“You should… take some streets out of service.”
– Mitch Green, Portland city councilor
Portlanders have heard for years that our transportation agency cannot keep pace with required road maintenance. As our pavement buckles under the pressure of an ever-increasing number of cars, no one wants to pony-up the funding it takes to keep roads smooth and safe. Something’s gotta’ give.
What if instead of playing catch-up, we reduced the amount of lane miles we maintained, thereby lowering the city’s overall financial burden? That’s an idea I’ve heard in activist circles for years, but closing streets to motor vehicle access to save on maintenance costs had always seemed like a fringe notion. Today it was thrust closer toward the mainstream by a Portland city councilor named Mitch Green.
Speaking at a meeting of the city’s Transportation and Infrastructure Committee this morning after a presentation on what Green called the “dire” financial state of the Portland Bureau of Transportation, Councilor Green said, “Every mile of road is a liability in terms of unfunded, ongoing operations and maintenance, which will then be always costlier in the future.” Then, speaking directly to PBOT Director Millicent Williams and Deputy City Administrator of Public Works Priya Dhanapal, Green continued:
“You should work with and have some conversations with the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability and talk about opportunities to take some streets out of service. Turn them into superblocks, turn them into cul-de-sacs, turn them into plazas… Community gardens even. Because if we do that, I think we can lower our expenses over time. I think we can create more buildable land, create more housing density, which will then allow us to have a transit and active transportation-forward city, which is always going to be less costly than continuing to rely upon vehicular lane mileage.”
Surprisingly, PBOT Director Williams said her agency is already considering the idea. “Our planning team is actively engaging in that conversation,” she replied. “There are a number of projects that are underway that speak specifically to what you’ve outlined.”
I’m still working to get more details from both Green and PBOT (to clarify what exactly Director Williams was referring to), but it’s worth noting Green’s inspiration. Before being elected to city council in November, he was an energy economist for the Bonneville Power Administration and previously taught economics at Portland State University. He also believes addressing climate change is, “the most pressing issue of our time.” It’s the twin emergencies of PBOT’s fiscal cliff and the very real impacts of climate change that are behind Green’s comments.
Councilor Green, a Democratic Socialist, is also an avid BikePortland reader who very well might have perused our recent guest opinion from Sam Balto that advocated for creating more cul-de-sacs throughout Portland as a way to improve quality of life.
Either way, given that PBOT is on the ropes in the fight for a balanced budget, it’s the perfect time for bold, out of the box thinking. And if you consider that PBOT already has mature street plaza, neighborhood greenway, and road diet (or what they call “lane reconfiguration”) programs; decommissioning even more lane miles in order to reduce financial liability and get closer to climate and transportation goals doesn’t really seem all that fringe anymore. (Also worth noting that PBOT has a lot of experience in this realm, like when they’ve partnered with folks to create “play streets.”)
The PBOT 2025-2026 budget proposal is expected to be released at the end of this week. The Transportation & Infrastructure Committee will then make a recommendation to the finance committee. There are more conversations to be had before Councilor Green’s idea is one of them, but at least the conversation has begun.
UPDATE, 4:30 pm: PBOT Communications Director Hannah Schafer has clarified their position on Councilor Green’s comments:
“Because we are investing so little in the maintenance of our streets right now, this wouldn’t actually create any significant cost savings, but it would reduce our risk and potentially add a small amount of savings to our overall $6B in deferred maintenance.
Today, we approach this work through the reallocation of lane space – i.e. changing the way we use our existing roadway space by allocating more pavement from heavy vehicles to less heavy uses such as bikes that will impact our assets less over time. Our street plazas are another example of reallocating pavement for public use. We are also partnering with organizations like Depave to transform lane miles to places through co-investment with adjacent businesses and community, but that is not representing any significant savings at this time (though there are certainly other important benefits!).”
In related news, tonight (Monday, 2/24) is the Streets of Possibility: Well Beyond Cars event hosted by the PDX Design Collaborative as part of their City of Possibility event series. More info here.
Thanks for reading.
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This man is a genius!
Super Blocks for the win !
Let’s start in SE !
Let’s create modal filters in clusters to create super blocks on neighborhood greenways.
Human Scale. https://vimeo.com/282972390
(580) Mon Oncle 1958 – YouTube
The most weird 1950’s French bicycle movie ever.
Will all the City Council members who volunteer the street in front of their home to be taken out of service please say “aye” . . . . crickets I bet . . .
I volunteer and I am not even a city councilor. Heck, I’ll tear the street up, plant a hardy ground cover, some trees, and maintain the trails for the whole block myself.
Given where Green lives, he might not have a paved street. Another D4 councilor, Eric Zimmerman spoke at a council meeting a few weeks ago about his graveled street, and how he puts out gravel where a sidewalk should be.
You’re 100% correct: I live on a gravel segment of road that was never completed, with the difficult sections given over to the wild. It is an effective cul de sac btw.
It was good seeing you today, Mitch. I’m so proud of the D4 team.
Was so glad to see you, Lisa!
Be careful what you wish for… The streets that are most likely to be given over to neglect are those with little traffic, which are often those that are the best to ride on.
If the street is “best to ride on” it’s unlikely to be put into a state where it would be worst to ride on. Don’t forget that, unlike with driving cars, encouraging more cycling is actually a primary goal of PBOT and the city of Portland.
Also, these plazas won’t require zero maintenance, especially if it’s already in poor condition when it’s closed off. BUT the amount of maintenance a paved surface requires is directly related to the weight of the things on top of the surface, which is then multiplied exponentially by rotating objects as speed increases. So, a lane mile of interstate highway designed to be carrying hundreds or thousands of 18 wheelers going 70 mph is going to cost a lot more to maintain than a surface city arterial with fewer vehicles traveling at 40 mph, which will be much more expensive in turn than a multiuse path limited to feet, strollers, and bicycle wheels going, at most, 20-25 mph.
I’d guess that local access would be maintained in these plazas, particularly for emergency services. If local access is maintained, that probably means resident parking, too. So, if you ask me whether I want my street closed off to anyone other than firemen and my immediate neighbors, that that meant that my street would develop potholes more infrequently, my taxes would either be used more effectively or possibly even go down, and that my only cost would be a slightly less direct route to and from my house, I’d say, “Where do I sign?” Bonus points for ending the cut through traffic on my street between 82nd and 92nd. 😉
Your taxes will not go down.
The idea that building a plaza over a given square foot area would be less expensive than a grade and pave urban street repair is absurd. That being said, I’m 100% in support of letting Portland roadways fall into utter disrepair as long as there is a massive boost in funding to create/maintain an adquate number of transit priority roads, ped priority routes, and bikeways.
Super Blocks do not prevent bicycle/pedestrian movements.
Super Blocks should encourage people to walk and ride bicycles.
Before after image shows paths for people walking and riding in green, cars in black. drivers can still access all driveways, just not all intersections.
Those who live along the green streets will gain, while those who live along the black-line street will lose. The increase in traffic on the black streets will create a serious pedestrian safety concern. It will make the black-line neighborhoods more noisy. It will degrade their air quality. Green gains and black loses.
black streets are those like Division, SE 12th, Burnside and other ‘collector’ or ‘arterial’ streets. the green streets are residential streets, preferably Neighborhood Greenways, which benefits the neighborhood, or a school.
People win when cut through traffic and speeding are reduced.
Are you really suggesting that there are arterials/collecters every three blocks?
“Those who live along the green streets will gain”
I’m not so sure about that. I know someone who lives along a undeveloped street in SE and says the dust from people driving there is awful in summer.
So wouldn’t they gain in a proposal that limits car traffic on their street?
I didn’t know… I guess a lot depends on the details.
Either way, I’d want to ask the affected people before making decisions that directly impacted them. As usual.
I think this is contextual to the specific neighborhood.
In downtown, planning around increased traffic on the streets where cars are concentrated would be a primary concern. Superblocks will do little to change the regional picture of transportation demand in downtown Portland, which is a primary part of what drives traffic in downtown.
In an east side neighborhood like Richmond, where the extant street network already creates quasi-superblocks around old subdivisions, there probably wouldn’t be a huge difference as the number of cut-through routes is already very small.
In the SW Hills or East Portland, the primary concern would be creating pedestrian connectivity within existing car-traffic superblocks and good low-traffic connections between superblocks.
I am generally of the opinion that superblocks make little practical sense in most of Portland, owing to the lack a of coherent grid. I’d be interested in a well done study for greater downtown (inclusive of NW+Pearl+Old Town) where there is a coherent grid.
