Non CRC related I-5/I-205/I-84 development

[pdxman]

Just to throw out an idea/question. Would it be possible to re-designate highway 26 from the tunnels to the coast as I-84? Would that work or do anything to improve the corridor? Once you get on 26 through the tunnels it seems more like a freeway not a highway.

[bvpcvm]

i doubt it. 26 doesn't meet the standards of an interstate (limited access) past north plains or so.

[tworivers]

Wow. If it was April Fool's Day I'd be suspicious.


Mayor Sam Adams revisits idea of rejiggering Interstate 5
Published: Friday, April 06, 2012, 10:21 AM Updated: Friday, April 06, 2012, 10:50 AM
By Beth Slovic, The Oregonian

An expensive idea that first gained traction in Portland in the 1980s, flared again in the 1990s and resurfaced in the 2000s could rise again in some fashion under Mayor Sam Adams, who has nine months left in his term.

But city officials are so far keeping mum about the recent $11,000 study that shows a rejiggered Interstate 5 near Portland's Central Eastside Industrial District, declining this week to release "a draft concept-level diagram" of the interstate to The Oregonian.

Nonetheless, Adams has reached out to former Mayor Vera Katz and Nohad Toulan, dean emeritus of the College of Urban and Public Affairs at Portland State University, who in 2004 led a committee that, among other things, supported burying about one mile of I-5 near the Central Eastside Industrial District. Both Katz and Toulan confirmed this week that Adams asked them to meet, although no date has been set.

Katz, for her part, said she was told that Adams wanted "to share a plan to bury the section of the freeway."

Jonna Papaefthimiou, a sustainability adviser to the mayor, said Adams instead wanted Katz and Toulan to know that their work eight years ago "had not been forgotten."

Back in 2004, Katz and Toulan studied how changing the freeway would create space for new development and strengthen Portlanders' connection with the east side of the Willamette River. Detractors, on the other hand, worried aloud about changing the nearby property's industrial character.

The concept of remaking Portland's waterfront on the east side is even older than that, however.

In 1988, Riverfront for People pushed a plan to remake the area guided by the image of Tom McCall Waterfront Park (which used to be Harbor Drive until the 1970s). "Our gem of a river is overwhelmed by concrete superstructures," a website for the group still reads today.

(As an aside, mayoral candidate and state legislator Jefferson Smith is listed as a former Riverfront for People member along with his father, R.P. Joe Smith. These days, Jefferson Smith says the east side of the river still has untapped potential, but he doesn't see any available money to execute new plans.)

Charlie Hales, another 2012 mayoral candidate, has also been part of reworking the freeway. In 1993, as a newly elected city commissioner, he asked a citizen commission to study the area and it recommended moving the freeway. Today, Hales also says he doesn't see how the city would have the resources to undertake such a huge task.

That's not a new problem, either.

"Why not conduct a study on how to grow a money tree?" barked one critic of the plan, according to an article in The Oregonian on Nov. 18, 1993.

[zacaway]

How great would that be for the east side. With all the redevelopment going on in that area, this might actually go somewhere!

The concept plan for this is here: http://www.portlandonline.com/mayor/...49522&a=392837

[RED_PDXer]

I pretty sure this concept will be shelved for quite some time. It was only done to appease the industrial property owners in the area and assure them that there was an option to underground the freeway without impacting private property. The cost of $11,000 means that virtually no serious engineering work went into the study.

The City and ODOT should just dump this freeway section, add a lane to I-405 and re-designate it as I-5, and institute congestion pricing on it through downtown. May cap a few blocks of the I-405 could be part of it.. who knows.

[2oh1]

Wow. What a phenomenal, and expensive, idea. The east side esplanade is really more of an extension of the west side than it is a part of the east side. How sad is that? The I-5 pushes inner SE away from the river rather than toward it, turning some of the best land in the entire city into a wasteland in the process. Fixing the I-5 will be insanely expensive... but, again, wow. SE Portland would gain a river. How amazing would THAT be? I can't even imagine it. But I'd love to try!

[davehogan]

Originally Posted by RED_PDXer

I pretty sure this concept will be shelved for quite some time. It was only done to appease the industrial property owners in the area and assure them that there was an option to underground the freeway without impacting private property. The cost of $11,000 means that virtually no serious engineering work went into the study.

The City and ODOT should just dump this freeway section, add a lane to I-405 and re-designate it as I-5, and institute congestion pricing on it through downtown. May cap a few blocks of the I-405 could be part of it.. who knows.

Removing I-5 won't fly, too many powerful interests would not be happy if they had to take I-5 north to go south on I-405. I can't see the feds being enthusiastic about funding it either, and widening I-405 would be nearly impossible without a bit of property acquisition, which again I can't see being a real possibility. I just can't see downtown accepting widening I-405 just to remove a freeway that's across the river from them, and downtown will win that fight fairly easily.

I do think selling air leases to build over I-405 would be a great idea, but I'm not sure if developers would find that to be a cost effective solution in Portland. I'm not sure if the extra costs of building in that style would be worth it for a developer to pay much versus just buying land elsewhere in Portland.

I have a feeling I-5 won't be a tunnel for a long time though. I doubt any local politicians will seriously push for it until the CRC is completed, and that doesn't sound like it'll be anytime soon. I'd have to guess a tunnel of the size and length they're talking about would end up being at least the price of the CRC, and even with the land that could be sold, I doubt if Portland's real estate is valuable enough to really make a huge dent in the overall cost.

Maybe by the time they get around to it they'll have Central and South Waterfront figured out, and the ConWay site might be finished, and the east side street car may have paid off. If all of that has happened, then I'd think burying I-5 might start looking a bit more worthwhile, and by then it would be a good excuse to replace the Marquam Bridge with a tunnel as well.