The Green Loop will come of age at Design Week Portland.
(Images: Untitled Studio)

Design Week Portland kicks off tonight. If you are an urban planner, transportation reformer, bicycle commuter, or just a lover of Portland, you should check out what they’ve got planned.

The event — which runs through next Saturday (April 29th) — features several bicycle, transportation and urban planning-related talks, workshops and more. And this year the City of Portland’s Green Loop project is the brightest star of the entire festival.

From this Sunday through Friday (April 28th), there will be a free Green Loop exhibition at Design Week Portland Headquarters at The Redd (831 SE Salmon St). At Assembling a Mosiac, planners aim to “bring to life a design concept for the Green Loop” — a project they describe as a “six-mile linear park, linking Portland’s east and west sides with a robust bicycle and pedestrian network.” Untitled Studio, winners of the LoopPDX design competition, will host the exhibition. You can learn more about their vision for the Loop here.
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With the city’s purchase of the US Post Office block (west end of Broadway Bridge), the potentials for better bikeway connections are obvious and vast. The Portland Development Commission is leading the redevelopment project and they need members for a steering committee. If you’re interested, check out the info below…

Dear Community Partner,

The Portland Development Commission (PDC) is seeking members for a Steering Committee to guide redevelopment of the Broadway Corridor.

Broadway Corridor Development Opportunity:

Redevelopment of the Broadway Corridor is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to add to Portland’s economy and vitality and to deliver community benefits. The Corridor includes the 14-acre United States Postal Service distribution facility which will relocate next year, Union Station, and several other publicly owned properties. PDC is pursuing planning and redevelopment of the Broadway Corridor with an intentional focus on ensuring all communities have an opportunity to engage in and benefit from its redevelopment. As such, PDC is seeking a diverse mix of community leaders to serve on the Steering Committee and represent a broad range of topic areas.
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Alta Planning/Greenworks envisions a green zigzag marking the path of a protected bike lane on N. Ramsay Way, just north of the Moda Center.

As Portland’s planning bureau talks about a future “Green Loop” biking and walking route around the central city, it’s just scored a burst of ideas from urban designers around the world.

A couple of the ideas even feature bikes.

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There’s a pot of gold at the west end of the Broadway
Bridge — for someone, at least.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)

It looks like inner Northwest Portland is about to get very, very different.

As various outlets have reported, the Portland Development Commission on Wednesday authorized the purchase of the downtown U.S. Postal Service headquarters for $88 million.

That means that if the city can clear up some remaining sticking points and find buyers, hundreds of daily truck trips will vanish from the Pearl District area; a major blue-collar downtown employer will probably relocate to a site near the airport, replaced by a mix of market-rate housing, office jobs and affordable housing; and the street grid between the north Pearl and Willamette River will connect for the first time in more than 50 years.

And as we reported in September, it’ll also mean three new or improved bikeway connections to the Broadway Bridge, including the promise of a route that winds straight down to the North Park Blocks.

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A vision for an all-ages bike loop linking the central city.
(Image: Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability)

The concept of a low-stress bike loop surrounding Portland’s central city will get a high-profile burst of ideas.

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The city aims for only 15 percent of trips to the new site to arrive by personal vehicle.
(Images: PDC)

Portland’s proposals for redeveloping its downtown post office include what would be a huge biking upgrade for the north side of downtown.

The “preferred alternative” plan (PDF) currently being circulated by the Portland Development Commission includes not only some sort of new descent from the Broadway Bridge directly to the North Park Blocks, but also protected bike lanes extending south on Broadway and west on Lovejoy Street.

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Map of the Broadway Corridor Plan focus area.
(Image: PDC)

By the end of this year Portland City Council will adopt a redevelopment plan that will have a huge impact on the central city — and it’s your job to make sure that plan includes a world-class vision for cycling.
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Mike Lettunich of Twenty Four Seven.
(Image: City of Portland)

Here’s a business owner’s perspective that breathes some fresh air into the us-versus-them framing that can bog down so many discussions about bike infrastructure in Portland.

Yesterday we kicked off a three-part series about the past and future of the Lloyd District. The third post in the series, coming in several weeks, will focus on the many street changes the city is lining up over the next 10 years that could help the neighborhood finally reach its potential — first among them, probably, a new biking-walking bridge that’s been proposed across Interstate 84 at 7th, 8th or 9th avenues.
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A Portland Development Commission map of the “Broadway Corridor.” The PDC is meeting this afternoon to re-up their negotiation to buy the post office site at the base of the Broadway Bridge and fast-track a planning process for the area.
(Image: PDC)

If Portland’s main post office signs a deal to relocate, a huge payoff for biking could be hiding between the lines.

As the Portland Development Commission meets this afternoon to consider putting up $500,000 to reboot negotiations over moving the operation from the Pearl District to a new hub near Portland International Airport, advocates and planners are watching with great interest.

Redevelopment of the eight-city-block post office site could create the space and funding for a new built-from-scratch bikeway from the Broadway Bridge straight down into the Park Blocks, across Burnside past Director Park, and into the city’s biggest cultural district and Portland State University.

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Examples from (in order) San Francisco, Copenhagen, New York City and New York City in an online survey about preferred ideas for a “green loop” bikeway connecting the South Park Blocks with Tilikum Crossing.
(Screenshot from survey)

Two of Portland’s most visionary long-term biking projects will get a boost this spring from two teams of Portland State University planners-in-training.

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