The Portland Bureau of Transportation has a laudable history of working with community groups to help bring road projects to life. The “Better Naito” protected bike lanes on Naito Parkway began as a demonstration project. So did the carfree plaza on SW Ankeny and 3rd and the recent NE Broadway Pave and Paint. Now, a project that aims to reimagine South Sheridan Street and connect the campus of Oregon Health Sciences University and the South Waterfront district to a thriving school, could take these city partnerships to the next level and set an important precedent for community-led projects.
PBOT Director Millicent Williams appeared at City Council last week to inform members of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee about some of this work. “Our ability to continually improve the transportation system and respond to community-identified needs is foundational to building trust with Portlanders,” Williams shared.
“As downtown and the South Waterfront have grown, the conditions of Sheridan Street have only worsened.”
— Bodo Heiliger, International School of Portland
A few minutes later, that trust-building was on display as Bodo Heiliger took to the mic. Heiliger runs the International School of Portland (ISP), a 400 student, pre-K to fifth-grade school sandwiched between I-405, Naito Parkway and Harbor Drive (see map below). The one connection between the school and South Waterfront is South Sheridan, a street Heiliger said, “Has long been the street that time has forgotten.” “As downtown and the South Waterfront have grown, the conditions of Sheridan Street have only worsened,” he continued. “A jumble of incomplete sidewalks, missing bike connections, a freeway exit ramp and minimal traffic control right in the heart of a school zone make this area treacherous for our three-year-olds walking hand-in-hand to school.”
Heiliger came to City Hall as part of a panel of partners working to remake Sheridan into a safer, more pleasant street. He and several volunteers at the school have taken advantage of an innovative program developed by nonprofit urbanism group Better Block PDX and the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University. They host open calls for project ideas, then wed them to student planners and engineers. Chosen ideas become a capstone project for Master’s program students, who then create design and engineering plans that tee the projects up for construction.
ISP parent and school volunteer Ryan Mehan submitted the concept to Better Block and PSU in spring 2024. It was accepted and has since been developed into the 30% design stage — a key step toward getting built.
Today, Sheridan is shrouded in overgrown ivy and darkened by highway lanes that rumble overhead. It’s a street people use as quickly as possible and its value as a place for OHSU staff to park cars barely outweighs its general sketchiness. I had no idea there was a large, thriving preschool just yards away until I watched Mehan, Heiliger and others testify at City Council Monday.
“To see small children have to navigate that area, it just gives me, you know, a nightmare!”
– Olivia Clark, city councilor
One of them was Paula Cano, a mom of two students (ages 3 and 7) who attend the school. Cano, who’s also head of early childhood development at ISP, and her husband (an OHSU employee) bike their kids to the school every day. “Right now it is not safe,” Cano told the councilors. “Our own faculty and staff often share with me the fears of simply walking down Sheridan to get a cup of coffee. There’s blind curves, missing sidewalks, poor lighting, and a lack of bike lanes make it frightening for adults — let alone our young students.”
That will all change once the Reimagining South Sheridan Street project becomes a reality. The plan is to update the street with continuous sidewalks, safer crosswalks, an all-way stop, and dedicated bike lanes. “We’ve long sought to create safe space for active transit along the block,” Mehan shared at the council meeting.
But just how to approach such a big project felt out of reach to Mehan, until he learned about the Better Block PSU program.
Better Block’s Ryan Hashagen has been on the ground floor of several exciting projects that began with someone like Mehan. Hashagen feels the Reimagining South Sheridan project could play a role in finally cementing the Better Block PSU program at the City of Portland. Up until now, PBOT has worked on the projects, but they’ve done so outside any formal guidelines or program structure. To get projects like Better Naito done, PBOT staff would bend existing street permit programs into new shapes to allow a demonstration, and then provide other assistance in whatever way they could cobble it together. But with the continued maturation of the Better Block PSU program, combined with the respect it has built at PBOT over the years, a new city council and form of government; and a project that has support from such high-profile partners as ISP, OHSU, and the Downtown Neighborhood Association — Hashagen thinks Reimagining Sheridan could set a precedent.