I think what’s being proposed, based on the diagrams you’ve attached and how Portland typically operates, is that the green streets would be allowed to be turned into unmaintained gravel with huge East Portland-type potholes, the kind that can swallow Volkswagen Beetles whole, with virtually no city maintenance whatsoever – that the red lines indicating diverters would actually start closer to the black lines. Basically, each green street would more resemble a back garden or an extended driveway, likely with lots of weeds, garbage, camping, with a minimum of city access to pick up garbage, fight fires, and maintain utilities. Properties near the center of the 9-block squares would essentially be “on their own” and likely suffer drastic loss in property values up until developers buy them out and create “planned-unit development” (PUD) housing complexes and/or 39-story architurture Vancouver BC high rises.
The ideal would be that PBOT would develop each segment with gardens, pedestrian and bike-friendly infrastructure, and so on has to be tempered with the fact that PBOT is broke, beyond broke really, and that they will be encouraged to do nothing with the money they don’t have. “Benign neglect” will be PBOT’s new motto (the term borrowed from a very late PSU planning professor), “urban triage” as others have put it, abandoning parts of the commons not only to homeless campers but even to local residents who are still housed. Soon these culs-de-sac will have abandoned autos, bike chop-shops, unregulated marijuana gardens, booby traps, bathtub shrines – inner Portland will very soon resemble the worst parts of East Portland.
The black streets, as others have already pointed out, will be even more congested, particularly as Portland has narrow 60-foot rights-of-way that barely allows for one lane in each direction, maybe a turn lane, maybe on-street parking (or maybe not – replace it with a bus/bike lane?), lots of noise pollution even if all the motor vehicles are electric, and perpetual 24/7 noisy traffic all night long.
If you don’t want this form of hell I’ve just described, which is based from what I’ve observed on how Portlanders typically govern themselves (or more typically let things go to s**t), then y’all are going to need to be a lot more careful on how y’all do these blocks – each block needs to be carefully thought out and each set of blocks looked at as a traffic and utility network – with local maintenance and security plans, neighbor agreements, community associations, design criteria – basically y’all need to create a series of micro-Portlands that work in harmony rather than against each other.
“…with local maintenance and security plans, neighbor agreements, community associations, design criteria – basically y’all need to create a series of micro-Portlands that work in harmony rather than against each other.”
Finally, something constructive for neighborhood associations to do.
We’ve always been at war with South Tabor.
Yeah, when I lived in Portland I served on two different NA boards at different times, and in each case we had neighborhood chairs who personally didn’t like the neighborhood chairs of some of the surrounding NAs, so our boards didn’t get along with each other either. I’m a bit worried that such animosities will extend into these petty fiefdoms leading to gangland warfare between superblock residents, a bit like medieval Siena perhaps – maybe instead of annual horse races between neighborhoods to settle disputes, we might have bike races instead?
“…animosities will extend into these petty fiefdoms leading to gangland warfare between superblock residents,…”
It will be good practice in dealing with the ongoing effects of the here and now climate crisis.
It’s always been odd how climate deniers continually put efforts into preventing something that is already here rather than working towards mitigating the effects as much as possible. I guess one takes work and the other is fun to talk about at cocktail parties?
If you want to cut down on local pollution and noise pollution to the benefit of the able bodied that’s one thing, but to claim it’s going to fight climate change is something else.
The lib/dem climate crisis believers are not doing this so in the grand scheme of things there isn’t much difference between the deniers and believers
That lack of difference is what makes it frustrating when so much effort and funds are spent on the climate crisis that could actually help others in material ways rather than the feel good self centered emotional ways that only help the well off feel better about themselves.
Is there a lib/dem climate crisis believer/denier version of “twee”?
Underappreciated reference.
We’ve seen how PBOT “encourages” cycling. Besides, their idea of good bike streets differs from mine. I find I often prefer riding parallel to greenways.
That might have something to do with the fact that many residential streets often see lower levels of cut-through traffic and have roadways that are in better repair. I myself have stopped using neighborhood greenways on my commute because residential streets are less trafficked, less likely to be blocked, and more comfortable.
“residential streets are less trafficked, less likely to be blocked, and more comfortable.”
And, because there are so many more options, you can get a lot of variety of scenery without making your trip any longer.
I have to admit that I’ve discovered/rediscovered several new shortcuts by avoiding neighborhood greenways (Klickitat/Siskiyou and Rodney) on my commute. I have been zealously going out my way to use bike streets/green streets/neighborhood greenways for 26 years so my decision to start avoiding them is a real indictment of their decreasing utility.
Is this a serious statement? That seems crazy to me. The sharrows suggest that a particular street might be good for cycling. It would never cross my mind to avoid a street because PBOT hasn’t painted sharrows there. As a game while riding I try to figure out why some roads have sharrows and others don’t, but I would never take a worse/less convenient route because it was an ‘official’ bike route.
If this were actually true then there would be far more concern over the 49% decline in cycling mode share at PBOT and the City of Portland.
Neighborhood greenways are already crumbling into a morass of cracks, holes, sunken grades that are unambiguously unpleasant and dangerous for less risk averse people to ride on. However, it’s nice to know that bike bros are excited about their future gravel stage courses (former neighborhood greenways).
The streets with well connected home owners will get closed to thru traffic, the streets where apartments dwellers live will get the traffic.
Most people want their street closed off but they drive elsewhere in front of other peoples residences. Traffic flows somewhere, someone decides that.
I am pretty sure Mitch Green will get his road closed.
Would it really be the worst thing if Portlanders were competing to have their street turned into a bike/ped street?
Should we instead *disincentivize* the building of bike streets?
Or should we, because local power structures may reflect historic injustices, decide *not* to make bike/ped safety improvements, for fear that those improvements may benefit people whose ancestors were beneficiaries of historic injustices?
My favorite implementation of this is something like NE 16th and Tillamook. Existing streets would probably have to be something more like just concrete barriers without planters to stay narrow.
All that said I think there would have to be significant coordination with trash companies, fire departments, etc.
I’m all for this project, and it would address the annoying cut through traffic my street gets, but looking at services and emergencies makes it a lot more complicated than just adding barriers.
One of the most inspiring BP articles that has got my brain spinning over the last few years is „the Passoire filled Portland“, and now it has circled back around with Sam Baltos “Cul-de-sac” article last week. A bit of a long term idea related to this – would it be possible to incentivize housing density with Cul-de-sacs? – I would LOVE to live on a road that dead ended in one of these, and I would imagine it would also increase property values (which could help increase YIMBYism). What if the City said – Ok, if a street gets its density to X value, then you get one of these installed. Perhaps you would see a city block coming together and making a plan to densify – So-and-sos house becomes a fourplex, and then 5 ADUs, 4 basement remodels, and a 6-unit condo later and voila! We live on a cul-de-sac. You would have more neighbors (more cars parked on the road and people walking), but less traffic, which seems like a great tradeoff.
In related news today, bikebuspdx asked the city council to make a resolution to redefine neighborhood greenways by limiting cars to 500 max per day, as Vancouver, Canada has done. They recognize greenways shouldn’t be just a theoretical line on a map, but a functional part of a car-free, low-stress network that is accessible by kids.
They can define a greenway to be whatever you want. Without some actual physical change on ground, we will not have the functional, low-stress network you envision. I often feel the left has a warped view of social change in which systemic and entrenched patterns can be reversed by proclamation of the appropriate government officials.
Hey Micah, I’m with you on the skepticism part. Rules do not change a road, but bulldozers do. Not sure what this has to do with specific ideologies. On the surface this is just a non profit asking the city to make a pilot project on several residential streets safer by changing the (former) definition of neighborhood greenways (i.e., from 1-2k to <500). It’s a worthy goal. See the related story on BP for more details.
But I think you have a valid point: 1) the consistency with which PBOT has avoided their own greenway definition is staggeringly pervasive to make greenways largely ineffective, and 2) the difficulty even single divertor installations have been for most neighborhoods given any neighborhood resistance. The national PR Sam has accumulated with his non-profit (well deserved and not to be underestimated), may give PBOT some leverage to change those streets. And that is a worthy goal.
