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Old Posted Mar 5, 2007, 6:26 AM
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tworivers tworivers is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Portland/Cascadia
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I've been thinking about this lately, and I think building the "Caruthers" bridge down by SOWA is the wrong approach. First of all, any further south and it's very difficult to connect back with the route along McLoughlin. Maybe someone has issues with the McLoughlin route itself, but it seems like the obvious place to go. Secondly, even though I rarely cross the river to the east side, I think the neighborhoods in SE deserve LRT, given that they've supported it for years. It's no more a political decision, in my opinion, to "reward" SE with LRT than it is to serve SOWA with LRT. Thirdly, crossing anywhere south of Caruthers means a route running south of Powell, which effectively cuts off any pedestrian access from the neighborhoods north of there.
I was envisioning a bridge landing right at the mid-point of the OHSU campus (any farther south and I agree). I assume there will be future streetcar stations in that vicinity, and it would be a somewhat better connection to S Waterfront, many years before a Barbur line. It looks like just as much of a straight shot accross the river to Caruthers as a bridge coming accross from under the Marquam. (Not sure how it would connect with the end of the transit mall at Jackson St, though, or how the streetcar/MAX connection would work.) I mis-spoke when I said "When they do build the Caruthers, it probably won't be at Caruthers", because I do think the bridge should land there on the eastside to meet up with the streetcar, give inner SE MAX access, and connect with McLoughlin. I know this map is old, but it gives a good idea of what I mean:



I hope the pedestrian and bike facilities are stellar, to make up for the botched job ODOT did on the Ross Island a few years back. This would be a great connection between all the new dvlpt and the Springwater Corridor and SE in general.
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