October 2012
NEWS
The Southwest Portland Post • 5
Portland City Council considers new street paving strategies
OUT OF THE MUD
By Lee Perlman
The Southwest Portland Post
The Portland City Council consid-
ered new street paving strategies in a
work session August 28, and quickly
found that not only does one size not
fit all, one strategy does not suit the
whole city.
The project, originally called Street
by Street and later renamed Out of
the Mud by Mayor Sam Adams,
is looking at more flexible ways to
provide some degree of paving for
the city’s 60 miles of unpaved streets,
and especially the 45 miles of small
residential streets.
These streets tend to be concen-
trated in East Portland and the
Southwest Hills with smaller con-
centrations in northeast’s Cully and
southeast’s Brentwood-Darlington
and Woodstock neighborhoods,
Christine Leon of the Portland Bu-
reau of Transportation told Council.
“We have done tests with streets
paved with gravel, and they needed
maintenance work a year later,”
Leon said. “There are complaints
about dust from unpaved streets.
They don’t meet access standards
for use by the disabled.”
However, Leon said, currently the
City assumes maintenance only for
“standard” streets. These are 26 to
28 feet wide and include two travel
lanes, two parking lanes seven to
eight feet wide, a curb, a planting
strip, and a sidewalk at least six feet
wide.
These cost an average of $1,300
to $1,500 per lineal foot, with a cost
to the average property owner of
$70,000 and, under financing cur-
rently available, a bill of $300 per
month; the total cost to pave all un-
improved streets in this way would
be $1.5 billion, Leon said.
The Bureau of Transportation has
been working since 2007 with neigh-
bors and developers “frustrated
by the lack of options,” Leon said.
“There is consensus that doing some-
thing is better than doing nothing.”
The “something” under consid-
eration includes more flexible stan-
dards for streets. For local streets that
handle less than 500 vehicle trips per
day, this could include streets with
pavements only 16 feet wide, no
curbs, and gravel shoulders. “People
don’t park on the street 24/7, and
there are other things we can do with
the space,” Leon said.
One is to plant trees in lieu of
parking spaces, narrowing the road-
way and causing motorists to drive
slower. The cost to property owners
could be lowered to as little as $7,500
apiece, with monthly payments of as
This is an example of one of the many unpaved streets in Southwest Portland.
This is located close to 48th Avenue near Woods Park.
(Post file photo by Leslie Baird)
little as $60, Leon said.
Another issue is the way the City
deals with developers. They are usu-
ally called upon to create standard
streets along their frontage. “This
results in an orphaned developed
street segment that will be orphaned
for a very long time,” said Leon.
Alternatively, developers can pay a
fee toward future street paving. The
funds can be used to pave this street,
or one where paving is considered
a higher priority. The average cost
is $47,000 for a 50-foot frontage,
Leon said. “What we’ve heard is
that given the options, they’d rather
build it.”
Adams said the City should cre-
ate incentives to get developers to
pay. Commissioner Dan Saltzman
disagreed, saying, “Paving would
incent other neighbors to follow their
example.”
Commissioner Nick Fish coun-
tered, “If the paving happened piece-
meal, it could be very disruptive,
and create an enormous amount of
(Continued on Page 6)