Changing the definition of greenways does not make anything safer, and my contention is that this manner of describing the problem and proposed solution reflects a theory of political activism that we might want to reconsider. You bemoan the fact that diverters are difficult to install due to neighborhood resistance. I would observe that the same dynamic is present on other bike projects and in a range of neighborhood types. Furthermore, as Watts sometimes implies, I’m not sure it’s bad that PBOT/CoP is responsive to “neighborhood resistance”. Where I think bike and transportation activists could be more successful is persuasion. I’m not sure exactly how to do this, but the neighborhood associations might be a place to start.
BTW: bikebuspdx is pure awesomeness and a great model to emulate. My comments are intended to further effective transportation activism not detract from any of the great work that has already been done.
“I’m not sure exactly how to do this, but the neighborhood associations might be a place to start.”
Neighborhood associations are a great place to start. Get to know your neighbors and those who are active in hyperlocal issues.
If people know you as someone who is measured, considerate, and informed, your opinion will sway others who maybe less passionate about an issue.
When I worked at PBOT as a lowly intern and later as a GIS technician (2000-2006), I met staff back then who were ready to vacate streets left, right, and center citywide for that very purpose, to reduce maintenance costs, help the environment, and so on – they felt that Portland blocks were too small and Portland streets were too frequent.
I also knew many planners both at PBOT and at BPS (and most especially at PSU) who absolutely LOVE Portland’s 200-foot blocks, very walkable, much smaller than in most other US cities, and who will likely fight like hell with every dirty trick out there to preserve every paved street.
There’s also large portions of the city without basic infrastructure such as paved streets and sidewalks, often (but not always) in poorer parts of town.
Obviously there’s room for compromise, but I hope all parties will be willing to negotiate block-by-block for the best solutions rather than act like Portlanders often do in public – make blanket decisions, take absolute positions and riot if they don’t get their way.
I believe the modern phrase is …. mostly peaceful protests if they don’t get their way.
I’ve heard that view for years (and agree with it) from architects and planners, and in every case it’s in regard to Central City blocks only.
In fact it HAS to be in regard to that area only because blocks elsewhere in Portland are typically much longer than 200′–and those same small-block proponents know that.
So I don’t see proponents of 200’x200′ Central City blocks objecting to street closures/reworkings outside that area. I’d think the “walkable downtown” proponents would generally be enthusiastic about the ideas in this article.
No one is talking about closing streets to pedestrians so I’m not sure why those proponents would object, even downtown. And honestly no one is really talking about removing access to driveways either, just maybe limiting access and reducing through connectivity on non-arterial streets. What is the value of car access every 200 ft, especially downtown where the streets become used almost entirely for pass-through traffic?
I agree with all that. And in fact when there’ve been recent proposals to close streets downtown to vehicle traffic–but preserve them as pedestrian streets–the same architects and planners that like downtown’s small blocks are often very supportive.
I think David’s comment does make some sense in cases (not the current ideas being discussed, like you said) where people have proposed removing streets altogether. And those still pop up. The Portland Art Museum link now under construction was redesigned to retain pedestrian and bike through-traffic after strong opposition to the original design.
I’ve never understood the small-block boast. I moved here from NYC and always preferred walking the streets to the avenues, because the lengths were longer.
Finally a lightbulb went off yesterday, I’m embarrassed it took so long. But if you are driving, and parking on the street, you can park closer to your destination if the block is small. It cuts back on distance needed to walk.
Of course, it also means an outsized percentage of the total city area is designated for cars. And that there is a smaller percentage of taxable businesses to pay to maintain it.
Huh; I have the opposite reaction. I like short blocks because it makes it easier for me to navigate by foot and by bike — streets make good geographic references, and it’s easier to travel on quiet streets when I have many alternatives.
I don’t find short blocks particularly helpful when I drive, but to be fair, that may reflect the particular (and relatively few) urban destinations I would consider driving to.
Most of those streets you say are designated for cars seem to me like they mostly benefit bikes. You don’t see a ton of drivers using the side streets to access Hawthorne, for example, but they give me a lot of flexibility and route choice when I ride there.
I’m thinking downtown Portland, not residential east side. In Manhattan, I’d walk up York, or the east river walkway so that I could avoid cross streets. But this was before Bloomberg vastly improved the walking experience.
You really think walking downtown would be better with larger blocks?
That would often mean walking further to get from one destination to the next.
Maybe if the blocks were larger TriMet could run longer Max trains instead of the miniscule 2 car.
Been a long time since I rode the train at rush hour so I can’t say if they are packed like they once were.
But really, until TriMet provides real security on the trains they will be very slow in getting back to their ridership, if ever.
The destinations are the same distance from one another, but longer blocks mean you have to cross fewer streets as you walk any given distance. Isn’t that obvious?
“Isn’t that obvious?”
I guess it depends on what trip you are imagining. I was thinking about a walk I often did when I worked downtown that required me to essentially walk “around” the block (and a few blocks up). I could see trips where you traverse along two axes being independent of block length.
Crossing fewer streets would be a bonus, though it’s not really a problem in practice downtown. It’s garage entrances that I don’t like, and longer blocks generally means you end up crossing more of them (because there are fewer block faces where they can go).
But since the downtown block size was literally set in stone more than a century ago, the question is completely academic.
Now you’ve sucked me in. I’m thinking miles travelled. If I have to walk a mile to get somewhere, I will have to cross fewer streets if the blocks are longer.
If Portland blocks a few streets (like it has already done south of Schnitzer, PSU) then that effectively makes fewer crossings and a more pleasant walk.
South of the Schnitz: longer blocks and fewer street crossings, but the crossings are generally much worse. I don’t know if that is tied to block size, but it plausibly could be.
Maybe it comes down to personal preference. Since I don’t plan too many new cities, so I mostly take what I find, and block size is not something I reflect on much when I’m exploring a new city.
It’s an interesting conversation, and my husband thought I was being unclear. Because he knows me, he knows I don’t like to cross streets. There is a reason for that: I’m under 5’3” and am not visible to anyone turning into me, except for the first car.
I had a very specific weird way of walking through Manhattan that would drive, especially men, up the wall: I would only cross avenues with the stopped cars against the crosswalk I was in—-I didn’t want to be in a position of someone turning left into me. A little different, and I’m revealing intimate details about myself.
But yeah, I always choose a walking route w the fewest crosstreets.
FWIW I really enjoyed living in SLC just a few blocks down from the Temple on South Temple St in the gentile apartment building (well, thats what we called it). The blocks are huge there and it was great being able to enjoy a walk or try to get somewhere without dealing with traffic intruding into my personal space.
So one more vote for long blocks.
That seems ideal to me. One (valid I think) reason people who like the small downtown blocks give for liking them is that they result in smaller buildings. It protects against the massive buildings with 360′-long facades places like Seattle have. The small scale of buildings here is something people from elsewhere especially seem to notice. Much as people like “Big Pink” (US Bancorp Tower) I’ve never heard anyone say anything positive about its massive base, which is double the length of other downtown building bases here, but standard in cities with long blocks.
Restricting or banning vehicle use on some downtown streets, but keeping them open for walking and biking (versus infilling them) seems like it could be the best of both worlds.
“Restricting or banning vehicle use on some downtown streets”
We have some experience with that. The street in Old Town with all the clubs, the street between the Newmark and the Schnitz, or the prereconfigured bus mall.
Do they deliver the desired results?
Yes.
Actually, one thing I DON’T like about Portland’s small blocks–at least compared to Seattle’s 240′ x 360′ ones–is that Seattle-s include alleys that at least in the past moved a lot of loading, delivery, garbage, etc. off the sidewalks. Downtown Portland blocks often have at least one side that’s compromised with those things, thus not very pleasant to walk past.
I spent 8 days in Buenos Aires in January.
They have longer blocks (in the modern areas 10 to the Kilometer).
One huge advantage of walking longer blocks is few interactions with cars. Add that to the fact that the big Avenidas have almost no driveways and walking there was pretty pleasant.
Even Avenida Graf Van Heras (by memory …) which is the main bus mall wasn’t as bad as (for instance) BHH or Canyon.
They also have some car free streets that are lined with shops open to the air – really cool.
The biggest issue is maintenance (sidewalks are beat up) and the fact that peds do not have the right of way over turning movements …..
The original design decision was in 18oo’s. Smaller blocks equals increased corner lots, which were lucrative to merchants back then. I imagine corner lots are still “cream of crop” today. There has been some cool modern-day neighborhoods designed within these constraints that are unique to Portland.
This article gives some examples:
https://www.pdxmonthly.com/news-and-city-life/2017/03/how-new-buildings-can-use-portland-s-ultra-small-blocks-to-save-our-urban-dna
It was also to replicate Philadelphia which also had small blocks back then, now a mix of block sizes.
