thank you to the neighborhood associations who pressed this issue!
I’m curious why Parks didn’t just use bollards spaced closely enough that cars and trucks couldn’t get through, but everything smaller could. Elsewhere on paths, Parks often uses three bollards, without gaps too small for cars or trucks, and with the center one locked but removable for Parks truck access.
It seems like a design problem that’s been solved hundreds of times by Parks, and hundreds of thousands of times all over the world where people want good access except for cars and trucks.
There are some bollards in the photos above, so Parks must have a reason why they switched to gates. But if they did need gates, why not add a bollard outside the gate, far enough away that a cargo bike or stroller could go through, and pave that space?
I’m looking forward to hearing what Parks says.
If they use the types of bollards you see on the Springwater, they’re useless. They’re chained down, or are supposed to be, but the chain and locks get cut and tossed. The bollards then get chucked to the side and anyone can drive on through. I’m on the Springwater weekly. The bollards used to be fine and worked, but they don’t deter anyone now since there are no consequences for much of anything lately.
There was an RV under on the Springwater under 205 a few months back. It very unsurprisingly went up in flames (a bunch of the remnants are still kicking around). It absolutely blew my mind that anyone got it there. Total madness.
I wonder if they wanted to be able to get park vehicles thru, I’m order to help with maintenance
I’m sure they do. That (and emergency vehicle access) is also why Parks uses removable bollards in the center of paths. I could see Parks preferring gates to bollards in places where they need frequent truck access, because the gates are probably easier to use.
Has anyone measured the gaps on the outside of the gates? There is much “clutching of pearls “ in these comments about the access for wider rides. ADA requires not less than 30” for wheelchairs. The gaps appear to be wider than that. Furthermore ADA surfacing requirements do not insist on pavements. Several surfaces, when compacted are compliant. I drag a trailer and could easily pass through that gap. I will chalk the comments up to the standard BP practice of complaining about improvements
Here’s more I just got from Parks:
1) ADA width for an accessible path is 36″, with 32″ at squeeze points. It’s not 30″. And those are MINIMUMS, not desirable widths. Even a Smart car can’t fit through a 5′ opening, so it makes no sense to skimp on width.
2) There are surfaces that can be compliant other than asphalt, but none would make sense at these gates, and the asphalt was already being installed, so should have been made wide enough for easy access.
3) Per Parks response in Jonathan’s reply to you, Parks’ own width specification was 48″, which seems good, and Parks noted they’ve (commendably) made repairs (widening) at locations where the original installation failed to achieve that.
4) “I will chalk the comments up to the standard BP practice of complaining about improvements” is tiresome. Parks installed the gates to block vehicles from entering the paths, which is great, but they did it in a way that made it difficult for some legitimate path users to use the path, which was a problem.
From Parks’ response, I get the impression Parks widened several bypasses due to hearing from “complainers”, but Parks also may have already noticed the bypasses were too narrow. In any case, isn’t Parks better off to hear from people who identify problems, especially in cases like this were Parks almost certainly will be building more? If I were Parks, I’d rather hear of a problem after the first set was installed, rather than having people wait until there were dozens needing widening.
Identifying problems is constructive.
That Aptekar dude’s pride and joy was the Portland.
#3 occurred, because Parks & Recs didn’t exercise the common sense of measure twice, cut once, so they measured once, cut once, measured again, and cut once more.
Correction: Aptekar dude’s pride and joy was the Portland Loo toilet. He was, perhaps still is the ambassador and spokesperson for the crapper.
They failed to install signs clearly saying mopeds, stolen motorcycles, or motorcycles in general for that matter are prohibited.