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INSIDE:
Southwest Portland’s Independent Neighborhood Newspaper
Volume No. 20, Issue No. 10
www.swportlandpost.com
Portland, Oregon
Multnomah Days
includes street fair,
parade, live music,
petting zoo and more!
– Page 4
Complimentary
August 2012
Gibbs Street Pedestrian Bridge named for Congresswoman Hooley during grand opening
By Lee Perlman
The Southwest Portland Post
The opening was three weeks late due
to a faulty elevator. The opening cer-
emony was several days late, with the
structure already in active use. But on
July 14 City officials and neighborhood
activists dedicated the new Gibbs Street
Pedestrian Bridge, named for former
Congresswoman Darlene Hooley, its
biggest benefactor.
The bridge, which crosses Interstate
5 from Southwest Kelley to Macadam
avenues, provides direct pedestrian and
bike access between the old Corbett and
Lair Hill neighborhoods and the new
South Waterfront.
Because the grade change would have
required a steeply sloping ramp if the
bridge had ended on ground level on
the east end, instead it terminates 68 feet
in the air. There are stairs to the ground,
but also a handicapped-accessible el-
evator.
Mayor Sam Adams, who presided
at the opening ceremony, said that
before the bridge’s completion, walk-
ing or biking between the two sides of
the neighborhood “meant a one-mile
trek that was impos-
sible for someone not
reasonably spry and
fearless. Today it is a
mere 700 feet.”
Together with In-
terstate 5, the Port-
land Streetcar, the
Oregon Health and
Sciences University’s
aerial tram and the
planned Portland to
Milwaukie light rail
line, the new bridge
will make the South
Waterfront a “multi-
modal hub. To make
it vital, we needed to
make it accessible to
all users,” said Ad-
ams.
The bridge was
conceived, in part,
as mitigation to the Former Congresswoman Darlene Hooley is joined at the Gibbs Street Pedestrian Bridge dedication
neighborhood for the by (from left) Mark Wiliams, Jim Gardner, Don Baack, and Mayor Sam Adams, July 14.
tram, whose effects (Post photo by Lee Perlman)
were widely feared.
Mark Williams of OHSU said the
its neighbors. “There’s no way we
Past transportation projects, such as
university viewed construction of the
could have gotten this built by any one
I-5, had “served to cut the neighbor-
bridge a part of a partnership with
player,” he said.
(Continued on Page 7)
Bike Central
Speed limits to dip on Maplewood Road
and other Southwest streets
NEIGHBORHOOD GREENWAYS
By Jillian Daley
The Southwest Portland Post
There were bikes (and bicyclists) everywhere in Multnomah Village
during the Sunday Parkways event, July 22.
(Photo courtesy of Patti Waitman-Ingebretsen)
Don’t forget to renew your subscription. Form on Page 2.
The Southwest Portland Post
4207 SE Woodstock Blvd #509
Portland, OR 97206
Maplewood, Hillsdale and Hay-
hurst neighborhood association resi-
dents could see speed limit changes
on streets in their areas this summer.
Portland City Council this month
could approve dropping the speed
limit from 25 to 20 mph on some low-
traffic residential streets, including a
few roads in the southwest, said Kyle
Chisek, a capital projects manager at
the Portland Bureau of Transportation.
Chisek said the potential slow-
downs in Southwest Portland are:
Maplewood Road, from 45th Avenue
to 52nd Avenue; 52nd Avenue, from
Maplewood Road to Vermont Street;
60th Avenue, from Miles Court to
Vermont Street; Illinois Street, from
45th Avenue to Shattuck Road; and
Westwood Drive, from Terwilliger
Boulevard to Sunset Drive.
If passed, the changes will occur
by the end of September in this area,
Chisek said. In anticipation of the
change, the city planned to start in-
stalling speed bumps in July every
350 feet on Maplewood, Southwest
52nd and Southwest 60th avenues.
Ilinois Street already has speed bumps
in place, and Westwood Drive cannot
add them because it is so steep, he said.
The Oregon Legislature passed
House Bill 3150 in 2011, allowing cities
to decrease the speed limit by 5 mph
on roads with less than 2,000 cars a
day. Before the bill went into effect
on Jan. 1, 2012, Oregon Department
of Transportation previously held the
authority to set speed limits, according
to a bill summary.
The roads where the city plans to
decrease the speed limit are called
“neighborhood greenways,” Chisek
said. A neighborhood greenway is a
street with little traffic and a low speed
limit where pedestrian and bicycle
traffic safety is top priority.
In the last three years, the city has
improved 50 miles of neighborhood
greenways, allocating $900,000 per
year to support the upgrades, Chisek
said.
Maplewood Road also is designated
as one of the City of Portland “safe
routes to school.” The city works to
improve crosswalks and other safety
features on those routes, and they have
organized group walking and biking
trips to and from school.
The Portland Bureau of Environ-
mental Services is doing ditch main-
tenance and shoulder work on Maple-
wood Road, clearing out weeds from
the drainage ditch and adding crushed
rock.
Those changes will provide a stable
area for the Bureau of Transportation
to pave the shoulder. That will give
pedestrians a safe point of refuge on
the road, which has no sidewalks,
Chisek said.
“These projects are basically alterna-
tives to busy streets, and they’re good
streets that we’re trying to make better
for biking and walking.”
(Continued on Page 4)