Thank you, yes, those are nice. I don’t know east Portland well enough, but I’ve been wondering for a while if its incomplete grid could be transformed into promenades — a feature, not a bug. That’s how SWTrails has built a 50-mile network of trails, by building and maintaining trails on unimproved right-of-ways.
Meanwhile, Home Forward (aka Portland Housing Authority) is saying that PBOT is making them build a 2-lane extension of SE Woodward, between SE 46th and SE 47th. An area that is now a vegetation covered, dirt right-of-way. Even though the street would have no driveways to residences that front on SE Brooklyn, nor access to the new Peaceful Villa Development. Said roadway is not on the TSP, nor any capital improvement list. Neighbors were okay with a bollarded bike/ped path, that could be accessed by emergency vehicles if needed, but Home Forward (!) is insisting on the road. The zigzag to make the alignment work will create an open area similar to the SE 59th/Woodward site that was highlighted last week. C’mon, PBOT. Get your stories straight.
Oh man, calling it that is some grade-A gaslighting. I bet the neighbors can’t wait for all the “peace” this project will bring
Oh come off it. I live next door to a Home Forward building and it’s completely unremarkable. The street is quiet. People are friendly. I don’t know what you expect living next to one of their buildings is like, but I can tell you from experience that it’s pretty pleasant.
this is literally my street. this is the first I am hearing about it. considering bulldozers have been here, is this a done deal?
Home Forward did (IMHO) a poorly run public advisory committee process in 2022-23, and released a NEPA Environmental Assessment in late ’23. They held NO community-wide open house. Richmond NA was so peeved that they held their own in March ’23. Generally, concerned neighbors (including the folks who were living at PV) were treated like whiney little children. The HUD representative signed off on the EA in early last year.
There is indeed discussion of this at the Citg of Possibilty evenf this evening. One presentation indicated that Portland has a quite high percentage of land use given over to streets (as compared to other cities), so it seems like there is room to make some changes in use.
This could be accomplished at zero cost to the taxpayers by simply dedicating 1/2 of the right-a-way for properties that are not corner lots. He could sell the parcel to a builder for construction of, and then sell of, a small home. The builder would build the extension out into the street at no cost per City standards.
How much are we spending repainting the yellow centerlines on streets with no sidewalks? Repainting yellow centerlines on repaved SW 45th was a mistake, Dosch will be too.
The joy and pleasure of walking and biking could be exponentially increased by depaving. This would be a game changer for modal shift. More importantly, the spaces created would have value all of the time and nurture the people who encounter them all of the time, unlike our many stroads that radiate grief and danger when they are not grinding tires into particles.
Working out the methods and treatments required to make this work would be highly valuable for other cities. Portland could lead on this in a way that would make it a global destination and a global center for expertise in transforming fossilized cities into futurized cities.
It would be so unique in the United States that Portland would be a city that everyone would want to spend time and money in. It would enhance and inspire our creative economy.
Our previous city leadership, squandered the momentum of Portland by aiming to be in the middle of the pack. They used Portland’s reputation, creativity and uniqueness as a “brand,” but did not take any risk or provide any vision in return. They acquiesced to pressure from the PBA dinosaurs who just wanted to “put a bird” on a parking garage.
This proposal is the way forward for climate resilience and fiscal responsibility. Every dollar a Portlander or a visitor saves on transportation is a potential dollar that can go into the economy. Every dollar the city saves from building and rebuilding the destruction caused by cars is money that can be spent on more important priorities.
I am glad to see someone finally have the common sense and courage to put this long overdue idea in the spotlight.
PORTLAND: America’s premier gravel adventure destination
Finally. A reason for “gravel” bikes.
My upright town bike used to be an inexpensive road bike. I’ve changed to a gravel bike due to the poor quality of roads.
If we depave things, then I want the bike avenues paralleling the car avenues to be paved. Since it’s way less expensive to build a paved bike path, shouldn’t be an issue.
No snark necessary; the crumbling condition of our roads is exactly why I stopped commuting on my road bike (which now gathers dust) and started commuting on a gravel bike with 47 millimeter-wide tires. If the roads are ever smooth again in my lifetime, then I’ll hop back on the 25 mm-wide road tires.
Ironically I got into gravel bikes because of the rough conditions of the greenways in my neighborhood. Skinny tires were painful here.
I absolutely believe our neighborhood streets could stand to go on a diet and frustrate *vehicle* through traffic.
It’s harder to see cul-de-sacs. Strong Towns has some very firm opinions about them being fiscal sinkholes. They also don’t lend themselves to active transportation through traffic. From the safety standpoint we have other solutions, and if that isn’t enough, consider how much new construction is multifamily, courtyard, etc. They are effectively cul-de-sacs already (and off the city books,)
Here in Eliot, some folks already have detached homes with 100’ setbacks on subdivided lots, frequently without driveways. More of that is coming, and to other parts of town, so I see no reason to .”double wrap.”
Questions:
In an emergency, how would first responders access a house inside of a super block?
How would elderly people and those with mobility issues needing a motor vehicle get in and out of the super block?
Are homeowners with cars forced to sell their vehicles if their home falls inside of a super block?
If they convert their garage space to additional living space, will the city and county waive permit fees?
How would the construction crews access the site inside of the super block?
All houses/ apartment buildings could still have access for occasional heavy vehicle use.
After, 60% of Portland is converted to compatible-with-life transportation infrastructure, many residents with physical mobility limitations would be comfortable using golf-cart style vehicles.
I can totally see grandma driving 5 miles to see her doctor on her golf cart, picking through the rubble and debris of our former streets.
And to think that people here say I’m far out by extrapolating from already existing EVs and autonomous cars.
Why do think it is impossible to maintain paths for light weight vehicles?
If you have to invoke absurdities, your imagination is broken.
The status quo progression into environmental collapse will never love you back.
I didn’t think it is impossible, but remember this is all about saving resources by not maintaining our already existing paths for vehicles.
Theoretically impossible? No of course not. Absurd? Absolutely.
What do you think is more likely in 20 years: EVs and autonomous cars, or networks of golf cart tracks where paved streets once existed?
It’s not about what I want, it’s about what it seems likely to happen.
The most likely thing to imagine happening is a mindless intensification of the norms that we see now.
If your whole deal is to commit to a deeply flawed future, because you need a repetitive authoritative voice to feel confidence in your ideas, then sure… take a look around and say “my vision of the future and the solutions that I propose are more of this.”
You’ll be right tomorrow and the next day until you’re not. And, you would not have predicted Paris, and you certainly would not have contributed to creating a better world.
That’s not my deal. I talk about the future that’s coming if we don’t create an workable alternate vision. Good ideas that have no political support go nowhere; a carbon tax is one salient example, which I strongly support but no longer talk about because it isn’t going to happen.
That said, it is quite possible (inevitable, almost) that PBOT will pull back on street maintenance. The most likely outcome of that is basically what we have today but with worse streets, bigger vehicles, and increasingly acrimonious politics, rather than a world where everyone happily adopts golf carts* to get around town.
You’re right; the world is full of unforeseeable events that, by their nature, are difficult to foresee. But 99.9% of other cities did not go the way of Paris, and you have to consider those data points as well. While it’s not impossible, I see no reason to think we’ll get a Paris-like transportation transformation in Portland, especially not while our budget is in free fall.
We disagree. For the first time in decades, I believe it is at least possible that we’ll see a complete upending of current transportation norms in the years ahead.
*Where would we park them all?
It would be interesting to evaluate every-single city, but I think to reach that 99.9% number, you would have to incorporate many small cities that have fantastic micro/ sustainable transportation. If you stick to large cities, London, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, even New York have made huge strides that would not have been accomplished by the incurious, who are infatuated with mediocrity.
Three to four carts could fit in the single space of a car or truck.
“Three to four carts could fit in the single space of a car or truck.”
I highly doubt you could park 4 golf carts in a single parking spot, but regardless, you would still have the cars and trucks, increasing the demand for parking considerably.
I’ve noticed that despite an allergic reaction to new ideas you love golf carts.
Golf cart 92L x 48W
Cyber truck 224L X 95W
F150 243.5L X 95.7W
Standard US parking space is 216″ x 103″ [https://www.dimensions.com/element/parking-spaces]
Accepting your golf cart dimensions, if you had side access to the parking stall (which you generally don’t), you could park 4 across the stall allowing 54″ per cart. That would give you 6″ for you and your passenger to get into and out of your golf cart, assuming a perfect parking job by everyone.