His goal is to firmly ensconce the program at PBOT so that community-led projects have an even more accessible path toward completion. That would take some sort of city council action and funding to make it real — and given the politics of the moment, where road safety and transportation planning advocates have numerous allies on City Council — that might happen sooner than we think.
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair Olivia Clark (who happens to represent the district this project is in) has visited the project site. “I stood there and watched cars just rip through the stop sign, like they ignored it.” she recounted at Monday’s meeting. “To see small children have to navigate that area, it just gives me, you know, a nightmare!”
Clark was clearly interested in seeing this project through. She asked an OHSU representative how they’d feel about removing the parking to make room for the planned bike lanes. When given a supportive response, she turned her attention toward Better Block (a group she seemed impressed by). Upon being told by a PBOT staffer that Better Block is a community organization that’s ready and willing to step up and assist, a light bulb seemed to go off in Clark’s head.
“So [Better Block] is really a resource for us to consider working more with,” she stated. (I could imagine Hashagen smiling and nodding deeply as she said that.)
Now, if PBOT can just find a reliable way to fund it, they will have the administrative infrastructure in place to develop community ideas into real projects relatively quickly.
Thanks for reading.
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While not in PBOT’s control, all of 405 should be removed from downtown. That would remove one of the ills plaguing the area.
I don’t even think we need to remove it. Cap it and remove the on/off ramps.
This is the way. Close all of the ramps that aren’t involved in the HWY 26 and HWY 30 interchanges and cap the rest. This should be the only “express” route through Portland. Our long-term goal should be removal of the east bank highway and Marquam Bridge.
It’s like being on the surface of a plate that has lots of spaghetti, looking up. Y’all could free up a lot of land for development by getting rid of the on/offramps and eliminating interchanges, and create a walkable neighborhood (with freeway hum up above.)
If only someone had the guts to close the FREEWAY OFF-RAMP!!??
Great idea! The volume of cars using this ramp does not justify the danger it creates or the maintenance that it requires. The space would be more useful as a buffer, and really that entire section of Harbor could be put on a one lane road diet.
Thank you for this article. I’m glad to see this part of town getting some attention: Recently, SW Broadway got speed cushions; there are the CCIM projects at 4th and Sheridan; the Water (or is it BES) project at Terwilliger that PBOT is piggy-backing on with a bike lane.
Several of us have spent years trying to improve this area — Keith Liden, me, and my not-to-be-named internet-shy transpo-buddy. The root of all the problems is I-405, it should have been capped years ago:
https://bikeportland.org/2021/07/02/capping-freeways-an-interview-with-architect-rick-potestio-334306 and
https://bikeportland.org/2021/07/30/air-rights-and-freeway-caps-an-interview-with-developer-matt-edlen-335749
I’ve always thought capping the southern leg of 405 was a better Return on Investment (ROI) than capping I-5 through Albina.
(And I’ve got to laugh at the “existing conditions” photo. That could be anywhere in southwest Portland.)
There is absolutley zero reason to have a freeway going through the downtown of a city. Capping a freeway is very expensive and requires expensive maintinence. Removing 405 is the answer. It will be expensive up front with zero maintinence afterwards and would free up a lot of land for development which would bring in more tax revenue.
Oh Sky, did you even glance at the articles I linked to? The interviews with a prominent Portland architect and a prominent Portland developer about using buildings themselves as the spanning elements to cover the freeway? Air rights? Give them a read, their ideas are interesting. And Edlen has experience with it in Boston.
