COMMISSIONER RANDY LEONARD scored huge points with the sustainability-minded crowd at a candidate and elected official’s forum last week, when he told them he’s interested in closing down part of the central city to auto traffic.
At the October 1 forum sponsored by the Oregon Environmental Council and a group called Future of Energy, politicos like Leonard fielded questions on everything from carbon trading to composting. One woman in the audience at the Bagdad Theater lobbed a question at Leonard: What did he think about congestion fees, which cities like London have used to keep auto traffic out of the city core?
Joking that his answer was “going to get me in trouble,” Leonard made a bold announcement: After visiting Copenhagen earlier this year, he has been “quietly looking at those cities” that have created public spaces by eliminating auto traffic on certain streets. While it’s not a congestion toll, Leonard’s “intrigued” by cities that have “opened up parts of their city to just pedestrians… and [I] would like to actually look at doing something toward that end in the next four years.” The forum crowd cheered.
In Copenhagen, Leonard later told the Mercury, he stayed near the Strøget car-free area. The space used to be open to cars, but “now it’s this huge public gathering place.”
The South Park Blocks area “lends itself” to creating a similar space in Portland, Leonard says, by expanding the car-free area around Portland State University all the way down to SW Salmon. “I think it’s worth talking about and pursuing,” said Leonard, noting that the entire city council would need to embrace the concept to make it a reality anywhere in the city, and that he hasn’t brought the idea to his colleagues yet.
Elly Blue, coordinator of this year’s Towards Carfree Cities conference, held in Portland last June, calls Leonard’s idea “super exciting.”
“One of the points I’ve been trying to make for a long time is having car-free spaces like this is the opposite of radical,” she says. “It’s one the of the most mainstream, healthy things you can do for a community.”
In other car-free areas—like the vacated street on the north edge of Jamison Square in the Pearl District—people “don’t even recognize them as not having cars, they just recognize them as good spaces,” Blue adds.
Finally a breathe of fresh air. Time to roll up the pavement and embrace the future. How many deaths can be attributed to the auto. How much public expenditure to maintain the infrastructure to drive. How much disease can be attributed to the pollution from emissions. It is time to rethink our priorities, this is just a baby step folks. Mt Tabor on Wednesday is autofree, last thursday is now auto free and coming to a street near you, a safer & cleaner place to live. This is the new green economy, make no mistake.
South Park Blocks? Get serious with this. Start with Morrison & Yamhill through downtown (ie MAX only, no other vehicles). Then work up to 2nd and/or 3rd avenues. Most European city centres of Portland’s size are largely car-free (try Manchester, Leeds or Birmingham in England for starters). Let’s think big, and make Portland a leader again instead of a follower.
Ever since I moved here 12+ years ago I’ve wondered why NW 23rd isn’t a pedestrian-only zone, at least in 2- or 3-block chunks between Everett and Lovejoy (meaning cross traffic allowed in places). The Park blocks and the Pearl are also great candidates. Just please remember to provide parking for those of us who want or need to drive in, park once and forget about the car.
This isn’t a new or radical idea, Eugine tried this years ago and killed off their downtown area in the process.
While I wouldn’t mind seeing 23rd killed off, for my own personal reasons, I don’t think that’s what Leonard has in mind.
Wow! If Mr. Leanord’s plan is well implemented it could be a boon, but a more intriguing idea would involve carpooling. Anyone driving in or out of the city during rush hour should notice that almost nobody carpools. Why spend millions re-developing city blocks or expanding mass transit when our city could prod local employers to adopt a car-pool friendly and/or work from home strategy. Truly, what would happen to the city (and METRO and the States) construction budget if 1/3 of the cars just don’t show up in downtown everyday?
I’m really happy to read that Randy Leonard was inspired by his trip to Copenhagen. Stroget was the first pedestrian street that I experienced (as a teenager in the “60’s) and it was a revelation! I decided to major in Urban Studies and have since visited many other examples of planning for people, not for traffic.
The Park Blocks are already bicycle and pedestrian friendly, but I have long thought that Park and Ninth Avenues should be carfree from Salmon to Burnside. The city could perhaps subsidize conversion of the ground floors of existing buildings along those streets into small (and therefore more likely to be local specialty shops) storefronts.
The Stroget in Copenhagen is a retail street which is what makes it popular. There are hundreds of towns & cities throughout Europe and other parts of the world that have succesfully removed cars from retail areas, with great success. What happened in Eugene was an aberation, caused by a major property owners mismanagement and other factors.
This relates to the recent controversy about the sidewalks on NW 21st & 23rd not being wide enough to accommodate the growing popularity of al fresco dining and all the pedestrian traffic. Think how much more pleasant it would be w/o all the parked cars and cars looking for parking spots idling in stalled traffic. On street parking could be eliminated, the sidewalks could be twice as wide. There could a bike paking coral on every block and more street trees & other vegitation. One lane could be left vacant to continue the streetcar up 23rd, down Burnside and back on 21st, which would also allow for emergency vehicles. Deliveries to merchants could happen at off peak times &/or using specially designed freight cars on the streetcar tracks (as is being done in Amsterdam).
Americans have to get over the idea that they have to use cars to get around cities. Portland already has good public transit and there are plans (or at least dreams) afoot to improve it. The logical next step is to reinvent the streetscape with people in mind.
There are a lot of cities that have car-free areas on streets. New Orleans, Tampa, and I believe even Miami. There is a time and place for this. In the United States we need to start waking up and interacting with each other again.
There are dozens of areas in Portland that could be car-free… Yamhill and Morrison are a good start. Barely any traffic hits those streets anyway. Most of the traffic is pedestrian. So close that sucker to cars and let’s get some space for pedestrians and transit service.