Walkers Paradise: The Antidote to the Unpardonable Sin

When I moved to the Pearl District I expected to bike on a regular basis.  Portland is one of the nation’s most bike friendly cities, but I quickly learned that in a neighborhood with a 98 walk score--a "walker's paradise" according to walkscore.com--relying on my feet is preferable.  It takes ten minutes to remove the bike from the underground garage, and in that time I could reach essential destinations: doctor, drugstore, hardware store, and a range of choices for groceries and eating.  

I live a Parisian lifestyle.  The Pearl District’s functional and pleasant pedestrian environment is a joy to transverse.  Bordered by the downtown and the historic Chinatown and Northwest neighborhoods, I can stroll to a market laden with fresh produce, a sidewalk café offering regional wines, a slew of art galleries, picturesque plazas, and the bibliophile’s dream, Powell’s bookstore.  Without the expense and upkeep of an auto, I can afford this lifestyle. But most of all I revel in being a flâneur, one who observes a city that plays to, as Balzac put it, “the gastronomy of the eye.”  The Pearl District is a feast.

Olive Twist at Kearny Plaza

Homer Williams, one of the Pearl District's visionary developers, created an environment that catered to pedestrians. He considered the 30-feet between the sidewalk and a building's second story the key. At the street level taller ceiling heights enhance a building’s appearance, create more attractive spaces, and provide greater flexibility for different uses over time.  Ideally, smaller retail establishments occupy the ground floor and there is a mix of building heights. This pattern enhances open spaces, pedestrian connections, architectural variety, and solar access.

The Wyatt, a 245-unit apartment building, exemplifies the special care given to the pedestrian realm. Built on the site of the Merchant Marine Warehouse, many of the original materials were repurposed, including burnished bricks and old growth timber.  A century old bridge trestle was refurbished and it connects to the historic Bridgeport Brewery across 13th Avenue.  The Wyatt's 15-story tower is set back and two-story apartments with brick facades front Marshall Avenue, a prime bike route. Entry gates to the frontdoor stairways engage the eye and leave one unaware that a tall structure looms overhead. The apartments also frame the pedestrian venue and coupled with the sidewalk and street trees they create a setting that not only offers safe passage, it delights the senses.

Wyatt at pedestrian level 

The Natural Capital Center, the first restored historic building to receive a gold LEED certification, offers the most interactive pedestrian experience in the Pearl District. Built in the classical Richardsonian Romanesque style in 1895, most of its recessed round-arched entries, arched window openings, and stucco and brick facings were preserved. The demolished portions of the structure were recycled, and to enhance the neighborhood's identity a section of the facade fronting 10th Avenue was left intact. The aged brick, faded timber, and rusted shutters outlining the space once filled with tall window panes is favored by brides, grooms, tourists, and celebrants looking for a defintive photo. The space is literally crawling with people, a reminder of our preternatural attraction to authenticity.

Natural Capital Center

Providing the right interaction between buildings and the street is an art. I live on a “complete street” that provides space for bicyclists, walkers, automobiles, and streetcars. It scores high on a pedestrian audit, a test designed by the Center for Disease to grade the quality of the walking environment. Parked cars provide buffers and improve safety on a street with two narrow lanes that limit traffic to 25 miles per hour. Street trees, mostly Norwegian Maples, define pedestrian space by creating a regular geometry over the visual length of the street. They also hide the tops of tall buildings and their canopies provide shade in the summer and filter the misty rain that falls from late October through April. The Norwegian Maple's blooms announce the end of the dreary winter months, and their green leaves soon brighten the dense urban environment. Street trees are comforting, crucial components in a setting conducive to random conversations and friendly nods.

Norwegian Maples in Bloom 

Pedestrians are easily bored, but the short 250-foot long block I inhabit has a diversity of uses. Buildings are set flush to the sidewalk, entryways are distinctive, and the mix of brick at the ground floor is inviting, especially in the retail establishments.  A small plaza and Jamison Square, a popular park, breaks the regimen. Building heights vary, but four to five stories is the general standard.