Oh Lisa, I did read both the articles you linked. They in no way change my position that we should completely remove the freeway, fill it in, and then built on that land. Capping highways requires expensive infrastructure that you have to maintain, which is expensive. It does not change the disgusting car culture we live in. Thats my aim, killing car culture. Not trying to hide it, or have people having to live directly above a freeway. The freeway still needs to be maintained, which is costly. Along with that, we have to maintain all the bridges going across it, which will not last forever and will eventually have to be replaced. These are all things we have to pay for in the long term. And lets not forget all the health hazards that come from living so close to a highway with polluting cars which is another cost we all have to pay for.
Im tired of only caring about the initial cost of a project while not factoring in the long term costs that come along with it. We have seen very succesful highway removal projects happen, and I see no reason why this could not be another one of them.
Go for it!
You’re going to have to duke it out with the people who think the answer is removing I-5 and putting all the traffic on I-405. They also claim the idea would bring in lots of tax revenue.
Personally, I’m just glad all that traffic isn’t on the surface streets where I ride my bike.
Way back when I was working at PBOT in 2004-5, the city traffic planner was showing me their long-term plans for I-5/I-405 when Portland has 5+ million residents and 24/7 congestion, to turn both freeways into a giant counter-clockwise roundabout (basically make both one-way only), thus removing roughly half of the ramps.
*Way* back then… Sheridan probably looked a lot like it does now, I’m guessing… But the rest of the city probably looks a little different. Did PBOT also claim to have a budget shortfall way back then?
This sounds great! Bad as S. Sheridan looks in the top photo, the reality is even worse, because the photo crops out the freeway exit and the two sweeping curved corners that dump vehicles right into the same street people are walking because there are no sidewalks at that end.
By the way, a block away the International School has turned the freeway wall in front of the school on S Water Ave. into one of the city’s (or anywhere’s) best collections of street art. Nobody’s parked in front if you go outside school hours.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Portland,+OR/@45.5050329,-122.6757892,3a,75y,84.82h,82.68t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sBxLNSK9qs0CYp-jf23q-1g!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D7.321659065599306%26panoid%3DBxLNSK9qs0CYp-jf23q-1g%26yaw%3D84.82094589288964!7i16384!8i8192!4m6!3m5!1s0x54950b0b7da97427:0x1c36b9e6f6d18591!8m2!3d45.515232!4d-122.6783853!16s%2Fm%2F02frhbc?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDkxMC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
I know this area well. The line of cars idling, waiting for pickup time to start at the International School is blocks long.
I would love someone to create a paved bike connection between the west end of S Caruthers (or Sherman, or even Grant) and Naito. There’s a goat track at Caruthers now, but it is difficult to ride in the uphill direction, and there’s a makeshift series of fences blocking other potential routes.
Too right — once the DSA city council finds out these preschoolers’ parents are shelling out more for tuition than most folks pay in rent, they’ll shut this project down faster than you can say “solidarity statement.” Improving South Sheridan for a bunch of Patagonia-clad toddlers? Not on their watch! To them, using public funds to make life easier for “privileged” taxpayers is basically a hate crime. They’d rather pass another non-binding resolution on foreign policy than fix a crosswalk for kids named Saffron and Atticus. Safe streets for 3-year-olds? Nah mate — that’s imperialist infrastructure!
I’m down there every day, multiple times a day, with the GoByBike Pedicab. I have frequently taken parents and kids up to the school simple because of how unsafe Sheridan is right now.
Sheridan’s use as a cut through during peak hours is intense. The evening commute crowd, invariably, is far more jumpy and violent. Running the no turn on red, gunning it through stale yellows/fresh red lights, not looking for bikes/people crossing… I see 3-5 close calls every summer evening there and maybe one seriously dangerous maneuver every week by drivers.
The biggest thing we could do to improve Sheridan is make it annoying for drivers. The three way stop would help. Curb bulbs uphill would help. Wider sidewalks would be great too.
I think PBOT really needs to consider sidewalk level asphalt bike lanes, or some way of visually narrowing the street and nicely integrating with the existing Moody bikeway.