Tag Archives: Greenways

Slow Street to Downtown Greenway

June 11, 2020, first given as oral testimony May 28, 2020

This blog calls for equity for the low-income people on the front lines of air pollution in downtown Portland. It was written as a testimony for a May 28 hearing on the re-adoption of Portland’s Central City 2035 Plan,

Honorable Mayor and Commissioners:

I’m Mary Vogel, a climate resiliency/climate justice consultant based in downtown’s West End who has been involved in Central City 2035 since its inception. So much air-time was given to neighbors who wanted height limits in the West End to be limited to 100 feet, that those of us from SW 12th Avenue didn’t get sufficient consideration of our health, safety, air quality and other resiliency concerns.

Frontline for Worst Air Quality

Residents in the low-income buildings (both subsidized and market rate)  that populate much of SW 12th   Ave. are downtown’s buffer to the worst of the air and noise pollution from I-405. And that’s some of the worst in the nation—see Figure 1.

This Toxicity Index Covers airborne cancer risk, respiratory hazards and lead exposure. Adjacent Census Tracts have same rating. Source USEPA EJ Screen and Upstream Research.

 

Urban Greenway

So, I am asking you to consider a new design for SW 12th Ave from SW Montgomery to West Burnside—one that better fits the original proposal from Portland Bureau of Transportation. That proposal was to make SW 12th the Urban Greenway my neighbors and I deserve to better protect our health!

I was puzzled about what happened to that Urban Greenway–until investigative journalists Jonathan Maus of Bike Portland and Sarah Mirk of Portland Mercury explained how West End business owners and Portland Business Alliance got the project nixed.

  • Checking in on the SW 12th Avenue project  Maus explains how a letter from these scions of the Portland business community with property in the West End wrote a letter demanding a study:
      • John Underhill – Jake’s Restaurant
      • Jordan Menashe – Menashe Properties
      • Greg Goodman – City Center Parking
      • Christopher Robbins – McMenamin’s
      • Steve Roselli – Harsch Investment
      • Brian Wilson – Kalberer Companies
      • Don Singer – Singer Properties
      • Mark Edlen – Gerding Edlen
      • Alix Nathan – Mark Spencer Hotel Block
  • Businesses Protest Planned Downtown Bike Lane  “At the heart of this issue is how businesses view bikes in the central city” writes Mirk.

Both of these articles focus mostly on the bike lane, rather than the Greenway. But the Greenway would address the needs of a far broader spectrum of people. It would also contribute far more to livability and urban biodiversity.

Re-Design for Climate Justice

I want you to consider adding to CC2035’s Transportation System Plan–and to subsequent street plans–an improved version of this crude version I did on Streetmix.

The three motor vehicle travel lanes would be necked down to a single “Sharrow” for motorized and non-motorized vehicles.  I keep parking lanes on both sides of the street  to help the churches and businesses losing parking when the surface parking lots that dominate the street are re-developed. Planting strips are my stand in for stormwater planter basins that will filter stormwater using native plants. Some, but not all, parklets could be “Street Seats” (a PBOT program) for restaurants. In any case, they would only take up part of each block. The rest of the space would be devoted to stormwater planters, bike corrals, and bike or scooter share facilities. New buildings would vary in height up to 15 stories+. Where a curb cut for a loading dock or garage or underground utilities take up a tree space, green walls will be required up the first 10 stories of the building. All of this would contribute to renewed health–for residents, for businesses and for the environment.

My plan assumes that you will keep the ecoroof requirement in CC 2035 that I myself and others worked so hard to get into that policy. One of my advocacy groups put out a distress call that you may be planning to eliminate it.

In the name of climate justice and equity, I’m asking you to put the SW 12th Avenue Urban Greenway back into CC 2035. Please bring it back to protect those of us on the frontline of pollution. THANK YOU!

Slow Street/Safe Street

We realize full design and implementation may take awhile.  So, please make SW 12th a Slow Street/Safe Street by necking it down to one lane throughout its length–along the lines of the image above. One lane has been done many times in the past six years for two-block segments due to construction. There has been little to no impact on motor vehicle traffic.  A SLOW STREET now will make a great Tactical Urbanism approach to ultimately achieving the URBAN GREENWAY that SW 12th Avenue residents deserve.

