Graphic from the StreetsPDX website.
StreetsPDX is up and running! And to be honest, I’ve got mixed feelings.
All that information I spent years and hundreds of hours poking around internet for—street classifications, the public works review process, early assistance, required development improvements—is now conveniently and attractively packaged in one location. Hey, I had to earn that knowledge the hard way! Now, any Joe Blow can easily access it.
Joking aside, StreetsPDX (formerly called Streets 2035) is great. A web page for people who wonder how decisions about using the right-of-way are made. Why no street trees here? Can’t a sidewalk go there? How about a median?
It’s a decision framework that establishes priorities for what goes in the right-of-way. It’s audience, the people who would care about any of this, are mainly city employees, developers and neighborhood advocates. But the site is so well-designed that I think it could be handy for a lot of people, even just as a nice map.
W Burnside and 10th Ave
Suggested cross sections
How to proceed for private devlopmentAbout that map, find your street, see its classification. What are the options for its street cross section? How wide is it? (No longer will I have to throw a tape measure across a street or run one of those wheel things to get a street width, those days are gone.)
As an example, let’s look at West Burnside at 10th Avenue, right outside Powell’s Books (see figure at left). The road is 44 feet wide, its street classifications are listed on the left and you can find suggested street cross sections by clicking the link. On the top menu bar are guidelines for city staff regarding how to proceed through a sea of city code and policy, depending on whether the proposed development is a city or private project (see code guiding private development at right).
PBOT launched the website last July, and in December I listened to Project Manager Mathew Berkow present it to the SWNI (Southwest Neighborhood’s Inc) Transportation Committee. Also attending that meeting was Kurt Kruger who came to “support Matt.”
StreetsPDX can be viewed as a brain dump of everything Kruger needs to take into consideration to do his job. After years of leading PBOT’s Development Review section, he now heads the public infrastructure permitting team that city council created last year as part of government restructuring and regulatory reform.
If you have ever attended a SWNI Transportation Committee meeting, it’s obvious why a city employee might want to come with support. This is where the old lions of southwest transportation advocacy sit, and where the young come to get trained. It’s an experienced group with a very long memory.
The conversation between Kruger and a few committee members following Berkow’s presentation was quite substantive, and deserving of a separate post of it own. So stay tuned for Part II later this week. Until then, poke around with the StreetsPDX map, it’s fun!
