The Central Eastside of Portland - stretching from the East bank of the Willamette River to 12th Ave. - is in the spotlight. Metro is studying a streetcar extension that "would extend the Portland streetcar from NW 10th Avenue and Lovejoy Street in the Pearl District, across the Broadway Bridge and south along the Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd./Grand Avenue couplet."
Among other concurrent developments is Riverfront for People's effort to envision, study, and realize the removal/relocation of the I-5 freeway and Marquam Bridge to0 open up the east side of the Willamette in Portland to more people-oriented uses.
This is quite a task, but Waterfront for People (or at least a group with the same name) has done it before.
The original Riverfront for People group was founded in July of 1969, with the goal of removing the six-lane Harbor Drive from the West side of the Willamette. This effort resulted in the destruction of the freeway and the construction of Waterfront Park, one of Portland's most beautiful community spaces.There are precedents for this type of modification, though perhaps not occurring at such a crucial junction in the interstate highway system. The Embarcadero in San Francisco went from this to this after the freeway was damaged in 1989. I surmise that this type of change is a long shot (however appealing) unless there was a precipitating event like an earthquake to make it a viable option. I also wonder whether the expense involved in burying the freeway could not be better spent developing rail systems, buying extra streetcars and busses, and retrofitting the existing situation to make it better for people.
An interesting and relevant podcast from SmartCity is available here.
