The City of Portland will bring its popular Sunday Parkways open streets event back to downtown this summer. It will be the first time since 2019 the event graces our wonderful central city; but there’s more to this event than meets the eye. When the Portland Bureau of Transportation announced this year’s four Sunday Parkways back in March, I wondered why the downtown edition was the only one they didn’t reveal any route info for. Last night it began to make a bit more sense.
At a meeting of their Bicycle Advisory Committee on Tuesday PBOT revealed the route (above) of the September 14th Downtown Sunday Parkways. The event will feature a loop of carfree streets stretching from SW Harrison to SW Oak Street. The bulk of the 2.3-mile route will consist of a one-block couplet of SW Park (along the South Park Blocks) and SW Broadway, with an east-west spur from the Park Blocks to SW 2nd via SW Harrison (through Portland State University) and SW Mill. It’s not the highest-profile set of streets we could have had, but SW Broadway through the heart of downtown will be very cool to experience carfree.
PBOT staffer Rachel Lobo said the route is, “Based on the moment in Portland we’re in right now,” and that they are, “Really wanting to support our local businesses, organizations, and the arts and culture that is downtown and help people rethink what it means to visit Portland’s living room.” The idea, the staffer said, is to, “create a vibrant, block party style event in the heart of downtown.” Highlights on the route will be Directors Park, Pioneer Square, the PSU Farmers Market, Lovejoy Fountain, the Cart Blocks on Burnside, and so on.
And what will make the event even more intriguing is how PBOT plans to tap into the local bike bus revolution and entice Portlanders to come downtown by bike from their neighborhoods. For the first time ever, PBOT will offer guided rides on vetted (and possibly even signed) routes to entice folks to pedal downtown. “We feel this is a great opportunity to showcase to people how to get downtown bike bike,” Lobo said at last night’s meeting. “We feel like the bike bus model, which has been so popular with kids and adults is a great way for us to be that support system for people.”
PBOT is eyeing seven different routes for these “guided neighborhood rides” and is looking for volunteer ride leaders that would ferry folks along each one of them. The rides would begin at community gathering spots like bike shops, community centers, and schools. In addition to getting more folks downtown, PBOT’s goal is to use the rides to educate people about safe bike routes and empower people to ride more — and maybe expand their sphere of confidence beyond their own neighborhood.
The routes are still in draft form and PBOT is asking BAC members, bike bus leaders, and anyone who’s part of an existing riding group to volunteer as ride leaders.
The idea was very well-received at the meeting. Jessica Fletcher, a bike bus leader in St. Johns who was at the meeting to encourage PBOT to do more to make streets on bike bus routes safer, spoke up to say, “I felt like doing a standing ovation, because it really reflects the movement of the bike bus that it is now implemented by the city, and it is very powerful.”
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I think the liveliness of Portland’s existing neighborhoods is another reason why downtown has failed to recover. I am far less willing to bike 9 miles round trip to visit business A in downtown PDX when there are similar or better businesses B, C, D… within a 1-2 mile range around my home.
What downtown businesses are left and what can you buy there? I suppose Pete’s Market has plenty of Swisher Sweets and fortified wine
Really looking forward to this!
One comment, I think that map of the 7 routes into downtown speaks to how cut off those of us south of Powell and east of 99E feel when it comes to cycling, at least times. The connectivity of the Greenways in this area just isn’t as good as it is other places. I want to join one of those rides into town and will likely go with the one that goes through Richmond as it’s safer to get to than the one on the Springwater, even though the Springwater is closer.
Interesting. I don’t draw the same conclusion from this map of the volunteer-led group rides to get downtown as part of the event. I live in Woodstock and getting downtown feels much more connected/intuitive/chill from here than say, the north side of Tabor (to me at least).
If I were interested in joining one of these rides from Woodstock, SE Clinton-based route feels pretty convenient.
At least SE is represented, North Portland does not exist on the map! I am guessing that the yellow route is intended for North Portlanders, but the route is entirely within NE Portland. The majority of North Portland is obviously north, but also pretty far west of the northernmost point of this route. Most of the routes in North Portland funnel to Willamette between Greeley and Concord. That makes the deficient lanes on Interstate the most logical, but they are so bad it is not surprising they were not selected.
I, for one, welcome our new bike overlords!
BIROTA OMNIPOTENS
This is a pretty good route but a bit short. To be honest I was hoping that the route would connect Downtown, Old Town, and Northwest in a bigger loop.
Bike buses to the ride is pretty brilliant, the city should do this for the other rides! I haven’t gone to the SW ride because it doesn’t seem very pleasant to actually get there by bike.
I live downtown adjacent and I’m pretty disappointed that crossing Burnside is not in the scope of this event. Many of my favorite destinations will be well off route. Seems like a big missed opportunity to me.