(Map: City of Gresham/Gresham Chamber)

Here’s a sign that support for carfree urban spaces is growing: The main organizer of Gresham’s first-ever open streets event is its chamber of commerce.

Gresham is Portland’s eastern neighbor. On Sunday June 18th, from 10am to 2pm, the city will host what they hope becomes an annual Father’s Day tradition: an event they call Sunday Parkway. Inspired by Portland’s similarly named events that began nine years ago, the Gresham version will offer a relatively carfree, 8-mile loop with three “pit stops” where people can enjoy food, live entertainment, activities and more.

Here’s how they describe it:

Feel comfortable, safe and enjoy walking, strolling, bicycling and rolling along the city’s beautiful trail system and historic downtown… Slow down, play on our trails, connect with your neighbors, meet new friends and have fun on the trail…

Gresham Chamber of Commerce CEO Lynn Snodgrass told us she thinks it’s completely natural for her group to spearhead this event. She sees it simply as a way to have fun and promote the beauty of her city.
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Gresham Mayor Shane Bemis.

The City of Gresham is more worried about the potential impacts of illegal camping along a path than they are about the benefits of closing a major gap in the 40-Mile Loop.

After Gresham Mayor Shane Bemis* announced his opposition to the Troutdale to Gresham Master Plan last week, Metro has decided to postpone a scheduled planning meeting for the project and they will not move forward with planning in Gresham. The news was first reported by the Gresham Outlook.

“While I have always been a fan of recreational amenities and I enjoy running regularly on the trail, I cannot in good conscience support this proposal at this point in time,” Bemis shared on his Facebook page last week. “There are far too many chronic issues currently extending along the entire trail alignment.”
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Metro map with location of proposed trail and a concept drawing of how it might look near Kelly Creek in Gresham.

Filling a six-mile gap between Troutdale and Gresham would put a serious dent in the “40-mile Loop” — a trail concept that’s been in regional planning dreams for well over a century. And Metro is creating a plan to do just that.

But where some see an historic opportunity for a new, low-stress place to walk and roll, others see a perfect place for people who live outside to pitch tents and build encampments. [Read more…]

View from Springwater path looking westbound at the SW Highland Drive overpass.

The Gresham Police Department reported on Sunday that a 22-year-old Portland woman is recovering after she alleged she was sexually assaulted Friday afternoon (3/18). The suspect is still at large.
[Read more…]

The new two-mile trail is funded mostly by regional flexible funds allocated by Metro at the request of east Multnomah County governments.
(Photos: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

Though it’s possible to get between central Gresham and the Springwater Corridor by bike lane, there’s never been a truly comfortable link between the two, or first-rate bike connection between Gresham’s central business district and the dense Rockwood area. That’s about to change.

Gresham is building a wide new paved path alongside the MAX tracks between the Cleveland Avenue station, at the eastern end of the Blue Line, and the Ruby Junction station where many TriMet trains stop their runs to go out of service.

[Read more…]

The Gresham Fairvew Trail at its southern start just north of the Springwater Corridor and a bit east of the Portland city border.
(Photos J. Maus/BikePortland)

This post is part of our special focus on east Portland this week.[Read more…]

The Columbia Gorge is only the first stop for
“destination biking” east of Gresham.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)

Back in July, we wrote that a big recreational biking upgrade is in the works for east Multnomah County. A pair of public “studio workshops” next month will shape its direction.

People at the free workshops — a seven-hour one Nov. 13 at Troutale’s Edgefield McMenamin’s and a four-hour one Nov. 14 at the Corbett Fire House — will get to “identify assets, opportunities, and barriers to increasing bicycle tourism” in the region.

With a Travel Oregon study estimating that 15 percent of tourism in the Gorge/Mount Hood area is already bike-related, the area’s business leaders see big potential for improving things further.

[Read more…]

Riders scope out routes at Sandy Ridge, a popular trail-riding
destination built specifically for mountain biking.
(Photos © J. Maus/BikePortland)

Nobody in Oregon gets more of its tourist dollar from bikes than the Mount Hood region, and people in eastern Multnomah and Clackamas counties are taking notice.

Whatever happens in the controversy about a planned mountain bike park near Timberline Lodge, the area seems to be thinking more and more about biking. Consider a few elements:
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Entrance to Gresham-Fair Trail off of SE Stark.

Portland resident Shyla Osborn, 45, says she was assaulted on March 12th while biking on the Gresham-Fairview Trail. According to Osborn, the incident occurred on the path between SE Stark and Glisan near 201st Ave.

Here’s how it went down according to Osborn:

“… I was assaulted by two teenage girls on the Gresham-Fairview trail in the Rockwood neighborhood, on the segment between Stark and Glisan. As I rode northward, they were strolling casually towards me, one on the left and one on the right edge of the trail (unremarkable on such a lovely sunny day); as I came closer and was about to pedal between them, I noticed that one of them was carrying a large tree branch. At this point, it was too late to turn back and get away: the girl on my left lunged in to corral me while her companion on my right swung the branch at my head like she was going for the bleachers. The blow cracked my boyfriend’s $70 helmet; another blow came down on my right shoulder. As soon as they hit their target, they ran off giggling and escaped over the chain-link fence of the one of the houses whose backyard faces the trail. They left me with a pretty nasty bump on my head and a bruised shoulder.”

[Read more…]

New bridge makes key connection for Gresham-Fairview Trail.
(Photo: City of Gresham)

U.S. Congressman Earl Blumenauer will be on hand this Thursday when the City of Gresham officially opens the newest section of the Gresham-Fairview Trail.

Blumenauer will join a Gresham City Councilor and a Metro Councilor at SE Powell and SW 10th, where a newly finished, 177-foot bridge takes bicycling and walking traffic up and over Powell. The bridge is the first of its kind in Gresham and it creates a crucial connection for the Gresham Fairview Trail.[Read more…]