Jamison Square

Not all streets grade as high as my section of 11th Avenue on the pedestrian audit, but the surrounding grid of short blocks offers a variety of options to navigate the city. 13th Avenue, which had the lowest score in the Pearl District, does not have street trees or sidewalks, yet it is a popular destination.  Remains of the rail line that served the historic warehouses centers the street, and most buildings have been converted to offices and condominiums.  A host of restaurants occupy the ground floor, as the former loading docks provide prime outdoor seating as well as pathways for pedestrians. The street's tight conditions force drivers to be observant, which allows for a steady stream of foot traffic.  Patty Gardner, the longtime chair of the Pearl District Planning and Transportation Committee, encourages committee members to walk 13th Avenue to remind drivers of the etiquette of urbanism.

13th Avenue Historic District in Painting by G. Buhler

If the Pearl District is to have a pedestrian street, Gardner thinks it will be 13th Avenue.  It encompasses most of the historic district, and is closed to traffic on First Thursdays when local vendors hawk their wares, galleries extend their hours, and entertainment abounds.  The patina of aged brick on the repurposed warehouses evokes a sense of continuity with the past and emellishes a setting that draws crowds inured by the Pearl District's unique sense of place.

13th Avenue on First Thursday

Given my surroundings, I now walk for recreation. I religiously surpass 10,000 steps a day, but it’s a liberating obsession. I gave up television as well as a car with my move, and not having commercials bark inanity into my cerebral cortex has literally opened my mind. The time spent in front of the television being bombarded by corporate shills glorifying car ownership and speed is now spent walking and its reflexive action, contemplation.

I treasure not being encapsulated in a machine. Outside of the car, the world is more vibrant and senses more alert. Walking “alienates you from speed,” Frederic Gros, the author of A Philosophy of Walking writes. It allows you to embrace your surroundings and revel in the minutiae of life. The color and hue of the sky, the skills of the architect, the beauty of nature, and the qualities of others are not just observed, but considered. Your existence is enlivened and you are immune to “the unpardonable sin,” according to Joseph Campbell, “the sin of inadvertence, of not being alert, not quite awake.”

View from Broadway Bridge

The Pearl District is not paradise, but the propensity for sin is lessened. Moving through the landscape on your own power and finding sacroscant places gives meaning to life. I am still discovering special enclaves where I can make sense of the world and enjoy moments of bliss. Most important, I have the means to put my thoughts in perspective. “Sit as little as possible,” Frederick Nietzsche entoned, "and do not believe any idea that was not born in the open air and of free movement.”

View from Washington Park in late winter

Compassion: The Antidote to Road Rage

Standing at an intersection of Everett Avenue (a primary connection to Interstate 405) on a sweltering 99 degree afternoon I felt exposed. I pictured an aging buffalo on the edge of the herd being stalked by a pack of wolves, and my unease intensified.  There was no shade, no stop sign, and two lanes of traffic were streaming past. Suddenly a car slowed to a stop, and the car in the next lane did the same.  Having lived the majority of my life in Central Florida, I am not genetically predisposed for such civility and I lurched forward and reveled in my good fortune.  I lived in a community that had mitigated the barbarism of road rage. 

A 2012 study found 80 percent of Orlando drivers failed to yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk, a key indicator of why the City Beautiful has the highest pedestrian death rate in the nation.  It also topped the list of “angriest cities,” which included a host of road raged Florida cities. The benighted streets of Metropolitan Orlando are horrific. Engineered for traffic flow at the expense of human safety, they are a constant reminder of the myopic vision that still encumbers urban American.

If Metro Orlando's driving death rate were applied nationwide, fatalities would soar by 15,000. By contrast, applying pedestrian-friendly Portland’s rate would reduce fatalities by 15,000.  The Orlando Sentinel is awash with accounts of gruesome traffic “accidents” and of humans being impaled by speeding motor vehicles.  

For a class project, I once had students create poster boards documenting bicyclist and pedestrian deaths.  They also received "trigger warnings" as these fatalities occur weekly on average.  I cancelled the assignment within a month, it was simply too grisly. An appaling hit and run incident was the last straw. A man biking on a bridge over the Florida Turnpike was struck at high speed and knocked over the railing and onto the multi-lane toll road.  The Sentinel reported:

A number of cars and trucks stuck the body repeatedly. Only one motorist stopped after flattening a car tire on the bicycle seat or other debris. A second motorist, the driver of a car carrier, told police later he thought he hit the mangled carcass of a deer.  He reported what happened after reaching his destination...and finding a right hand on the carrier.