If you don’t have side access, you could two golf carts side-by-side allowing for 3.5″ of space for access.
In either case, you still need to park the car that previously occupied the stall somewhere, and most of these spots would need charging infrastructure (it takes many hours to charge a golf cart, so gas-station style charging isn’t going to work).
Regardless of how efficiently you could park them, doubling the number of vehicles we drive and park is an unlikely solution to any of our urban problems.
I’m done with this topic; I’ll happily continue if and when PBOT proposes fixing their budget problems by building a golf cart network.
I’ll remind you that this started with the hypothetical of “How would elderly people and those with mobility issues needing a motor vehicle get in and out of the super block?”
One answer being, that in most proposed scenarios large vehicle access would still be preserved, but in the case we wanted to go with vehicles that have a smaller foot print and that could use non-car infrastructure, golf-carts are an example of something that we are all familiar with and have been used successfully in other environments. If enough of our transportation infrastructure is converted to ped/ bike/ ULV infrastructure, say 60%, these type of vehicles could play a major role for physical-mobility limited people without the negative externalities of cars and trucks.
“I’m done with this topic”
-Wow. Thanks. This ‘black swan event’ made my day.
It’s an interesting theory with the (for lack of a better term for them) golf carts. How do you see that working if people want to venture forth from Portland in the absence of an American version of the Eurail? Would someone need a car for exPortland travel and a golf cart for inPortland travel? I applaud looking outside the box. In my experience the smaller the vehicles used (rototillers with seats, small tractors and other small farm machines that did double duty as golf carts) the more chaotic the experience for everyone on the road. Less of a City of Tomorrow and more a manic nightmare. I would hope that the current driving insanity on witness in Portland doesn’t translate to to the future you are postulating as a possibility.
I grew up in a town with a network of bike/pedestrian/golf cart paths.
Some high schoolers use them to get to school. Some people who live close to groceries stores use them to shop. They’re particularly popular to get to the Fourth of July fireworks.
The recent advancement in batteries mean that they accelerate faster and have higher top speeds. Many of the most used paths are being significantly widened to reduce user conflict (head on collisions around sharp corners).
The topography of that town is very, uh, lumpy. There’s no flat ground anywhere except for a few relatively short sections of major roads that required significant grading during construction. When I was visiting my parents, I went for a run on the paths. It was one of the more difficult three miles of my life. I also was almost run over by a 14-year-old (ish) coming around a blind corner. Though they managed to stop in time, they had the same emotionless, dead look in their eyes that I’ve seen in drivers right before they almost hit me. Absolutely no (visible) reaction to what had almost happened.
Was it around Golden, Co? I really enjoyed their bike/walking/golf cart paths that were distinctly apart from the roads. Made it an enjoyable, calm and safe experience navigating the area and not flat at all. The view towards Denver after climbing up either of the plateaus was always incredible.
You bring up a good first hand experience of the mentally damaging aspect of vehicle use no matter the size of the vehicle or the age of the operator.
No, suburban Atlanta. The paths are often twisty and punchy (up/down) enough that they’re pretty tedious on a bike at adult speeds.
If you can get to them, the flatter sections are great for kids though.
It’s fun to think about. I could see a split for inter-urban and extra-urban travel. This would be a place for Car2go or similar service to fill the gap of needing a car for longer travel. I think one of the huge problems of our current urban travel system is over reliance on the interstates. It would be great to get all the urban traffic onto surface streets, but in order to do that well, we would need to have more suitable vehicles. If people used golf carts instead of cars for urban travel, there would be a lot more space on our network and room for high service and residential density. These smaller lighter vehicles would also play better with bikes, peds and scooters. But, I agree with Paul, they could be a menace if unregulated. It would be nice to see a 20-25 mph speed control and limitations on where they could be used. Ideally, they would make up 20% or less of mode share, outside of bikes, peds and transit.
The building of the interstate system instead of a train or preferably trolley system was really the noose around the neck of transportation geared towards humans. Further it facilitated the gradual decline of local foodstuffs and self reliance and locked in an addiction to petroleum to bring food and services from far away in clear detriment to local people and conditions.
One of my favorite futurist short stories was in the Car Sinister Anthology from 1979 written by R.A Lafferty and titled Interurban Queen.
If you get a chance I think you’d like it especially with your ideas on interurban vs extra urban transportation.
· Excerpt
(1896 A.D.) “And I will tell you another thing, boy: There is no future for the automobile. We cannot let there be! Consider the man on horseback, and I have been a man on horseback for most of my life. Well, mostly he is a good man, but there is a change in him as soon as he mounts. Every man on horseback is an arrogant man, however gentle he may be on foot. I know this in myself and in others
Commentary
“Lafferty depicts an America where electric interurban transport had won out over the automobile, which the group-centred interurbanites have outlawed. The picture he paints is of a friendly, idyllic land free of urban blight, agriculture and industry being blended into lovely, evenly-populated “quasiurbia”, unified by convenient public transport. But it is also a land where competition having yielded completely to cooperation, the individualist and the loner are not tolerated; and those who persist in driving bootleg cars are considered incorrigible menaces to society, whom it is the duty of all right-thinking citizens to shoot on sight in approved vigilante manner.
https://www.ralafferty.org/works/stories/interurban-queen/
Comment of the week.
Given our current progression, in 20 years I’d say it’s more likely a network of crap roads that are suitable for neither.
Owners of autonomous EV’s will lock out a lot of roads because they are tired of paying for the repairs.
I used to live on a road (Red Prairie road) that was originally a gravel road linking HWY’s 18 and 22 just west of Sheridan. When they paved it they did not rebuild the roadbed.
They put signs up prohibiting truck through traffic, but the Polk/Marion county line was a couple of miles up it, so no county deputies patrolled it. No city police did (outside Sheridan city limits). I think in 8 years I saw 1 or 2 State police cars.
As a result it was the de-facto cut through route to get between the 2 highways for truckers.
That road destroyed more wheels than you can imagine. When my dad got our first new car (a Chevy Chevette in 1982) we had to replace the wheels in 2 years.
I remember hitting a pothole once that launched the hubcap into space (well, into the Blake’s pasture, but we never found it).
Now, it is *possible* (not likely) to simple repurpose a percentage of roads to ULVs (of which golf carts are but one example) and save money in the long run on maintenance (narrow the paved portion and vastly reduce wear and tear by forbidding anything over XXXlbs dry weight except emergency vehicles).
This does not exclude fully autonomous ULV’s from operating on them either.
5 miles in a small electric vehicle that travels 18-20 mph is around 20-25 minutes depending on traffic – easier to park, less dangerous, easier to get in and out of, better visibility of surroundings, more room for everyone else. This is actually easier to imagine than grand ma navigating the 3-lane stroads and 65 mph interstate travel with complex merging that google maps recommends.
I am always suspicious that if someone exaggerates counter examples, they have a tendency to not like ideas that they haven’t already thought of, and have difficulty accommodating concepts that are outside of a narrow range.
Why wouldn’t I just stick with my car? Or are you imagining that somehow roads will be unpassable for the kinds of cars Portlanders already own, but easily navigated by a golf carts (which are also illegal to drive on the street)?
It seems like you are envisioning something like what was described in the article you linked. I see how you could build that in a rural setting, but how do we build that on top of an already existing city and save money at the same time?
You are right that this idea is (well) outside my conception.
“Why wouldn’t I just stick with my car? Or are you imagining that somehow roads will be unpassable for the kinds of cars Portlanders already own, but easily navigated by a golf carts”
It may be possible for speed limited micro EVs or carts could use the same modal filter infrastructure as bikes and would be desirable eventually in more housing/ destination dense settings. If high velocity travel was not necessary, people could comfortably use lighter, smaller more efficient vehicles.
“I see how you could build that in a rural setting, but how do we build that on top of an already existing city and save money at the same time?”
The article starts to address this. David Zipper has written more about it elsewhere. But, basically by remaking infrastructure as maintenance is required to fit appropriate sized vehicles.
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2023-golf-cart-kingdom/
In our family of five, four of our bikes have been stolen from our garage. Until something is done about crime in Portland nothing else works. Basic public safety needs to be #1 on every agenda.
Well, you were hoarding bikes and they needed to be redistributed.
