How would you improve Portland?
The Office
This is your place to suggest your ideas for improving Portland. We're all ears.
Posted by The Office on January 3, 2005
(25) Comments | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Comments by site visitors
Please update everyone on steps you are taking to turn the gay district on Stark into a visible, recognizable and valuable district of the city. I was in Seattle last weekend and then went to our gay district last night and was struck by the contrast. Ours is small, unattractive and half-dead. I'd like to see it become a vibrant, highly visible area that is a draw to the larger community and a significant contribution to diversity. Thanks.
Posted by: Rick Fernández | Jun 27, 2005 7:29:20 PM
I guess the supply and use of energy resources will be my subject.
I mentioned the idea that the oil will run out. I read somewhere,...on some website...that the feds ran a scenario, like a war game, only about the oil supply under stress. Seems everything went to hell pretty much straight away.
My idea would be to start a push here in river city, to come up with a plan, and maybe some action.
So, I recommended the city try to help maintain farmland beyond the city limits. The citizens will want to eat when it becomes to expensive to freight the stuff here from Chile, Florida, or even California. There's one idea.
I think we need to look at what kind of transportation will remain after gas hits $5.00 a gallon. Will many of us have jobs that will make cars affordable at that price?
I'm just saying, the city council could entertain a discussion. I think the citizens would appreciate that.
Thanks again for the opportunities to speak up.
Posted by: steven andresen | Jul 1, 2005 12:51:13 AM
I have always been favorable to halting freeway construction and providing transit alternatives.. But I am starting to wonder if the LRT group is becoming the new entrenched bureaucracy. Even though the MAX trains are 'maxxed out" this seems to only be at rush hour; at other times I see largely empty cars. Still, so far we have done well with them and even the lightly used Interstae line would do far better if Clark County would go for the lop to PDX. It's the Milwaukie LRT that bothers me. $515 million and another bridge for what?
Maybe the Milwaukie LRT will eventually link to Clackamas and Oregon City? I hope the cost by then isn't aprroaching an additional one billion, especially if federal funds wither. For the kind of money being discussed an extensive atreetcar system could provide more routes and they could run frequently during rush hours. They could link not only the eastside but also cross the Willamette River at Sellwood and via the UP bridge to Lake Oswego. A stop at Willamette manor complex would also give car-less seniors a ride into two nearby town and a way out of the retirement home atmosphere.
One other note: I am very much in favor of high rise condos. These do more to preserve open green spaces than anything else--it was a shame that CTLH fought them since they are going to be astride the premier development in Oregon. But these condos should be affordable to people who are not wealthy. The only expensive item in them, typically, is the concete floor, despite what developers say. We still have many sites around the Metro area that are suitable and not, yet, expensive. There are many inexpensive high rise condo units in Canadian cities. Why not here? Not everyone can live in the Pearl. Small high rises were built in the sixties and seventies for retirement complexes so it is obvious that this type of construction can be affordable.
Oh-I forgot. Give South Waterfront it's own bridge--between Holgate and Hwy. 43 so they won't have to use the Sellwood Bridge.
Posted by: Ron Swaren | Jul 2, 2005 9:57:25 AM
Can we rename Hawthorne Blvd--just for one day--to Downing Street in recognition of the Downing Street Memo (http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/)?
Portland's reputation as "Little Beirut" has softened over the years, so I think a little national publicity for the majority of our citizens' anti-war stance would be good for the city.
Plus, it would be freaking hilarious, most would admit.
Posted by: oregone | Jul 7, 2005 9:37:50 AM
Considering the obvious (in my opinion) advantages to public ownership of natural monopolies, such as power utilities; and, considering Enron's recent attempt to extort $50 mil. from the City of Portland, I would ask Commissioner Sam adams to join Commissioner Leonard in pursuing condemnation of all PGE assets within the City's jurisdiction.
Posted by: Stephen Amy | Jul 27, 2005 3:37:07 PM
I'm a general contractor in portland and I'm fed up with waiting for building inspectors to show up for my inspections. You can request that they come between 8am and 12pm or between 12pm and 5pm but they rarely even stick to those big windows of time. You can rarely get a hold of them at the planning office to find out their schedule for the day and when you do they don't stick to it. They also don't call you and tell you "hey i'm going to be an hour or two or three later than I told you. I typically wait an average of 4 hours for inspectors to show up regardless of what time they say they're coming. When I was in sales I had more sales appointments than these inspectors have inspections and I made it to 95% of my meetings on time and if I was going to be late I called with a revised time. We are living in the cell phone age you know! Why can't an inspector live by the same rules that we do in the private sector and be held accountable for making people wait?
Posted by: mike banker | Jul 31, 2005 12:07:46 AM
Mike,
I asked Commissioner Leonard's office adn the Bureau of Development Services to follow up with you. They emailed the response below.