 

Students were horrified and puzzled.  Were humans that insensitized to their surroundings or were they simply cruel insensate beings? We discussed Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, where individuals are inured from thought, nature, and meaningful interaction and driving mimics the chariot scene from Ben-Hur.  A car of teens “whistling, yelling, hurrahing” encounter “a very extraordinary sight, a man strolling, a rarity, and simply said," Bradbury writes, "Let's get him." The man becomes their prey.  

Bradbury had a genius for exposing the fine line between civilization and barbarism. In a society where humans worship the machines they drive, the line is crossed too often. Americans suffer the highest incidence of traffic deaths in the industrialized world, and the rate of these fatalities has tripled since Fahrenheit 451 was published in 1953. https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2016/08/26/morbid-and-mortal-toll-sprawl

The American love affair with the automobile has lessened civility.  Prior generations rode trains and streetcars, and passengers had to follow rules and even sacrifice their comfort to make the ride tolerable for others.  In automobiles, we are encapsulated in metal and glass and prone to the illusion we are driving alone.  “The illusion has seeped into every crevice of our public and private lives, persuading us that sacrifices are no longer necessary,” Stephen Carter writes in Civility.  “We care less and less about our fellow citizens, because we no longer see them as our fellow passengers. We may see them as obstacles or competitors, or we may not see them at all.”

Yet on the street corner in Portland a driver did see me in obvious discomfort, and stopped to let me escape my predicament.  Are Portlanders better than other people? Perhaps not, but they are aware of their fellow citizens.  I’ve learned the jiu jitsu of hand signals that allow me to converse with drivers and navigate the city.  In greater Orlando the sign language is usually a single finger, perhaps a salute to the number of viable transportation options until the SunRail Commuter line opened in 2014.

The fact that Portlanders walk, bike, and use transit to commute at relatively high rates has produced a measure of empathy.  This behavior is lampooned in an episode of Portlandia where overly polite drivers never leave an intersection as they wait for the other person to go.  But it is real and it comes to fore, especially after a tragedy. 

Last week fifteen-year old Fallon Smart was killed in a crosswalk by a speeding driver. A call to action for safe streets ensued. Several hundred people biked from City Hall to the site where the teen died. Flowers adorned the crosswalk and a sign read, “Stop the Killing Now.” Smart was memoralized and there were pleas to make the city’s “Zero Death Policy” a reality. There were few dry eyes. Jonathan Maus, a bicycle activist, remarked, “I’m sick of covering rides like this. Our streets are dominated by killing machines and the absurdity of that fills me with rage.”http://bikeportland.org/2016/08/26/a-life-lost-too-soon-photos-from-the-fallon-smart-memorial-ride-190481

Fallon Smart Memorial Ride (from Bike Portland)

Portland is not an urban utopia. The absurdity Ray Bradbury envisioned in Fahrenheit 451 lurks here as it does in every American city; a mechanized specter fueled by ignorance and malice.  At the same time, Portland is creating an alternative to the autocentric lifestyle, and the effort is breeding compassion.  I experienced it on a street corner on a hot day, and it was in full view as citizens mourned a senseless death.  This is no small feat. "Compassion, the experienced participation in the suffering of another person,” Joseph Campbell writes, “is the beginning of humanity.”

Memorial for Fallon Smart (from Bike Portland)

The Fit City: Portland's Remedy for Obesity

In 1990 journalist Neil Pierce wrote a prescient piece, “Portland Pioneers Urban Natural Areas,” 
documenting the city’s effort to link the nascent bike trail movement with the protection and restoration of urban natural areas. He found this synergy enhanced the health of humans and nature, a vital fact given that obesity rates have increased over three fold since then, rising from 11.4 percent to 38 percent of the population. Another 33 percent of Americans are overweight, and the cost of this epidemic is staggering.

The estimated price for health care related to obesity ranges as high as $210 billion per year. Obese adults spend 42 percent more on direct healthcare costs, while obesity translates into $4.3 billion a year in job absenteeism. On the job, the limitations that plauge obese workers carries a year cost of $506 per worker. http://stateofobesity.org/healthcare-costs-obesity/ 

