One among my favourite biking locations is getting an enormous improve. Portland Parks and Recreation simply introduced that they’re transferring ahead with the Kelley Level Park Path Mission, which is able to fill a spot within the bike path community and permit folks to entry the park with out crossing N Lombard/N Marine Drive.
Kelley Level Park is a 105-acre oasis with a seaside, wooded space, and enormous meadow on the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette Rivers. It’s additionally accessible from many north Portland neighborhoods by way of the carfree 40-Mile Loop, making it an ideal vacation spot for all-ages biking. Nevertheless it may very well be higher.
At the moment a piece of the 40-Mile Loop that leads into Kelley Level Park ends at N Marine Drive and requires you to cross the busy, high-speed freight path to entry the park. As soon as contained in the park, riders share the highway with automobile customers for the primary few tenths of a mile earlier than you’re in a position to hop on a paved bike path.
Many people don’t understand it, however in the event you keep on the 40-Mile Loop path (named “Rivergate Path” on Apple Maps) south of the Kelley Level Park entrance and go towards the Columbia Slough beneath N Lombard, you’ll come to the tip of the paved path (crimson marks in map above). There’s room to enter the park there, however it’s grime and has some rocks to recover from. I sometimes go this method to keep away from the Lombard/Marine Dr crossing.
This venture will assemble 1,400 toes of recent, paved path that may hook up with the prevailing path throughout the park. Parks says the trail will likely be 10-feet extensive with one-foot extensive shoulders. In accordance with a brand new map launched by Parks, the trail (circled in crimson above) will comply with the highway (unlucky, however probably that alignment has much less pure space impacts) for many of its size.
Funding for this $2.7 million venture comes from a mix of $1.9 million in Regional Versatile Funds awarded by Metro again in 2022 and $800,000 in Parks System Improvement Costs.
If all goes in response to plan, Parks will break floor on the venture this coming spring and open the brand new path in late fall 2026.
Study extra on the venture web site.
