11 years have handed for the reason that first time I discussed the Inexperienced Loop right here on BikePortland. Since then, little or no has occurred in the way in which of official progress towards making the imaginative and prescient of a loop of paths across the central metropolis a actuality.
Sure, Metropolis Council adopted the Inexperienced Loop idea (as a part of the Central Metropolis 2035 Plan) in 2018, then we added a key hyperlink within the route with the carfree Blumenauer Bridge in 2022, and we received a superb view of what the longer term facility would possibly appear to be on this video I shared again in March. However once you have a look at the official Inexperienced Loop webpage on the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability’s web site, there’s not a lot there. In reality, once you go to join e-mail alerts, the town web site jumps over to Associates of Inexperienced Loop, an impartial nonprofit.
However I’ve seen chatter from my numerous intelligence sources and it appears to be like just like the Metropolis of Portland is lastly able to push this venture ahead and make the Inexperienced Loop legit. With an enormous assembly for the venture scheduled for tonight, I figured it was time to get everybody up to the mark.
Final month the Portland Bureau of Transportation revealed a brand new Inexperienced Loop Idea Plan web site. They’ve additionally launched an “early engagement survey” and can maintain the first-ever Inexperienced Loop Neighborhood Sounding Board assembly tonight (Wednesday, July sixteenth).
To refresh, the Inexperienced Loop was conceived in 2014 as a six-mile “linear park” across the central metropolis. The concept is a collection of low-stress strolling and rolling paths related by wonderful public areas. It’ll be kind of like a neighborhood greenway for the central metropolis. Or, within the phrases of PBOT, a facility that can, “enhance well being outcomes, help enterprise districts, develop inclusive entry to regional locations, and help the expansion of Portland’s Central Metropolis.”
So, what has not too long ago modified to spur all this exercise?
When the Central Metropolis 2035 Plan was adopted by Portland Metropolis Council in 2018, one of many suggestions within the plan was to develop the Inexperienced Loop Idea Plan. In 2023, the Portland Bureau of Transportation received a state grant from the Transportation and Progress Administration program to do this work. They lastly kicked off the method this previous spring.
Based on PBOT, since 2018 there’s been lots of visioning for the design and development of particular person blocks of the Inexperienced Loop. This new plan will refine the route, carry the design to a extra granular stage of element, and nail down a phased implementation technique.
In different phrases, PBOT and different bureau companions (Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, Portland Parks, Prosper Portland, and others) will look to mould what’s now a comparatively obscure idea into one thing extra tangible — one thing that would truly be constructed as soon as funding and different alternatives current themselves. To try this, PBOT wants to grasp what the general public needs and desires out of the venture. That’s the place the survey is available in.
“We’re not constructing something but, however your enter will straight form how and the place it occurs,” reads one of many survey pages. Survey takers are requested to prioritize Inexperienced Loop targets, rank design rules, share how they’re seemingly to make use of the ability, and extra. The survey exhibits photographs of the Indianapolis Cultural Path and the Miami Underline as comparable examples.
The 15-member Neighborhood Sounding Board (CSB) is anticipated to fulfill 3 times between now and winter 2026. Their job can be to supply suggestions to metropolis workers in regards to the alignment and different parts of the plan. A presentation ready by PBOT for tonight’s first CSB assembly lays out the prevailing situations of the route alignment and the neighborhood and land use planning context. Finally, the CSB will make suggestions for designs and implementation methods.
To be taught extra, try the brand new web site, take the survey, and take into account attending the Sounding Board assembly tonight from 3:00 to five:00 pm.