Dr. Richard Jackson, Chair of UCLA’s School of Public Health, has overseen a series of path-breaking studies that link obesity to poor community design. "The major threat to health is how we built America," he states. It is hardly surprising that Mens Fitness labeled auto addled Houston and Detroit the nation’s “fattest cities,” while Portland and San Francisco were deemed the fittest cities. The girth of Houston residents is expanding and its 1,034 drive through fast food establishments, the most in the nation, is a key indicator. http://www.mensfitness.com/weight-loss/burn-fat-fast/the-fittest-and-fattest-cities-in-america  By contrast, Portland Mayor Charlie Hales wants to ban new drive-through eateries in the central city and along Portland's busiest shopping streets. (Portland's Low Car Future, Willamette Weekly, April 27, 2016) 

Eating well is important, but exercise is the key to fighting obesity. The healthiest cities are those with “active transportation systems” where residents walk, bike, or take transit to work. http://www.governing.com/news/state/gov-biking-walking-cities-obesity-study.html On average, residents of walkable neighborhoods, such as the Pearl District, exercise 50 percent more per week, which reduces the chance of being overweight by nearly the same percentage. Transit is considered “active” because trips often begins and end with a walk.  In his book, Designing Healthy Communities, Jackson reports riders on Charlotte’s new light rail line were 80 percent more likely to meet the Surgeon General’s health targets and, on average, they lost 6 ½ pounds once they commuted by rail. 

This type of utilitarian exercise is essential because “recreational” exercise (e.g. gym workout) requires a level of motivation most Americans lack. A quarter of the population is sedentary, and half the population does not meet recommended levels of physical activity: at least 30 minutes a day of moderate exercise five days a week. Good design, however, can mitigate this tendency. Researchers  found that 40 perecent of people who lived within a 10 a ten-minute walk of a park or a bike trail met recommended exercise requirements, which matches the percentage of Portlanders with a healthy weight.  (H. Frumkin, L. Frank, R. Jackson, Urban Sprawl and Public Health)

Portland’s commitment to a “low car” environment that offers facilities for utilitarian and recreational physical activity is why it is a fit city.  Since Pierce wrote his 1990 article, the metropolitan area’s system of bikeways and trails has doubled to 300 miles, and they link an array of parks. The Intertwine Alliance, a group of 150 public, private, and non-profit entities, is dedicated to expanding the system. One its most important initiatives, the Green Loop, is a key component of Portland’s new 2035 Comprehensive Plan. 

The Green Loop builds on the long-standing tradition of designing urban parks to improve public health. Frederick Law Olmsted considered Central Park a “sanitary institution,” a tranquil, pastoral landscape he designed to “re-create” the mind of a population worn down by "monomania" and the intensity of urban life. The Green Loop also seeks to mollify the unhealthy effects of urban life by promoting active transportation.  This six-mile "Central Path" will allow bicyclists and pedestrians safe passage through central Portland on both sides of the Willamette River, while providing access to new and existing parks and restored natural habitats.  It will also tie into the Willamette River Greenway, the regional trail network, and the active transportation system serving the metropolitan area.

Green Loop Route

The Green Loop marks another step in the evolution of the green infrastructure system Portland pioneered a generation ago. Providing connections for wildlife and humans to move through the urban landscape is vital to both biodiversity and human health, the prescription both pediatricians and conservationists write. Enjoying a visceral experience that no machine can reproduce is not only good for our health, it is what our humanity demands. 

Billed as a "21st Public Works Project for Portland," citizens are working to bring the Green Loop to fruition. The Park Blocks (pictured above) are a key component and on August 20th "Connect the Park Blocks on the Green Loop" will allow Portlanders to experience how enhancing these historic linear greens will transform the downtown. People will be free to walk, stroll, and jog unencumbered by parked cars or vehicle traffic along a 1.2 mile route. Increasing foot traffic is not only good for building community, it is also good for local businesses. The Green Loop is expected to become a tourist draw and, with the city's new bike-share program, the momentum to create a carless conduit is building.

A Portland design team, Hiroshi Kaneko, William Smith, Dustin Locke, Courtney Ferris and Adam Segal, won the John Yeon Center's competition to "bring the Green Loop to life."http://yeoncenter.uoregon.edu/finalist-bio-untitled-studio/ They were awarded $20,000 to futher develop their plan, "Portland's Living Loop," which calls for the project to go through four stages as it becomes an "adaptive urban ecoystem." The goal is not only to bolster sustainability and the city's identity, but to set the stage for the next generation of innovation. The vision cast is striking, a mix of aesthetics and function that recalls Fredrick Law Olmsted's adage that creating a fit city demands the "highest arts of civilization."

From Untitled Studio, "Living Loop" Presentation