From BikePortland.org:
The Orange Line might secretly be Portland's biggest bike project ever
Holy. Wow.
This explains suddenly why SE 17th is so wide through the project area, and part of why the SE neighborhood plan includes mentions of a bike/pedestrian bridge from SE Center to SE Gladstone.
For anyone who hasn't been down SE 17th lately, the road segments (it's line N Interstate, with the rail in the middle) are super wide. Like, wide enough that I was wondering if they were planning for 14' wide lanes or something.
So, Powell, Holgate, and Gladstone (eventually) from the east, as well as SE 17th and SE Milwaukie from Westmoreland/Sellwood/Milwaukie will all feed into a bike route right into downtown and CEID (via SE 11th/12th.)
Wow. Close-in East Side Portland is going to be set up nicely after this to be a natural expansion of Downtown.