In the
late 1990s, critics wondered if the Pearl District was a folly. This week, a PBS documentary recognized Portland’s
“Urban Paradise” as one of “10 Towns that Changed America.” The
Pearl District is the culmination of an experiment initiated 43 years ago with
the passage of Senate Bill 100, which, in the iconic words of Governor Tom McCall, sought to reign
in the “gasping wastrels of the land” and “the ravenous rampage of suburbia.” It required Oregon
cities to establish Urban Growth Boundaries, and meet 19 goals to develop a
more efficient and sustainable land use pattern. The path-breaking legislation turned Portland into the nation's planning laboratory, and the Pearl District is a tested prototype of a new urban future.
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| Read Estate Advertisment for the Pearl District |
The 1992 River District Vision set the foundation for the Pearl District. The City Council unanimously endorsed the
plan drawn by businesses interests and citizen groups to build a dense urban
neighborhood on a street grid that extended across the contaminated railroad
yards north of the Lovejoy Viaduct. Bill Naito, an incomparable civic leader, claimed
the project marked “the next chapter of this great city.” At the time, building urban neighborhoods on
a historic grid pattern was a radical idea. For a generation, auto-dependent “master
planned” projects favored cul-de-sacs and dead end streets that insulated
neighborhoods in a series of pods. In fact, River Place, downtown’s Portland’s
first significant infill project, had the markings of the “dead worm”
disconnected subdivision. Outside of the
promenade that celebrated the riverfront and provided a vital pedestrian
linkage on its eastern edge, the rest of the mixed-use project was severed from
its surroundings. There was no grid, and
the River District plan could have followed suit.
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| 1992 River District Vision |
The River
District Vision faced a major obstacle, the Lovejoy Viaduct. It severed the site and deflated real estate values. In 1999, while most cities were widening highways and building toll roads, Portland officials spent $13 million to tear down the Lovejoy Viaduct and remove the 10th Avenue ramp. “The reconstruction of Lovejoy is a critical piece of the emergence of the River District as a vibrant residential neighborhood in Northwest Portland,”
City Commissioner, and now Mayor, Charlie Hales declared. The improved link to
the Broadway Bridge and the construction of new streets established a grid that tied the emerging Pearl
District to the surrounding neighborhoods. Infrastructure was also provided for
the Central City Streetcar, which started service in 2001. The first
urban streetcar system constructed in over half a century, the Pearl District was defining a future built on past. In the 1920s one of every
three trips were taken by foot, transit or auto, a metric that gained new meaning in a neighborhood designed to make pedestrians a priority.
In 1996, the
River District Right-of-Way Standards provided the means to transform the industrial
warehouse district with unpaved streets and a score of loading docks into a
“Pedestrian District,” where walking the mode
of choice. The straight
forward standards called for what was once common place: a regimen of street
trees planted next to 12-foot wide sidewalks located on both sides of
streets (the exception being the 13th Avenue historic district). On street parallel parking was
provided to slow traffic and provide a buffer for pedestrians. In addition, two 50-foot wide landscaped walking routes were constructed between 12th and 9th Avenues. Besides offering safe passage, these linear parks became havens of repose. Private developers followed in kind, and provided similar verdant connections to their buildings. Over time, improvements for bicyclists were incorporated into a full fledged “multi-modal transportation system.”
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| Pedestrian Haven in the Pearl District |
Portland's new Comprehensive City Plan has prioritized “high-quality connectivity proposed to and within the area by modes of transportation other than the automobile.” In plain English this means two-thirds of trips in the Pearl District will not be by automobile, and a majority will be by foot. The Pearl District is the most walkable neighborhood in Portland, an intentionally interconnected community and a recognized agent of change in a nation where nearly 90 percent of trips are made by car.
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