6 • The Southwest Portland Post
NEWS
November 2016
Metro prepares for environmental review on proposed light rail project
SOUTHWEST CORRIDOR PLAN
By Erik Vidstrand
The Southwest Portland Post
Metro held an open house at Wilson
High School on Sept. 22 to solicit
input and share next steps for the
proposed light rail between Portland
State University in downtown Portland
and Bridgeport Village in Tigard.
Metro, TriMet, and Portland city staff
facilitated various project components
of the extensive project.
Maps and charts lined the cafeteria for
designs from PSU to Tigard and points in
between. Transfer options to Marquam
Hill and Portland Community College
Sylvania Campus were examined by
this reporter.
Routes to PCC Sylvania caught the
eyes of Marcia Leslie, the former chair
of the Far Southwest Neighborhood
Association where the college resides.
This neighborhood will be affected
by some sort of transit to the college.
Metro voted down a light rail tunnel
earlier this year so other options have
been introduced. These include an aerial
tram, gondola, additional buses, and an
electric bike share program.
“Our association won’t meet until
January after many issues will be
decided,” Leslie said. “Neighbors
can continue to provide input at
Metro meetings, forums, and submit
comments.”
PCC Sylvania student Otakar
Andrysek was also at the college booth
and sees it differently.
“Think 2027,” he commented. “That’s
when the project will realistically be
fully running. Why aren’t automated
vehicles a part of the discussion?”
Andrysek said he was referring to the
Giant Cedar Trees
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$273,000 with an assessed value of
$141,300.
Contractor Robert Wood, with
Mountainwood Homes, said he hasn’t
seen the final design yet, but believes
the owner, Michael T. Fisk, is planning
a duplex.
“We’re not pulling the strings on this
one,” he said. “We’re just building it.”
The lot is nearly a quarter acre, at
8,003 sq. ft. Could two new homes be
built on it without removing the cedars,
which stand right on the front edge of
the property close to the street? Perhaps.
Woods said that he thinks Fisk
believes the demolition of the house and
the new construction would irreparably
damage the trees, and that they couldn’t
be saved, but he wasn’t sure.
Although the city puts up a notice of
tree removal, it states quite plainly it is
“courtesy in nature, only.” It does not
provide “for public comment on the
proposal or for appeal of the proposal
to the city of Portland.” In other words,
neighbors have no options.
But neighbors may be happy to hear
that city planner Malia Slusarenko is
working hard to save the cedars. “We
are working with our city arborist,”
she said. “He has looked at it and we
need some more information from the
property owner, but we are trying to see
if we can save [them].”
If the trees come down, it will not
come without a price. According to city
code, the builder must preserve one
third of the trees on site.
Since the cedars are the only trees on
rise of self-driving vehicles now being
tested around the world.
“These cars could be a viable option
ten years from now,” he said. “Metro
has proposed more buses but that is not
really what students would use.”
Andrysek said he hoped light
rail would connect to the campus.
“According to a recent college forum,”
Andrysek said, “faculty and staff
preferred a light rail but the needs of
the community surpassed any college
needs.”
“The [Capitol Highway] 44 bus will
run extra lines,” said Dave Unsworth
of TriMet. “Bus service could run
on dedicated rail tracks on Barbur
Boulevard before heading up the hill
to PCC.”
According to maps, the bus line would
continue to Bridgeport Village.
At the Marquam Hill easel, options
propose robust Americans with
Disabilities Act accessible connections up
to Oregon Health & Science University,
the Veterans Administration Hospital,
and Doernbecher Children’s Hospital.
Pedestrian and bicycle connections
would link with a light rail station in the
Lair Hill neighborhood. Other proposed
options are a pedestrian tunnel with
elevators, an embedded escalator, sky
bridges, and inclined elevators.
Improvements to Southwest 53rd
Avenue and the Crossroads (Barbur
Boulevard, Taylors Ferry Road,
Interstate 5 and Capitol Highway) are
being crafted. Plans call for the Barbur
Transit Center to be remodeled and
enlarged.
Marianne Fitzgerald of Ashcreek,
a Southwest Neighborhoods, Inc.
volunteer, wants a transit center built
closer to Tigard.
“This would alleviate traffic on an
already overtaxed highway,” she said.
Comments posted on the easels
the property, in order to remove them
the developer must pay a hefty fee: $300
per tree inch. That means the developer,
Mountainwood Homes, will shell out
$21,600 dollars to take down the cedars.