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Mary Vogel, CNU-A/PlanGreen consults on climate resiliency and climate justice and is co-founder of Portland, OR Small Developer Alliance, a group related to CNU and the Incremental Development Alliance. She welcomes your response to this blog.

Portland: A New Kind of City – Part III, Greenways

The deadline for comments on Portland’s Draft Comprehensive Plan is May 1. I hope you will endorse this Greenways comment at http://www.portlandoregon.gov/bps/60988 before that date     –or write your own. 

Portland planners have been talking about integrating fingers of green into the city for a couple of years now.  Then they gave the concept some teeth in the Portland Plan and now the draft Portland Comprehensive Plan with  the concepts of Habitat Corridors (pp4-6 and 4-7) and Greenways (pp 6-34 [sic] and 5-35).

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Tree Crew Leaders rally before each planting

I love planning, but it’s implementation that really lights my fire.  I haven’t figured out how to become a developer yet, so I plant trees with Friends of Trees. In fact, I’m a Tree Crew Leader in both its Neighborhood Tree and the Green Space Initiative planting programs.

I look forward to my Neighborhood Tree planting days with a bit of ambivalence.  I love helping neighbors get those big trees into the ground while getting to know each other better as neighbors. We also have conversations with people out in their yards or walking their dogs in the neighborhood–adding to the sense of community.  But I often cringe at the tree species selection that I am assigned to plant.  Rarely is there a native tree in my allotment of 9-12 trees–lots of Persian ironwood, Japanese snowbells, Chinese dogwoods and. . .you get the picture!  I’ve even come to celebrate when I get a Rocky Mountain Globe Maple because that’s a little closer to the Pacific Northwest.

Last Saturday, April 20, 2013, Friends of Trees had its Earthday planting on the NE Holman Greenway.  Homeowners along Holman had been offered FREE trees because their street had been designated a Greenway.  It was Earthday and  we were planting a Greenway, so I was hopeful that at last we might be planting some NATIVE street trees.  Several businesses had sent teams, so it was an opportunity to educate them.

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Part of my Friends of Trees crew planting a tree that will help transform this street.

I thought I recognized only one tree on the list as a native tree: Swamp white oak. Turns out, it’s native to the same region I am–the mid-Atlantic (and a bit further).  But it’s not native here–so, unfortunately, there were no natives.

We’ve  started to implement the Greenway concept before the Comp Plan passes. My point is, why aren’t Greenways green in more ways than bikes and stormwater. The draft Comp Plan mentions promoting multi-objective approaches. So let’s add one more objective to our Greenways. Let’s add wildlife habitat too.  My brief additions to the draft plan policy are in RED . Its already a great policy, so I did not have to change much!

Policy 5.26 Greenways. Create a citywide network of Greenways that provide distinctive and attractive pedestrian- and bike and wildlife-friendly green streets and trails that link centers, parks, schools, rivers, natural areas, and other key community destinations.

5.26.a. Strive for an integrated Greenway system that includes regional trails through natural areas and along Portland’s rivers, connected to green streets and other enhanced streets that provide connections to and through the city’s neighborhoods.

5.26.b. Prioritize multi-objective approaches that draw on and contribute to Portland’s pedestrian, bicycle, green street, wildlife corridor and parks and open space systems.  Recognize that to be multi-objective for wildlife, native plant species are required.

5.26.c Strive to re-landscape most Greenways with native plants both to better serve our native wildlife and to allow more children to experience nature where they live. Require plantings in the public right-of-way be native and strongly encourage native plantings on private property too.

The draft Plan commentary on Habitat Corridors suggests: Corridors to connect bird habitat on Mount Tablr and Clatsop Butte could be provided across 82nd Avenue and I-205 by planting large, primarily (sic) native trees, incorporating naturescaping into yards and other landscaped areas, and/or installing ecoroofs that have suitable native plants. This is an excellent suggestion but it needs to be applied more widely.