/s
To get a rough idea of how many more streets Portland has than our peer cities, I compared the total street length, and street length per area in the Richmond neighborhood with the Bay View neighborhood in Milwaukee. After some processing, the length works out to about 37 miles in Richmond versus 56 miles in Bay View. Since Bay View is about twice as big, in per area terms, there are 0.118 miles of street per acre in Richmond versus 0.077 miles of street per acre in Bay View. We probably can’t reduce street length by one-third in any part of the city to get in line with our peer cities, but I think this dynamic is more useful to illustrate why PBOT struggles with basic maintenance (and someone else can compare the PBOT budget to Milwaukee’s DPW if they want).
Neither PBOT nor the city of a strongly stated policy on the topic from what I can tell, but we really should amend that. Reducing street length, width, and paved area all reduce PBOT’s future obligations for maintenance. Of course, as long as we refer to our streets as assets rather than liabilities, this kind of thinking isn’t natural.
What is this comparison supposed to tell you? That Richmond has too many streets, or that Bay View doesn’t have enough? Or that these are two different places with two different street configurations, and the question of “enough” doesn’t really make sense?
I think the idea that letting streets go wild would somehow benefit cycling is not well thought out.
I’ll quote myself: “I think this dynamic is more useful to illustrate why PBOT struggles with basic maintenance”.
All comparisons like this are going to be arbitrary and of limited value, but it tells me that Portland dedicates a lot of land to streets. We (as in the BikePortland comment section) probably broadly agree that some kind of rethinking of our streets is a useful idea.
We clearly can and should consider what streets to vacate, convert to other uses, or otherwise de-car in a logical and straightforward way. Cycling has a lot to gain from a well-planned street rethinking.
“Cycling has a lot to gain from a well-planned street rethinking.”
Do you really think we’re going to get a well considered and politically palatable plan on the time frame needed and with the available budget? If this happens at all, which I doubt, it will be slapdash and opportunistic, not deeply thought out with the depth of long term planning and commitment needed to make such a transition successful.
Or am I too pessimistic?
you’re too pessimistic.
If we tallied all your comments on here Watts, I bet about 95% of them would be contrarian or pessimistic. Not sure if that’s just coincidence in terms of what is posted here, or if perhaps it reveals that you are bringing some other issues with you when you come to this website that predispose you to throwing cold water on almost every idea presented.
My comments may seem negative because most of what I respond to is so ridiculous that it’s hard to take seriously, like the networks of golf cart tracks being discussed elsewhere, or the oft suggested idea of putting steel bollards in the roadway. Or the idea that the city can quickly come up with a radical plan to greatly improve our urban infrastructure and save $100M in the process.
Once you get away from forums like this, and engage with people with a wider variety of viewpoints, you soon come to realize that most people are pretty rational. In another context, I think most folks here would probably be rational too.
Meanwhile, I remain very optimistic. I think biking in Portland has never been better (I hear no one else saying that), and I see a plausible future without many of the urban transportation bugbears that have plagued us for generations.
Because promoting a constant crisis, an endless war on cars is what keeps people employed around here.
No doubt most of the commenters here are in the NGO bubble themselves, fully insulated from the daily routine of someone who works a blue collar job, especially one that (gasp!) requires driving.
So you can’t say we have it good in Portland, oh gosh no. You have to keep up the crisis narrative at all costs to maintain the illusion of necessity for the urban planning (and planning and planning and re-planning) industry. It’s like manifest destiny, except what it builds never seems to flood with pioneers and the end result is kind of like a giant empty plaza in North Korea or Turkmenistan….
You’d think that a democratic socialist would be laser focused on how to TAX THE RICH and reduce ballooning public safety spending (especially the wacked pay-as-you-go FPDR). This might free up some funding for implementation of a robust tenant bill of rights, a social housing BUREAU, increased transit funding and, yes, maybe even some additional funding for cycling infra.
Being thrifty with the public dollar is part and parcel of an enduring socialist government.
Being thrifty with the police (on the road to abolishing them) is part and parcel of socialism.
Yes, we saw how awesome that little community in Seattle did without police. Such a great idea.
How about starting with making them more accountable for their actions and better and more thorough training?
Just remind yourself, not all police are out to get you.
“Being thrifty with the police (on the road to abolishing them) is part and parcel of socialism.”
A light touch on internal security is not a characteristic I associate with many socialist regimes. It’s hard to build a worker’s paradise with so many sniveling capitalist saboteurs to root out.
Not trying to be overly snarky, but are you referencing the “never been tried properly“ kind of socialism or the socialist countries in the here and now with terrifying police forces that operate as the party leader(s) see fit?
Or perhaps is it the petrol Nordic almost socialist countries you mean?
I didn’t think abolishing police was tied to socialism. I’ve just seen them under the direct control of the party boss or committee.
Soren: Tax the rich
Will: Taxing the rich is “being thrifty” (austerity)
According to this red-brown logic, defunding the police to create socialist-approved programs has been strongly condemned by the DSA, SA, PSL, etc. for being “thrifty” (austerity).
Of course:
A. Tax the Rich
B. Rich see how much they are paying for a failed City
C. Rich move to a tax friendlier place. Afterall the Rich can afford to move. The rest of us can’t and are stuck with the tax bill.
Because this blog promotes some truly ridiculous ideas?
I mean any rational person can look at this and say “No, actually I don’t want to live on an undriveable gravel street with giant potholes and weeds and old sofas”. Any rational cyclist can look at this future and tell you that it will be a muddy, hazardous, unpleasant place to ride through.
Can we stop finding new ways to gaslight each other about dysfunction and incompetence? The answer can’t always be “stop enforcing this law” or “stop maintaining this public resource.” The city is falling apart while taxes keep going up and jobs move to the suburbs. Get a grip.
Yikes. We are just talking about ideas! I’m proud to have a platform where that is possible. It’s just too bad that some folks take what they feel is the worst-case and then act as if they are fighting against a fully-fledged proposal for that.
No one has said what this might turn into. Not one person has said any number of streets should be turned into gravel or dirt!
This is how projects begin. With someone saying, “I think this would be neat” and then other people adding their views. You can add your views in good or bad faith. I hope you choose the former and can help contribute to our community in a productive way.
Did you know that there are trails and paths, paved and unpaved throughout the world that are not filled with potholes, weeds and mud. Did you know that there are other methods of making permeable surfaces that grass or other vegetation can grow on that are sturdy and sustainable and require very little maintenance?
If we tallied all your comments and posts on here JM, I bet the majority of them would be overly optimistic. Some pessimism when it comes to the litany of worthless plans/policy/predictions/stump-speeches in PDX and some realpolitik when it comes to power-mapping might lead to clearer picture of what can be done to drag cycling out of its decadal hole.
oh I’m all for pessimism and I’ve had plenty of it over the years.
Maybe let our roads go to rot?
Thus necessitating even bigger 4WD truck-SUVs.
More plastic wands and concrete blocks, STAT.
I think it’s possible to get that kind of stuff yes. You can be as pessimistic as you want, but I’ll continue to believe that we can have nice things if we try.
I totally think we can too. But I don’t think this particular idea is going to get us there.
I think that most TWEE Portlanders have “nice” things (e.g. large SUVs, owned homes, amazon shipped stuff) and the polycrisis continues because the negative externalities of Portland’s immoral hyperconsumption are ignored across the political spectrum.
As do most untwee Portlanders.
Our fearless and most benevolently tanned leader is imposing tariffs that will likely reduce some of that consumption, and if that kicks off another round of wealth destroying inflation, it will reduce consumption further yet.
Nothing like a good recession to help alleviate the polycrisis.
I’ve been dealing with those benevolent emails from our most genius dual leadership and if that’s the level of their understanding of the government than the exciting opportunities of what’s left of the middle class and poor redistributing their wealth to the oligarchs is fast on its way.
An 1890s-style long depression would probably do more good globally that it would do harm in rich nations.
Depressions hurt the poor more than anyone.
I think you are greatly underestimating the impact of the climate crisis on the global south and greatly overestimating the impact of a rich-world credit crisis on the global south:
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137485557_3
South America and much of Asia had even more robust growth:
https://www.stlouisfed.org/-/media/project/frbstl/stlouisfed/publications/regional economist/2015/october/recession.pdf
Relative growth is unimportant. If poor countries grew faster than they would have absent a recession, then I agree, it might be a good time for them.
But I don’t think that’s what happened (though I have only taken a cursory look at the links you provided — do they show otherwise?).
