Tag / portland

by Adron

A West Side Re-Exploration of Orenco Station & Neighborhood

Paul Peterson @emptefilms & I @transitsleuth went out to Hillsboro to check out how Orenco Neighborhood (town?) has developed. You can read more about Orenco Station via the Wikipedia Page. As described on the wiki page, “is a neighborhood of the city of Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. The planned urban town center was designed as a pedestrian-friendly, high-density community built in conjunction with TriMet’s Westside light rail. It was built on land formerly owned by the Oregon Nursery Company, land home around the turn of the 20th century to Orenco, a company town. During the Great Depression, the company went out of business, and much of the nursery land became vacant until re-development began in 1997. Orenco Station is near the intersection of NW 231st/NW 229th Avenues and Cornell Road, centered on the Orenco Station MAX stop.”

There’s also a basic web presence at http://www.orencostation.net/ that provides some current commercial information about the neighborhood.

The stop that anchors the entire neighborhood is simply named the Orenco / Northwest 231st Avenue Stop. The station has a park-and-ride lot with 180 free parking spaces (for 24 hours at a time) and bus connection to line 47-Baseline/Evergreen. The station also includes bike lockers and bike racks. A block north is the site of the Hillsboro Farmer’s Market’s seasonal Sunday marketplace and the core of the Orenco Neighborhood.

Keep reading and subscribe to the blog (RSS) or the video channel, an upcoming episode of Transit Sleuth TV will have more about Orenco and the development there.

by Adron

Bicycle Brown Bag

There’s a brown bag meet this Thursday. I’m planning to head down for some sleuthing and would be happy to bike, transit or otherwise travel there with others. If you’re going let me know and we can meetup en route, at the meet or just say hello.

I’m super curious about the topic (obviously besides just the bicycle topic) and it sounds like it should be a good time.

Details:

Portland Bureau of Transportation  Bicycle Brown Bag Series
Third Thursday of Every Month (except December) , Noon to 1pm
City Hall,  1221 SW 4th Ave,  2nd Floor -Lovejoy Room
(bring your lunch!)
Click here for archive of past Bicycle Brown Bag sessions.

by Adron

Onward to Los Angeles, Santa Ana & Newport Beach

I’m heading down to check out some biking, beaches and a rail trip. Feel free to join me at any point of the trip. I’m aiming to record it, blog it and generally provide a thorough write up of the whole adventure. To start it off, here’s the logistics plans.

Portland Union Station at Night

Portland Union Station at Night

On September 4th I’ll be departing, with bicycle packed and recording gear on hand from Portland Union Station. I’ll be boarding the Coast Starlight south bound to Los Angeles. From Los Angeles I’ll make a transfer to the Pacific Surfliner down to Santa Ana.

Once I arrive in Santa Ana I’l detrain and unpack my bike. Somehow I’ll carry the storing container and other material and roll on from Santa Ana Station down to Newport Beach via the Santa Ana River Trail.

From Santa Ana Rail Station to Newport Beach via the Santa Ana River Trail.

From Santa Ana Rail Station to Newport Beach via the Santa Ana River Trail.

Coast Starlight arriving in Portland.

Coast Starlight arriving in Portland.

Once I arrive I intend to take a few bike trips here and there, which I’ll record some and write about others. I’m working to line up meeting some riders, coders & transit crew while I’m down. So if you’re anywhere in the Los Angeles metro area between the 6th and 10th of September, let me know and we’ll have some grub with a beer, coffee or other beverage of our choice. If you’re up for riding and interested in showing me trails, routes or other crazy cycling bits, definitely ping me about that too, I’m curious where the routes & runs are for the LA, OC and metro area local riders are. If you’re up for a tour about, hit me at @transitsleuth on twitter.

Surlac

Surlac

Upon the return trip I’ll bike back out to the station, whip out the tools and re-pack the bike at the Santa Ana Station and then board an early morning Pacific Surfliner back into Los Angeles. From there back aboard to the north bound Coast Starlight, feet up and kicked back, and the following day I’ll arrive back in Portland, Oregon rested and relaxed.

by Adron

Portland’s Milwaukee Light Rail Project – Under Construction, Opening in September 2015

First let’s kick this blog entry off with a few pieces of context, such as:

  • What is the Portland Milwaukee Light Rail Line?
  • Where exactly does it go?
  • How much does it cost and what does that cost actually include?

Answers…

“Opening in 2015, the Portland-Milwaukie light rail transit line will travel 7.3 miles between PSU, inner Southeast Portland, Milwaukie and Oak Grove in north Clackamas County.”

The best place to get information about the Portland Milwaukee Light Rail is to check out the project site. I have a few additional thoughts, pieces of information and other such things here in the post however.

Here’s a quick video intro of what the project is, what it connects and a little more information. It’s a short view.

The other key video to watch, which really gets down into where the line runs in detail and also covers the other things that will be built along with the light rail line.

The total cost of the Portland Milwaukee Light Rail (PMLR) Project is $1,490.35 Million[0]. In a follow up entry I’m going to bring up what exactly we’re getting for this huge chunk of cash. I’ll also do a break out of a few of the light rail stops and what those light rail stops mean to the neighborhoods they’ll serve.

After watching this project progress over the years it still leaves me with a number of questions. Many of these will be answered in due time, but it doesn’t stop me from being extremely curious.

  1. What buses will use the bridge instead of routes like the Ross Island Bridge?
  2. When the buses come across the bridge where do they get on or off on the west side? Will they continue on the new light rail part of the infrastructure on their way to the bus mall?  Will they turn off onto other surface streets in the area and travel in and out of south waterfront that way?
  3. Where’s the best house buying options in the area? Which area will increase in value the quickest? Which values may decrease?

More to come in the near future… cheers, Transit Sleuth.

References
[0] Portland-Milwaukee Light Rail Project Preliminary Engineering Report. Located at FTA: http://www.fta.dot.gov/documents/OR_Portland_Milwaukie_LRT_complete_profile.pdf and local store: Portland Milwaukee Light Rail

by Adron

The Bridge Rises Above the Willamette

It’s looking good. Real good.

The new bridge going up.

The new bridge going up.

Whatever your view is on the politics of it, go check it out anyway because it is an impressive piece of architecture!