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There’s no reason this and all the bioswales along this Greenway couldn’t be planted in native plants and trees.

 

We’re already connecting Mt. Tabor to the Willamette River (Tabor to the River). Let’s connect the Willamette  River to the Columbia through North and Northeast Portland. Let’s connect Forest Park to the Willamette through Goose Hollow and Downtown and through Northwest and the Pearl.

The Greenways designated on the Comp Plan  map below (from p.4-6 and 5-34)–and a few others I would propose that are not yet on the map–are the logical places to make those connections. If we can do this, we will truly be creating a new kind of city–one that is more friendly to wildlife, to children–and to the rest of us too.

WildlifeCorridor-GreenwayMap

The photos I’ve used to illustrate this article are stand-ins from earlier events I photographed. I will be adding the final ones as they become available. Meanwhile, I thought it was important to publish this before the May 1 deadline on comments.

Children and Nature Belong Downtown

March 30, 2013   This post was first  published on the Children & Nature Network Blog. It’s editor, Richard Louv, attempted to make it more interesting for his international audience with his edits. Here, I want to re-capture some of my original thoughts.

Each year at the end of August, the Oregon Symphony holds a free concert at the south end of Portland’s downtown Tom McCall Waterfront Park on the Willamette River. Families come with picnic supper, blankets and lawn chairs. I’ve noticed that the kids who are old enough for a little independence make a beeline for the wildest part of the waterfront—a shore with driftwood, rocks and boulders.

Older kids make a beeline for this remnant downtown beach during concerts and festivals.

Older kids make a beeline for this remnant beach during concerts and festivals at “The Bowl”–the only place where the Willamette River is accessible in downtown Portland.

Climbing over the tree limbs and rocks is rough going. But the kids are unfazed. That’s where they want to be.

My Portland Downtown Neighborhood Association has been talking about the need for more families in downtown Portland. Now that developers are finding financing to build again, we are seeing more proposals for apartments downtown. Members of our association would like to see some of those apartments be appropriate for families — in size, in design and in price.

Families with children who might consider moving downtown are often deterred by the lack of affordable housing and the absence of a downtown public elementary school. However, there’s another reason that families with children often avoid living downtown in America’s cities: the need for more wild in downtown to attract those families who escaped the city for the “wide open spaces” of the suburbs.

Except for “The Bowl”, most of Portland’s central city waterfront is armored with a seawall—like many river cities, with good reason. When the Willamette was at severe flood stage as it was in 1996, we had to throw up sandbags so that the first few blocks of downtown wouldn’t flood — as they did historically. The Portland Daily Journal of Commerce has some fun photos of people canoeing along Third Ave and other parts of downtown.

As a result of those seawalls, the river at normal flow appears to be about 25 feet to the surface of the water. So how do we make the riverfront more attractive to families who want to touch nature? Portland’s new Working Draft Comprehensive Plan encourages more beaches along the waterfront. One suggested policy for the Willamette River Watershed is: “Promote rehabilitation of riverbank sections that have been significantly altered because of development to create more natural riverbank conditions.”

With the intention to attract both families and fish downtown, we could do much to make “The Bowl” more natural. But to address other parts of the downtown waterfront–-and still avoid flooding–-we may need to adapt Chicago’s invention of a Fish Hotel and stairs down to this structure created out of plants to give fish resting and hiding places.

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Hundreds of children already use the downtown area known as South Park Blocks—largely on the way to the Performing Arts Center and museums. They come by bus from other neighborhoods.

Let’s look at what else downtowns, particularly Portland’s, could do to meet children’s need for wild in their lives. Why not rethink our parks and our other public spaces downtown? Portland is lucky enough to have both a linear waterfront park and the Park Blocks, an interior corridor, originally intended as a firebreak, that extend most of the length of our downtown. Could these be re-conceived as wildlife and children’s corridors?

Portland’s early founders were wise enough to leave undeveloped blocks planted with trees (mostly American elms), running from north-to-south for twelve blocks of central westside Portland. Ultimately, these blocks, planted with native species, could become part of something much larger, along the lines of Doug Tallamy’s idea for a “Homegrown National Park.