And if a recession slows the global response to climate change, or slows the transfer of critical aid and technology, then it may still be a net negative even if some countries could make extra income selling off their natural resources.
I think I’ll stand by my assertion that economic problems hit the poor harder.
Well, maybe they should take a page from those RUGGED, MASCULINE Portlanders who are famed for their restrained consumption.
I’m not so sure that TWEE bike-bros are particularly restrained in their consumption.
The image of “twee” and “bike-bros” are highly incongruent.
Tweed bike bros?
What do you mean? The more electrical stuff I use saves the environment by overloading and frying the grid so when that fails and all the life skills I’ve learned are based on electricity then I’ll personally help depopulate the planet. Poly crisis and immoral hyper consumption solved.
Amazing how “bike advocates” again advocate against having properly maintained roads to ride bicycles on.
To claim that unmaintained roads are somehow more fun or interesting is pure recreational privilege. Tell that to someone who lives east of 82nd and has to deal with broken, ignored infrastructure constantly.
I haven’t read all of the comments, but I didn’t see anyone seriously advocating against properly maintained roads to bike on.
Unmaintained roads with potholes and giant puddles do a great job of calming traffic and slowing drivers down. Whenever potholes show up in my neighborhood paved streets, the last thing I’m going to do is call them in. Rather, I enjoy the traffic calming that they provide. Thus, unmaintained roads have lower vehicle speeds, so they are safer for bikes, and generally more fun to ride on.
Those giant potholes are dangerous to cyclists as well. It you hit one at speed, you’re likely going down.
This is a very ‘Strong-Towns’ type idea – moving the city towards being more fiscally resilient. This is a great quote!
“Because we are investing so little in the maintenance of our streets right now, this wouldn’t actually create any significant cost savings, but it would reduce our risk and potentially add a small amount of savings to our overall $6B in deferred maintenance.”
I think a lot of people are misrepresenting the idea.
It is not to turn streets to gravel…. The idea to make a lot of streets dead ends or blocked is the idea which sounds really appealing on the surface.
In reality the streets that are chosen would be politically chosen, the streets would be become gardens or plaza or whatever which also sounds appealing except for the political chosen part…
In reality if the garden/plaza concept worked out, cyclists would be shunted to the ‘main’ congested roads, the plazas would seem like private streets and it would feel like trespassing.
A lot of neighborhood/streets would love to be Private exclusive spaces.
How would you propose that they are chosen? Aren’t there ways that cyclists and other micro mobility can pass through? Seems like that would be important.
I assume they would be chosen the same way things are run now in the City.
The wealthy neighborhoods with political connections will get the good street treatments, the rest of us will have to find our way through.
The people who live on the garden/plaza streets will begin to consider them as private property and discourage the riff raff from passing thru THEIR plaza.
Oh my goodness, the streets in Portland Heights are a mess, have you been on Patton recently?
I’ve read all the comment with interest and have one observation. I lived on a lightly travelled gravel country road for many years down in Southern Oregon. This road dead-ended after a couple miles up a hillside, so no through traffic. It served perhaps 30 households, so light truck and auto traffic, the occasional pedestrian and cyclist, and a few lost dirt bikers. The road required considerable annual maintenance, new gravel and grading, to keep it reasonably passable. Because it was not a county maintained road, that work fell on the home owners. That was reasonable given the location. I’m not sure, however, that such an approach would fly politically when the roads are a more broadly shared and a more heavily used resource such as they are in a city. Thus, I’m not convinced that a network of gravel roads in the city would save much in the way of PBOT budget.
They will not be gravel roads unless Portland wants to be a third world tourist destination…
Sustainable road construction materials are an interesting area of innovation. We should consider if asphalt truly makes sense on every street, and if some areas can be limited to lighter, less destructive vehicles. This is one example of a different approach. I would assume that PBOT has fully evaluated these possibilities, but I am not certain, it would be interesting to know what the constraints are.
https://www.truegridpaver.com/products/truegrid-pro-lite/
“We should consider if asphalt truly makes sense on every street, and if some areas can be limited to lighter, less destructive vehicles.”
Yes to this! I can’t help but notice that there have been many materials used to build roads throughout humanities past and many of them are still holding up. Meanwhile, today’s default of asphalt does not seem to do very well.
“I would assume that PBOT has fully evaluated these possibilities, but I am not certain, it would be interesting to know what the constraints are.”
I do not share your optimism that they have evaluated any alternate substitutes/techniques. However, whether they have or not is a question I would love to hear asked of them in council chambers.
If you take the Hannah Schafer quote and translate it out of expert-ese gibberish, you can see she says the quiet part out loud — something like: “The real reason we do road diets and such is not to make walking and biking safer. It’s to save money on repaving.” Possibly explains a lot.
I thought her explanation was informative. I was on a highway going into Montpellier and noticed a humungous bike lane. Turns out that the city wanted fewer cars entering, so they took away one of three lanes —and, hey, why not give it to cyclists, although that wasn’t the motivation, limiting cars was.
Agreed, it _is_ informative for those who can translate. And because it goes a long way toward explaining why such actions often poorly serve biking/walking safety.
360, I see what you mean. It’s similar to what Keith Liden was saying a few months ago at BAC — facilities are often piggy-backed onto other projects, and don’t reflect bike network priorities.
Shcafer’s comment reminds me how PBOT often looks at budget and costs to the city in a very limited way. It is appropriate in some circumstances, but a true accounting for the costs of car dominant transportation would be a better way to look at the goals of these changes and where we could ultimately arrive if this were part of a comprehensive plan.
Nobody with driveways on their property and who owns a car will agree to have their street on their block turned into a park or garden.
I agree… so there’s one.
Are you really reading this article and coming away with the conclusion that the Councilor wants to land lock homes inside of new parks built where roads used to be????
Have you ever seen a bikeway diverter before? Have you ever seen a dead end street with (surprise!) homes and driveways on it? These are the models for the kind of infrastructure in question, not the absurdity you’re talking about.
To read some of the comments in this thread, it appears many readers are leaping to quite unsupported conclusions about the actual text of the article.
That’s how these conversations always go. You know that.
The reality is that what the Councilor suggested is pretty much what PBOT’s current policy is and has been for some time. They’re letting streets fall apart because they don’t have the money to fix them. They are not keeping streets good for biking in good shape. They’re pretty much not doing anything to most streets, inaction that’s likely to continue until the funding situation changes.
I think such visible decay, coupled with the perception that Portlanders pay a lot in taxes, will only strengthen the view that government is inherently ineffectual. Given the increasing number of problems we face where government is the only viable solution, I view this as a very negative outcome.
PBOT saying that they CAN NOT maintain all or even most of the roads is not getting the attention it deserves in this post. I would have thought that would have been the main point rather than all the odd (but fun) ideas that have popped up (to be fair as usually happens).
The council is in a very bad spot as far as budgeting goes and as much as everyone (including me) would prefer a much reduced auto footprint the reality for now is that autos are the majority resource and to not be able to maintain roads as has been done and is done all over the country and world is incredibly concerning.
Kind of a dying canary in the coal mine moment and the miner is hoping the canary is just taking a nap.
LOL, yeah, they did it to themselves so what do they expect? Oh that’s right, this is going to lead up to voting on some tax/bond measure for tax payers to pay for what they should have been doing all along. Then I guarantee if such a tax passes, they’ll spend it on something else. Remember how the Zoo promised Packy a retirement place if we just voted for a tax for them. Gee, once it was passed they said, nope they’ll spend it on something else and so Packy was left in miserable conditions.
What the whiners at PBOT could do is, “we are going to start focusing on maintenance. We will start with the hills (or some section of town) and work our way around until we’ve touched every area. It may take X number of years but we are dedicated to doing this for our citizens. We ask the City Council to stop spending the money we are allocated on your pet projects. If you want your pet project then you need to find funding for it outside of the current PBOT budget. Thank you and the tax payers will thank you.”
So all the whining by the City Bureaus is just a ploy to gain sympathy when they go out and ask for more money. Just remember how often our local officials have asked, and received, more tax money for schools and homeless and look how they’ve utterly failed at those. PBOT would be no different.
This is not remotely true. PBOT has been sounding the alarm for over a decade that their current funding isn’t enough to maintain our roads. In 2015 it was $1 billion over 10 years to fix them. Now it’s $4 billion. PBOT can’t take money from capital projects to maintain our roads. This problem fundamentally starts at the federal level which only gives money for capital projects. Most of those projects are for road expansions which makes the maintenance backlogs across the country even worse. The state to a lesser extent follows the same process although they do give some money out for maintenance.
