The Northeast quadrant has historically trailed behind southeast Portland in its availability of bike boulevards and neighborhood greenways, which are low-traffic streets designed to give priority to cyclists and pedestrians. The future started looking brighter in early 2011, when the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) received a $2.09 million grant of Federal Flexible Funds to build the Going to the River project, which aims to provide a continuous neighborhood greenway route from NE 72nd Street all the way to the Willamette River and one of Portland’s largest employment hubs, Swan Island.
The Going to the River project will incorporate bicycle, pedestrian, transit, and outreach components in order to improve the crucial access from North and Northeast Portland to the recreational trails and thousands of jobs on Swan Island. Among the improvements include building a 12-foot-wide shared-use path from N. Interstate Avenue to N. Greeley Avenue, extending sidewalks of the Willamette Greenway Trail, completing trail work on N. Ballast St., and ultimately expanding Portland’s bicycle network by 2.8 miles.
For more details, contact Kyle Chisek (503) 823-7041, or view the current construction map at the PBOT project webpage here. Also have a look at the many themed events planned for neighborhoods around Going Street!
Photo by Larry Bingham/The Oregonian