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Green (or Eco) Roofs, such as this one on Portland Central Library could be added to all buildings that occupy what is known as the Park Blocks corridor. This could help to create north-south connectivity throughout central westside Portland.

Tallamy recommends that cities and neighborhoods across the country replace alien ornamentals with native plants—and hence attract more species of native wildlife. Many existing buildings could install green roofs and green walls with native plants to attract our native insects, the base of the food chain.

Portland might also make the streets along the Park Blocks into  “green streets.”  These streets would utilize native plants and trees and porous pavement to filter storm water from the streets and sidewalks. They would prioritize the pedestrian and the bicyclist in their design and allow for a number of sidewalk cafés. Of course they would provide a lane for business deliveries by motor vehicle and bike, perhaps limited to certain hours.

Shigezo

Sidewalk cafes such as this one at SW Salmon & Park would also be encouraged in our children and wildlife corridors.

Finally, we need a contiguous green west-east corridor to connect Portland’s premier wildlife corridor, Forest Park to the river.  I nominate SW Salmon Street/Park Place, my usual path to get to Washington and Forest Park. We could give property owners incentives to turn their existing landscapes into native habitat and to green their existing roofs, walls, parking lots and driveways. We could create “Nature Play” pocket parks along the way and join this whole area into the Home-Grown National Park too. Scroll through the map I created in Google Maps  to see the entire length of the Park Blocks–North and South–and the suggested link from Washington Park to the river.

The Salmon/Park Place corridor could become a “Greenway” (a 20 mph street that prioritizes active transportation and filters stormwater) utilizing NATIVE trees, shrubs and plants and other technologies such as porous pavement. Parking could still be allowed on these streets as it protects pedestrians and helps slow the street.

In an era of cutbacks, how will we pay for a new green infrastructure that could allow our children to live downtown and have nature too? Annie Donovan who serves as Senior Policy Advisor for New Financial Instruments at the White House Council on Environmental Quality presents some ideas in her Forbes 1/22/13 article Smart Communities will Build Green Infrastructure. She writes: “For impact investors, green infrastructure is an emerging market. Investing in it will help build economically sustainable communities that are also resilient in the face of change.”

Doubtless, some of the empty-nesters who have moved into the condo buildings in central cities throughout the US would like to be impact investors in this arena. Let’s make that opportunity possible by creating the vision for our children — one that acknowledges the benefits of nature along with all the other rich amenities of our downtowns.

One last point.  Working Draft 1 of the Portland Comprehensive Plan Update could lead to a sea change in the way we redevelop cities. Children & Nature advocates would do well to take advantage of some of the most innovative parts in it, such as the focus on habitat, the “design with nature” approach, and the “greenways” concept. It’s a forward-looking document that encourages bold thinking — and not just for Portland.  Planners and advocates elsewhere can push their cities to adapt some of its best ideas as their own.

And that will be good news for children, families, community and nature.

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AFTERTHOUGHTS

The images below help to further define the setting for those unfamiliar with Portland’s South Park Blocks and “lost park blocks.” I also provide an example from the Comp Plan: its definition of Greenways.

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Portland’s founders left Park Blocks, but some were lost to development. The Arlington Club in the background, sits in one of those lost Park Blocks. Admittance to this club is restricted to Portland’s 1%–the kind of people who should be able to fund the proposed green infrastructure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The buildings on the left side of this block sit in what was originally intended as Park Blocks. With time, they could revert back, but meanwhile, they should be made as wildlife-friendly and child-friendly as possible–via green roofs, green walls, wider sidewalks, street trees and other green street technologies.

Greenways are defined in the glossary of Working Draft 1 of the Portland Comprehensive Plan Update as: A system of accessible pedestrian- and bike-friendly green streets and trails that link neighborhood centers, parks, schools, natural areas, and other key community destinations. The city Greenways system is a prioritized subset of pedestrian and bicycle connections that makes use of opportunities for multi-objective, distinctive design approaches that draw on and contribute to Portland’s pedestrian, bicycle, green street, and parks and open space systems.