This weekend is the annual closure of the roads in River View Cemetery. While the bicycling and driving public is usually allowed to use the paved thoroughfares between the Sellwood Bridge and the Collins View neighborhood, Memorial Day weekend is a time when mourners need extra space and quiet.
As we respect the closure this year, it’s a good time to reflect on what access to the cemetery means, because we should never take it for granted.
River View is a private nonprofit managed by an executive director who answers to a board of trustees. They don’t have to allow bicycle riders on their property; but for decades now they’ve gifted us access. And it’s a good thing they do, because the roads provide a vital link in the bicycle network. There is no other viable route for bicycle riders between Sellwood and SW Terwilliger Blvd. SW Boones Ferry Road (to the north) is a fast and busy arterial with zero shoulder space, and the River View Natural Area (to the south) offers only steep, dirt trails which are (unfortunately!) closed to cycling.
I’ve covered safety concerns from cemetery leaders since as far back as 2006. Even after threats to restrict bike access in 2009, 2012, and 2017; I’ve been impressed by their patience and dedication to maintain access. Last fall, the executive director and members of the River View Board of Trustees reached out to me again; but something was different this time: They didn’t share a specific concern, they talked about a growing unease with the burden of full legal liability if and when a bad crash or collision was to happen on their grounds.
River View also reached out to Lewis & Clark College, whose campus practically borders the cemetery and whose faculty and staff rely on the safe route to work. Lois Leveen is one of them. She’s also the university’s director of public relations and has met with cemetery leaders over the past few months.
“Recently, River View Cemetery has begun to curtail access through their property, in part due to concerns about liability,” Leveen testified at a recent Portland City Council meeting this week when a Vision Zero resolution was being heard. “These changes have already had a chilling impact on bicycle commuters.” “It’s disturbing to consider how many more deaths and serious injuries might have occurred during the first ten years of Portland’s commitment to Vision Zero, if this route were not available,” Leveen added.
Leveen and the cemetery are now spreading the message that it’s time for the City of Portland to step up and share load when it comes to legal responsibility for the roads. “The City of Portland needs to recognize that a private entity should not be expected to continue to carry the full responsibility of providing safe bicycling and walking routes to the public,” she said in her testimony.
The idea is for Lewis & Clark, the Portland Bureau of Transportation, and River View Cemetery to work more closely on a short-term approach that changes the legal framework of public access (such as an official public easement), while the City commits to finding a permanent solution. At the very least, this issue needs to be on the local political radar.
River View Cemetery is in Council District 4, could it be a candidate for one of the “alternative pathways” Councilor Olivia Clark envisioned being built with funds from the new Sidewalk Improvement and Paving Program (SIPP)? Or perhaps Portland Parks and Metro can collaborate on a paved bicycle path through River View Natural Area? It might also be worth exploring a protected bike path on the SW Boones Ferry corridor.
Whatever the ultimate solutions are, the City of Portland can no longer afford to sit back and rely on this generous gift from a private entity. If we lose access to River View and there’s no viable alternative, it would be a massive setback for our transportation system and would impact thousands of lives.
So while cemetery visitors mourn lost loved ones this weekend, the City of Portland and bicycle riders should take time to reflect on what would be lost without access to the cemetery.
Thanks for reading.
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When I went to Lewis & Clark I rode this bike path everyday home from school (I took the shuttle up from downtown because I didn’t have the legs to trek up it in my single speed road bike). It was honestly one of the core beautiful experiences I had going to a school I counted myself lucky to attend. After classes I’d wind down this road at sunset as the early/late summer breeze wisped in, and in the grey misty winters I’d put my raincoat on and smell the petrichor listening to embarrassingly moody indie rock. When I was in a short story workshop I was biking home with my classmate who told me that she always stopped in the cemetery when she needed to think of a name for a character. She would see an interesting headstone, imagine what a life might have been like, if it connected or embodied the character she’d already been dreaming up, and then she would look up the family name’s history.