As a city clerk explained, if the city
forbids a private landowner from
cutting trees, it would amount to
a “taking,” of their property. The
best they can do is a policy where a
homeowner either “preserves or pays.”
So despite a city policy that
encourages the retention of healthy
trees on private property, all it takes is
a permit and a checkbook to cut them
down.
Still, Masthem is encouraging
her neighbors to write to the city
commissioners and express their
dismay at the direction of Portland’s
growth.
“Change is hard,” Masthem said.
“I know we can’t do anything about
progress, but to be so disdainful about
nature—to scrape everything off the
land is just so sad.”
Efforts to contact the property owner
were unsuccessful.
Fall is a great time
to advertise in The Post
Contact Don at 503-244-6933
or email don@multnomahpost.com.
Deadline for December is Nov. 18.
A MAX light rail train with Type 4 cars crossing 185th Avenue from Beaverton into
Hillsboro. (Photo by Steve Morgan, Wikimedia creative commons license)
described uncertainties of traffic lanes
disappearing on Barbur Boulevard. A
Metro memo of Sept. 21 said that the
project will not remove any “through
lanes” that are continuous on Barbur
Boulevard.
The memo reassures neighbors there
will be at least two travel lanes in each
direction south of Naito Parkway, but
Barbur Boulevard could lose some
dedicated turn lanes.
From Southwest 13th to 60th avenues,
a route adjacent to Interstate 5 remains
an option.
According to Craig Beebe, a Metro
public affairs specialist, “Fifty-one
percent of Barbur Boulevard doesn’t
have a sidewalk on either side of the
street.
“In addition,” Beebe said, “bike lanes
just disappear in many places. This is
being addressed.”
What happens next? An amendment
on the upcoming Tigard ballot requires
a public vote before the city can formally
support the light rail. A separate vote
before the city could raise money for it
through taxes or fees.
According to TriMet general manager
Neil MacFarlane, Tigard voters could
kill the proposed MAX line if they vote
against it during the upcoming general
election.
“If voters don’t want the line,”
MacFarlane said, “it would be difficult
to secure federal dollars for the line.”
Metro is counting on the federal
government to pick up half of the costs
of the project which is approximately
$2 billion.
“I can’t speak much about the
election in Tigard because I am a public
employee,” Eryn Kehe, a Metro senior
communications specialist wrote to The
Post. “It would certainly be something
for our steering committee to address.”
The next steering committee meeting
is on Monday, Nov. 14, from 9 – 11 a.m.
at the Metro Regional Center, 600 NE
Grand Ave. in Portland.
The committee will review scoping
comments from the community and
hear staff recommendations. A federally
required draft environmental impact
study will begin in January and last
through the coming year.
The project will identify a range of
strategies to help improve safety and
quality of life for citizens near and
around the corridor vicinity.
For more information, visit
swcorridorplan.org.
STREET AND
STORMWATER SUMMIT
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Novick talk all the time.”
“We will give you more updates
as they are refined by end of year,”
Uchiyama promised. “For now, there is
a structure to go through both internally
and externally.
“We’ve always had coordination,”
Uchiyama said, “but now we have
collaboration.”
Another summit will be scheduled
next year.
First project in Stephens-Tryon
Headwaters area to begin construction
The city of Portland held a series of
workshops and community forums last
year to help shape stormwater and road
improvements in the Stephens-Tryon
Headwaters area.
Due to feedback, the city is first
designing improvements on Southwest
19th Avenue. The street is currently an
unimproved street of dirt, gravel, and
pavement. It is designated a Safe Route
to School for Capitol Hill Elementary so
needs attention.
It’s also part of the regional trail from
Hillsdale to Lake Oswego.
“The problem is that rain washes
sediment and other pollutants off gravel
and dirt streets into streams,” said
Lisa Moscinski from the Bureau of
Environmental Services.
“Tryon Creek, where endangered
steelhead trout, Chinook and Coho
salmon live, is just downhill of Southwest
19th Avenue.”
The Portland Bureau of Transportation
is designing a paved street on two blocks
of the street from Southwest Orchid to
Marigold.
According to Kyle Chisek, Portland
Bureau of Transportation, they will be
using new street standards.
“This means the street will have a
smaller footprint, a less impervious
surface, and fewer impacts to streams
and other natural features,” he said.
To improve water quality in Tryon
Creek, Environmental Services is
designing vegetated stormwater facilities
on 19th Avenue including a large facility
between Southwest Taylors Ferry Road
and Southwest Orchid Street, a site the
city closed to through traffic in 2002
because of safety concerns.
The city is designing the project and
will begin construction in spring 2017.