Mr. Banker,
For several years now 1 & 2 Family Residential has had the outgoing message on the inspection request line stating "Please note that the time of day is not guaranteed. For either, press 1, for AM, press 2..." etc. We took that a step further three to four years ago, and it is available to any customer to call us prior to 8 AM the day they want the inspection, in order to obtain a 1 - 2 hour "window of time" as to when the inspector will be coming. We do hold inspectors to these "window" arrangements once they have been made, if you are making these request and they are not being met, please call the Section Managers for 1 & 2 Family Residential. We also have staff look at the AM / PM request that may be noted on any request they have, and call the customer if the inspector knows that they will not be able to honor that request. Below are the following contacts and numbers.
Section Manager, Jeff Eldredge 823-7276
Section Manager, Larry Pamer 823-7387
Support Desk, (503) 823-7388
You can always contact me directly and I will see to it that your needs are met.
Thank you,
Tiffani Penson
Customer Service Team
(503) 823-1109
Posted by: Jesse | Aug 10, 2005 10:32:03 AM
How to improve Portland??? Why not start with the basics:
- buy locals
- recycle
- be considerate to others
- take care of the environment
- limit city sprawl
- improve education and health
- stop illegal immigration
Really people, we live in Portland because it's nice. If we don't take care of it and let it become another Houston (sorry houstonians..) then do you still want to live in here? Measure 37 is an example.
How to improve Portland?? Not by inventing cold fission energy source...why don't start by fixing up some of the mess we've done?? Like Measure 37 and polluted Willamette and toxic gorge air???
Then one can talk about cold fission.
Posted by: zenhaku | Aug 10, 2005 2:45:05 PM
Has anyone at the city noticed or done anything about the short lived,
tax payer funded, multi-million dollar prep and paint job on the
Hawthorne bridge? It started fading and peeling within the first
two years and now it looks like it was painted 20 years ago. My letter
to the Oregonian wasn't posted, maybe someone at Sam's office will
follow up on this.
Posted by: mike banker | Aug 20, 2005 10:26:08 AM
I applaud the efforts of Tri-met to reduce our city's dependency on fossil fuels, by beginning to purchase hybrid busses. However, the city and Tri-met can go further by using bio-diesel in every vehicle that uses diesel fuel. Has this option been investigated?
Posted by: Pete Murphy | Sep 6, 2005 11:15:12 AM
Why doesn't the Water Department accept online electronic payments of water bills? Seems to me this would save some money for the city.
Posted by: Bill Smith | Sep 14, 2005 1:07:35 PM
The Walking Sack
Practice random acts of kindness with Portland's Walking Sack. While you are walking about stop and pick up bottles, plastic, metal and paper. Take them home in your Walking Sack and recycle them. Good for the environment, good exercise and good feelings. So Sam, how many Walking Sacks do you want to order?
Posted by: David M. Eide | Oct 5, 2005 4:28:38 PM
The "wagon wheel" design of our transit system is geared toward transporting workers downtown and returning them to their homes in the outlying areas. Unfortunately, the business tax and fee structure is causing the large employers downtown to move to Washington, Clackamas and Clark counties. Employment downtown is down 30,000 jobs, from 110,000 to 80,000 during the last six years. The result is commuters in Portland needing to get to jobs that are not convenient to transit, thereby increasing automobile traffic, gridlock and fuel use. The tax and fee structure on businesses in Portland and Multnomah County must be made competitive with the outlying counties to reverse this trend. Our four person company paid $3,500.00 last year for our business license in Portland. In Tigard it would be $55.00.
Posted by: Dave Lister | Oct 6, 2005 8:38:28 AM
Your previous commentators are right. The city needs to adjust its transportation plans to a future in which traffic is throttled back by increases in oil prices.
I was concerned to see Robert Pamplin's organ (the Tribune) recently advocating more highway expansion. It's time to stop building more roads. Why drive ourselves into debt over capacity we won't be using much longer?
The answer is more, not less, mass transit. If Pamplin's friends want to reap lucrative construction profits, tell them to learn how to contribute to our future, not deplete it.
Every plan of any sort which the city makes in any of its departments needs to reflect the seriousness of the coming changes.
Posted by: Mitchell Santine Gould | Dec 7, 2005 9:37:45 AM
It seems quite plausible that a severe earthquake would cripple Portland's many bridges. All were designed and built before the 1980's and while I doubt that the newer ones would fail altogether, the net effect of serious damage to spans left standing should not be underestimated. The collapse of just one piece of roadway ont he SF Bay bridge effectively made that bridge unusable. As integral as our bridges are to almost every facet of our city's day-to-day life, their loss would represent a disruption every bit as profound as losing electricity and telecommunication.
Given this importance, their disruption should be as brief as possible. To that end I would suggest:
1. Having engineers in Portland with the right qualifications be well versed in the construction of our ciy's bridges, and pre-armed with the plans and tools to rapidly triage the many spans and identify unsafe conditions AND spans that can be brought back to full or limited use.
2. Identify citizens and companies with larger watercraft at various points along the riverfront and form an emergency water-taxi brigade to allow cross river traffic in the event that all bridges are rendered unpassable.