Why it’s my favorite bike ride in the city is not just for the nostalgic college memories and beauty of the cemetery, there’s also a fear of loss of what made biking safer in a place in our city that is missing vital public infrastructure. My first week as a student at LC a few of us first year students decided to go on a bike ride into downtown. It was a sunny September morning, and one of us just looked up in google maps the best route. This was 2014, none of us had ever biked in the city before, but we had an image in our heads of a cyclist’s paradise. At least compared to the places most of us had come from. Yet the route we were fed by google told us to take Boones Ferry to Taylors Ferry Road down to the path at Willamette Park. None of us knew about the cemetery route. Unfortunately, this road route (IMO) is scary AF. Steep decline, cars whizzing past with essentially no space to separate you, car drivers angry just to see you there. I remember seeing my more experienced cyclist friend gliding with grace on her fixed gear, her legs lifted up onto the frame as the pedals rapidly spun forward. Grace, unfortunately, was not the case for my other less confident friend, who after a car rushed by a little too close he instinctively slammed on the brakes and swerved further away from the lane. In the process, he lost control and went over the handle bars sliding arms and face first across the never forgiving pavement.
Do to the end result, I feel it’s wrong to say “thankfully” here, but there were no other cars behind us so this didn’t lead to further collision. My friend had road rash on his face and down both arms, his left arm broken in several places, to go with at least one broken finger if memory serves right. For his first semester of college this guy had to walk around campus with a cast holding his arm upright like he’s giving the hand signal to turn right in traffic. This was also the universal signal for “yes professor, I would like the answer the question you asked.” So the poor little freshman was also left to explain, “no I also completely zoned out during your lecture about the biblical references in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.” But, hey, at least nobody died…
The fact that your friend had to endure this much suffering is frankly ridiculous and a shameful indictment of CoP leadership. Cyclists need a safe way to get downtown that doesn’t rely on a private cemetery.
I am 5 weeks away from never being tempted to do the TF-Bomb at 4:30am again (moving close to Woodstock and 52nd).
The only reason I felt I could do it was I’m comfortable at 30mph+ on my trike and there were almost no cars.
Climbing the other way was always in the cemetery.
Without that route my trip home when I ride the whole way would have taken me a lot farther north to get to some safe riding to get up and over the hill.
An annual reminder that this business like all cemeteries in Oregon is heavily subsidized through property tax exemption so perhaps they should be legally required to contribute things to the public good in exchange like a way to pass through their large tract of untaxed land by foot or bicycle. Cemeteries are a pretty horrendous land use that we need to deal with generally, the Rose City one off Fremont is also a disaster for N/S connectivity and should really have at least one multiuse path through it.
From Portland Maps:
Property Values (2024)
Taxes (2023)
Is the market value for all that land really just 1.3 million? I don’t really know how cemetery valuation works. Obviously, the land can’t be built on.
Why not a city easement through the property for a designated route?
Cause the City doesn’t really have a good track record when it steals land for transportation use?
The fact that cyclists have had to rely – for so many years – on the beknighted benevolence of a cemetery board of directors is just such a shameful indictment of Portland’s transportation leaders.
It wouldn’t be that hard to build a MUP along the south side of Taylors Ferry, but the fact that the city can point to the cemetery lets them off the hook. I actually think it would be BETTER for the cemetery to exclude cyclists completely, since that’s the only thing that might get city leaders off their dead asses.
I know JM has to kowtow to this ridiculous exclusion every year, but the rest of us don’t. I recommend cyclists avoid the cemetery all year by reaching Barbur via the two streets north of Taylors Ferry. Yes, it takes you out of your way if you’re going to Lewis & Clark but at least you can avoid the guilt that comes with desecrating the cemetery and its mourners.
I have ridden through Riverview many times, for many years, both up & down, and if I have in any way desecrated it I am as such completely unaware. I have not littered, pissed on a gravestone, or screamed obscenities at mourners. I am extremely grateful that the folks who manage Riverview allow me to enjoy the beautiful grounds by bicycle, and do my best to be respectful. If someone wants to inter my ashes, I hope they do it at Riverview.
I feel no guilt about any of this, but I do allow for the possibility that I may unwittingly be a sociopath.
Which are closed to cycling! Or had you somehow forgotten?
Haha yes. My initial draft had included that those are closed to cycling. Just forgot it. Added it back just now. And no, I will NEVER FORGET.
In what way?
I’ve asked her the same question. I’m curious too. Sorry for not including that in the story. Stay tuned.
I think that there’s some interesting comparison between allowing bike/pedestrian access to this property and various recreational immunity statutes (that generally protect property owners from liability when they allow hiking, hunting, fishing, skiing, etc. on their land) but then I remember all the non-recreational cycling I’ve done when driving wasn’t an option for me.