The 26-acre Brock property in Lake Oswego’s Luscher Farm Area, a picture perfect site for close-to-home trail riding.
(Photo: Chris Rotvik)

Story by former Northwest Trail Alliance President Chris Rotvik.

It’s 2020. Tucked away in a semi-wooded corner of the 148-acre Luscher Area in Lake Oswego is Farr Bike Park (just 10 miles south of Portland), with trails designed by local builder Chris Bernhardt. Riders, many of whom pedaled in on BMX bikes and dirt jumpers, drop in to one of four lines — beginner to black diamond — and punctuate each run with the fist-bumps and bonding that flow like trails in this segment of off-road cycling.
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(Graphic: BikePortland)

A cycling and walking bridge over the Willamette River between Lake Oswego and the Milwaukie/Oak Grove area has been dreamt about for decades. But now, in part due to completion of the Portland-Milwaukie MAX light rail line and the success of the Trolley Trail, there’s new momentum to actually build it.
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New attention, old idea.

Three years after Lake Oswego pulled out of a plan to upgrade its little-used riverside trolley line into a high-speed streetcar, the idea of turning the tracks into a biking-walking path is back in discussion.

This time, the idea is being driven by recently reelected Lake Oswego City Council member Jeff Gudman, who embraced the idea after hearing about it repeatedly from Lake Oswego residents during his campaigns.

“As I was doing my door to door, any number of people would say to me that they really like the idea,” Gudman said in an interview Thursday. “Some wanted streetcar, bike and ped. Others wanted just bike and ped.”

As the Oregonian’s editorial board reported Thursday, this week Gudman won his colleagues’ approval for a study of the legal issues surrounding a riverside trail.

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Bike racks at SW 12th and Washington
where stolen bikes are frequently locked up.
(Photo J. Maus/BikePortland)

Fencing operations for stolen bicycles are currently operating out of two downtown Portland buildings, Lake Oswego police say.

Det. Lee Ferguson said in an interview last week that Lake Oswego police officers tracked a handful of bikes stolen from that city to apartment buildings at SW 10th and Salmon and SW 12th and Washington. He said someone operating out of those buildings consistently purchases bicycles from people who steal them, then locks them at bike racks outside.

A third party then stops by to inspect the bikes, Ferguson said, makes arrangements to purchase them, gets a key from the fence and takes them away.
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Could the route for the streetcar
become a bicycle highway?
(Image: Metro)

After what the Oregonian called “persistent doubts from suburban taxpayers and a wealthy enclave of homeowners” the Lake Oswego streetcar project is on the rocks.

Concerns about construction and operating costs of the streetcar were the reasons for its demise, but over $2 million has already been spent on planning and impact studies.

Instead of throwing that money out the window, officials have an opportunity to build on the previous momentum for the streetcar and construct a world-class bike connection between Lake Oswego and downtown Portland.

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