3. Having plans in place with the closest combat engineer unit to Portland, to rapidly move floating bridge(s) into Portland to replace or augment offline spans in the short term. Sites where bank access would allow this should be identified in advance.
4. Bring together local civil engineers (from above), construction firms, and appropriate heavy industry (Gunderson, Esco etc) to form a pool of the knowledge, manpower, and materials to quickly effect whatever repairs are possible to put bridges back into service.
That's it, in a nutshell. I would hate for our city to be effectively bisected for weeks after a disaster . . . awhen we may well have the talent right here to at least begin to put things right again.
Posted by: Ethan | Jan 20, 2006 8:42:41 PM
Can anybody explain how a temporary 1.25% income tax from the County is different from a temporary 1% income tax from the City. Beside the 0.25% and the new bureacracy and forms to collect it. Will it be a 1.5% tax from Metro will be voting on three years from now.
I can't afford to pay any more taxes.
Anybody know a good realtor in Vancouver?
Posted by: Alice | Jan 21, 2006 12:48:58 AM
In the neighborhoods enclosed by SE 82nd, Powell, 92nd, and Eastport Plaza, ACORN member families continue to ask for increased police presence in our neighborhoods. We hope to see the Portland Police become a priory for the city budget this year; which we hope will allow for more patrols of the dangerous areas in our often-neglected Outer Southeast Lents area.
Posted by: ACORN | Jan 31, 2006 12:18:54 PM
Clearly, it's time for Portland and Vancouver to grow up and face the facts. And it is long overdue that we began to join the 21 Century, as the rest of the world. We will ALWAYS have the heavy traffic due to jobs in the Portland area and folks living in Southwest Washington.
Another bridge is no solution-at-all and like all transportation projects in this area it would be obsolete before it is completed. What is needed is a plan that will meet the current as well as the 20 to 40 year traffic handling needs
We really need a double deck tunnel with
8 lanes on the center level for vehicles less that 1 ton, and 4 lanes on the bottom tier for trucks and busses.
The tunnel need not be too long. It could start in the Delta Park area and end in West Vancouver Barracks area South of the VA facilities there. A 2-way light rail could occupy the space above the 8 lane Vehicle lanes. Funds for such a project should come from 4 sources, Federal Highway Projects, Federal Light-Rail projects, a Tunnel toll, and a small tax for 25 years.
Posted by: Denny Smith | Mar 11, 2006 10:17:48 AM
Leaping Lizards, is this the "Republican Denny Smith"? If it is then here is a first time for me that I and a conservative Republican ever agreed on anything. I couldn'nt agree more about the solution to Portland and SW Washington transportation problems. More bridges are not the answer, grade seperation of various transportaion methods is. Through traffic, auto and truck, needs to go underground as does passenger rail and freight rail in some locations.At some point Portland will have to face up to this reality. In the mean time putting max and cars on to the transit mall is a waste of money and resources. Put Max in a tunnel starting in Sullivans Gulch and keep it below grade through the city. Move I-5 below grade as it comes out of the Terwilliger Curves and just keep going until you come back to the surface on the North Side of 4th Plain.No more short range near sighted solutions that cost money but fix nothing.
Posted by: Fenian | Mar 11, 2006 12:32:53 PM
Regarding the tram project's backup power system, is it possible for the diesel engine to run on locally produced biodiesel?
Posted by: Edward Han | Mar 17, 2006 3:12:37 PM
Sam,
Not sure who is in charge of roads...
But ...why has Vancouver Ave work not been completed? It has been unfinished for months.
Also why was it resurfaced at this time anyway? It was in good condition and there are many streets more in need of paving.
Thanks,
marlene
Posted by: marlene f | Apr 13, 2006 4:30:22 PM
Sam,
Why aren't the City vehicles that utilize diesel fuel, burning biodiesel, as well as the Tri-met buses?
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/04/cincinnati_metr.html#more
Posted by: Peter Murphy | May 2, 2006 10:02:18 AM
Install a back-up power generator at the 911 Call Center, together with enough fuel for 14 days of operation.
Posted by: Alice | May 2, 2006 1:35:27 PM
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Sam,
Since I think the oil will run out, sometime in the next ten years, there is much to do.
I'd suggest a plan, just in case the "Peak Oil" people are right.
Shouldn't we discourage the outward spread of the city, as it will take more fuel that people won't have, or be able to afford, to travel the distances. Doesn't this mean city blocks will have to become multiple use and shouldn't we concentrate growth upwards into taller structures?
I'd say build more mass transit, but there may not be the agreement needed or the financing.
I'm told cities will survive better if they have adequate food production nearby. Can Portland do anything to promote the preservation of agricultural land now, until the need is proved by circumstances?
Granted, these are pessimistic issues, but can you show me there is no cause for worry and concern? So, shouldn't the city look into a plan?
Posted by: steve andresen | Jun 27, 2005 5:25:58 PM