Lay the rail, and people will come

BACK STORY • Traffic change also may boost area north of Burnside

By peter korn

The Portland Tribune, Jul 17, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (2 Reader comments)

The transit mall south of West Burnside Street may have attracted drug dealers in recent years, but the mall north of Burnside has attracted almost no one — it has been one of the most deserted and unwelcoming stretches of property in the downtown area since the mall was constructed in 1994.

Pedestrian traffic on the bus mall south of Burnside traditionally has been about 10 times as heavy as that on the north side.

For example, the intersection at Southwest Fifth Avenue and Morrison Street averaged about 21,000 pedestrians a day in 2004, before construction began. The intersection at Northwest Fifth Avenue and Flanders Street averaged about 2,100 pedestrians a day the same year.

“There are a lot of empty storefronts and a lot of work to be done,” said Douglas Obletz, manager for the Portland Mall Revitalization Project, a public-private partnership. Obletz also was the project manager when the transit mall was first extended north of Burnside in 1994.

Obletz thinks transit officials have learned from mistakes of the past that contributed to the deserted feel of the north bus mall, though many of the reasons, he said, are not easily overcome.

For starters, Obletz said, there simply are more people south of Burnside because that area is home to all the large downtown office buildings.

In addition, Fifth and Sixth avenues north of Burnside are part of Old Town, which always has suffered next to south of Burnside when it came to attracting investment money, Obletz said.

There also are design reasons. Fifth and Sixth avenues north of Burnside, building to building, are 20 feet narrower than south of Burnside. The sidewalks are narrower, too. The combination, Obletz said, produces “a less open feeling.”

Fewer stops may work better

The traffic configuration in the mall north of Burnside also has led to some of the problems, according to local transportation activist Chris Smith.

Smith said he has talked to retail shop owners in the area as part of his research into the proposed couplet that would turn Burnside and Couch into one-way streets.

Those conversations, Smith said, produced a theory: “It’s great to be on a street that has MAX, and it’s not so great to be right on a street that has a stop. You get the loitering traffic if you’ve got a stop, but if you’re a block away from the stop you get the shoppers going to and from the stop without getting the loitering.”

1 | 2 Next Page >>

Facebook	Digg	Del.icio.us
Newsvine	Stumbleupon	Reddit