To their credit PBOT has actually done a pretty good job getting funding for “capital” projects that don’t expand the roadway by making them about safety and transit. So they get to do things like repave Hawthorne and Division without adding to their already massive maintenance backlog.
“That’s how these conversations always go. You know that.“
Maybe I should! I’m just surprised I guess. The comment threads are usually free of outright toxicity these days… but the combination of pessimism, strawmanning, and leaping to absurd conclusions is such a bummer to read through.
It’s an artifact of the Internet. Can you imagine most of these back-and-forths (mine included) lasting more that 30 seconds in a face-to-face setting?
“I hear one of the Councilors is talking about not repairing every street.”
“Huh… Sounds like what they already do. ”
“Yeah. So how does your daughter like her new school?”
…
Meanwhile, here, we get into arguments about post-automotive urban golf cart parking requirements.
You’re right. It is honestly kind of a weird way to spend one’s time on earth. 🙂
Even if that were true, and even if it were true that it’s impossible to maintain driveway access through streets that have been turned into parks or gardens, there are still hundreds of street sections in Portland that don’t have driveways on them.
The streets on narrow ends of blocks often only abut the sides of houses, whose driveways are on the perpendicular streets. Even if there’s a mid-block house or houses squeezed in on the narrow ends of blocks, you could still close most of the street and maintain access to their driveways.
I keep reading the comments and wondering if commenters read the same article that I just did.
Homes made inaccessible by road closures? Depaving roads through neighborhoods? Turning entire lengths of roads into parks?
Where is any of this suggested by Green?
Has no one ever seen a bikeway diverter, or for that matter, ever seen a dead end street with housing (and driveways!) on it????
Has it become so hard to imagine Portland having anything *good* that we now read the news and start assuming the worst possible intent and outcome?
Sure, the Councilor is kind of spitballing. Sure, we’d all want to see more details before deciding if we like the plan. But FFS, this reaction is the local version of the global right wing hysteria about 15 minute cities. “Oh no, they’re going to put us in concentration camps!”
Apparently you failed to read the small print in the article:
PBOT is beyond broke. It not only is in debt on maintenance but it has no money for “depaving” nor for “turning entire roads into parks”, which last I checked, involves spending a lot of money PBOT doesn’t have moving sewer lines, water lines, and utilities, not to mention getting the neighbors and emergency services to agree and lots of public meetings.
Why would you have move sewer lines, water lines, and utilities?
In some cases, you need to protect them from water intrusion from above.
Source?
Conversation with city employees about design constraints for a project on Division. As I recall, a large water pipe under the street is why there are no swales on the north side of the street.
I did not fail to read that!
In fact, the first thing that stood out to me was how refreshing it was to hear a member of the Democratic Socialists make a proposal with the *intent* of saving taxpayer money by reducing the liability inherent in long term maintenance.
According to the statement from PBOT, it doesn’t look like it would save very much, or save it quickly. Still, I applaud the proposal as a benefit to riders and walkers, as a benefit to homeowners, and as a long term cost reduction to the City, even if that reduction is small and long term.
Isn’t that a win? Shouldn’t we be asking our Councilors to be searching for exactly this kind of efficiencies?
And I ask yet again: where in this article is any mention of depaving, building parks, or moving sewer lines?
Did you just read my comment and fail to notice that my whole comment is annoyance that people keep *adding these subjects in*?
Or am I misreading your reply? Because it sure seems like the purpose of your reply is to reinforce to me that PBOT doesn’t have the money to do this list of projects- *none of which are referenced in the article, but commenters have gone mad over!*
Sorry, I clearly misread your comment based what you wrote for your comment and the tone by what you actually wrote and how you said it – it sounded to me like a lot of snark and sarcasm – but if it wasn’t, I’m sorry if I have misunderstood what you were saying and not saying.
There *was* probably too much snark- maybe that obscured the point.
According to JM, Green said
“…turn them into Community gardens even.” implies depaving.
“…turn them into plazas…” implies city parks.
“…opportunities to take some streets out of service…I think we can create more buildable land, create more housing density” implies removing streets altogether, which in turn implies moving sewers, water lines, and utilities.
This stuff can get expensive very fast.
Don’t get me wrong, I too love what he’s saying, but I don’t like it when politicians get everyone’s hopes up by ignoring basic costs and economics, the sheer cost of making changes he’s talking about – it reminds me too much about that guy in Washington talking crazy.
On top of that, we’re going to save a ton of money! And we’ll have a wall of receipts to prove it!
I mean, maybe you’re just agreeing with me that these other projects were not mentioned in the article, but then why start with telling me I have failed to read the article????
Charley just pointed out clearly that Green didn’t say “depaving roads through neighborhoods” or “turning entire lengths of roads into parks” so it’s weird for you to explain to him the reasons why PBOT can’t afford to do those things.
And then after you apparently read his short comment completely incorrectly, you admonish him for failing “to read the small print in the article”? His comment shows that he clearly DID read it.
This lot south of Ivon st park at se 47th and ivon is owned by the city and also vaguely the park but it has no feature. closing the road and connecting it would basically double the size of the park while also making it safer for kids. you could even narrow the road for park parking, putting a bike stable or on one side further expanding the zone while keeping open the road for those that live on that block.
sorry if the image didn’t upload
Suggestion: To whoever lives near these potholes: Buy a few bags of cement. Set up yellow sawhorse closed road signs. Trowel and sweep out the mud and sprouts. Lay a light layer of sand, then mix, pour and level fast-drying concrete. A day later, no potholes!
Then PBOT will come out, fine you, and take out the cement without fixing any potholes.
Great plan . . .
I’m afraid you may be right, but hell, why not just do the simple repair?
Here in Greensboro (and many other cities) the city has something called “city academy” in which each week on a Thursday evening in the fall you visit different city departments/bureaus and learn from staff what they do. So for example at the Fire Department training facility everyone dons fire-fighting clothing and equipment and uses a fire hose (which takes several people to handle) and the more adventurous can even drive a fire truck; the Police offer ride-alongs and firing at a shooting range. Anyway, one of the more popular departments is what is known locally as Field Operations – they run the municipal garbage collecting, the city dump, recycling, maintain all sidewalks (all of which are city-owned), mow the lawns in parks and between the sidewalks and curb. They had various exercises us to do – picking up trash and recyclables races and riding lawn-mower races (they can pivot in their own axis) were the most popular.
One of our exercises involved filling in potholes. They had commercially-available bags of loose asphalt from Home Depot that once the bags are opened and exposed to air, the asphalt gets activated and vibrates like live worms! It’s really amazing to see! You shovel it into the potholes – the asphalt is very heavy and dense – then another person takes a tamper (basically a 4×4 piece of wood) to pack it down for more asphalt – and a third person then takes a powered stamper to it – it’s similar to a jackhammer.
I think that depends on the neighborhood. The good part about being in a neglected neighborhood is the city generally lets you do what you want. Especially if it’s a working class neighborhood with neighbors that don’t have time to be busy bodies. The bad part is the city generally lets your neighbors do what they want too 🙂
“Did you know that there are trails and paths, paved and unpaved throughout the world that are not filled with potholes, weeds and mud. Did you know that there are other methods of making permeable surfaces that grass or other vegetation can grow on that are sturdy and sustainable and require very little maintenance?”
Maybe there are places in the world where unpaved paths are lovely and easy to maintain. Let’s talk about how unpaved paths play out in Portland. For > 20 years I had a gravel driveway at my close-in Portland house. Lumpy, puddled all winter long, and weeds, weeds, weeds! I wasted SO, SO many hours of my life over the years trying to keep the weeds at bay without nuking the driveway with chemicals. A few years ago, I finally had a concrete driveway poured. I cannot overestimate how happy that driveway makes me every single day. I should have done it years ago.
Lest you think I am one who wants to pave over every surface, please know that is not the case. I have removed all lawn from my 50 x 100 lot except for a small amount in the parking strip. However, having a concrete driveway frees up time for me to maintain the rest of my yard. Also, the driveway is a nice solid area in which to do projects, including bike maintenance (since, in my small house, I don’t have a mudroom or a garage). Also, in my case, the drainage from both the roof and the driveway goes to a perforated pipe underground. What’s not to like about that?
Do you think Portlanders want their paved streets (with fire truck access, and no weeds) to turn into unpaved, gravel streets? I don’t think so. I certainly don’t.