KCRag Forum

I'm going to Portland for the 4th.  Any requests for photos, etc?

I'd love some photos of their bike facilities... bikes on trains, bike parking, bike lanes, etc.

residential hoods.  i think the downtowns of the pacific northwest school (seattle, vancouver, portland) have some of the ugliest architectural abominations this side of japan and hong-kong, so i'd like to see some housing stock.

My favorite Store:
http://www.uwajimaya.com/upb/index.html
more junk:
Take the St. John's Bridge and explore the neighborhood around
The University of Portland.
http://www.portlandneighborhood.com/stjohns.html
Not Gentrified ...Yet. I think that's where MACNW lives.

  http://www.portlandmercury.com/
http://www.portlandtribune.com/

 

i want a report on the Amtrak Cascades!

chingon wrote: residential hoods.  i think the downtowns of the pacific northwest school (seattle, vancouver, portland) have some of the ugliest architectural abominations this side of japan and hong-kong, so i'd like to see some housing stock.

This shouldn't be a problem.  My brother and sister-in-law are house shopping.  We'll drive their Prius around looking.  (damn hippies...)

DaveKCMO wrote: i want a report on the Amtrak Cascades!

I think I'll be riding that in August.

If you can get any cool pics of the volcanoes of the area and the city, the would be neat. 

What are you doing there?  PM me if you have specific questions.  Transit pics are always good and they have lots to shoot.

Kard wrote: I'm going to Portland for the 4th.  Any requests for photos, etc?

Have you left yet, Kard?

bbqboy wrote: Have you left yet, Kard?

Flying out tonight.

Portland is awesome.  But I repeat myself when I use "Portland" and "Awesome" in the same sentence.

For those who don't know already, Portland is the poster child for urban development in a city.  Their transit system is expansive and easy to use, the city is completely walkable in every sense, and their awareness of environmental issues is like nothing Kansas City has ever seen.  We walked 20 blocks from 23rd street to a movie Downtown on afternoon and the entire way was walkable--no broken curbs, street crossings all the way with dips in the curbing, and wide, clean sidewalks.


My brother moved to PDX about two years ago; this was my 4th trip there.  Spent lots of time hiking around town, hiking the Columbia River Gorge, house shopping with them, and biking around town.


I would imagine that there are quite a few folks living in the city without a car, or one that's driven very rarely.  Bikes are everywhere--on the street, parked on sidewalks, on buses and on trains.  Bikes get almost as much consideration as cars--bike lanes/paths and sinage are everywhere as well.

If you like to ride, visit Portland.  Now.

     

One other thing I was impressed by with the simplicity of was the on street parking.  While you usually have to be dumber then a bag of hammers to work a meter, theirs are pretty smart.  One parking pay-station is on the block.  It issues a sticker which you stick in your street-side window.  The sticker says WHEN it expires and comes in two parts, one of which you can take with you (so you don't have to think back later for when it expires--just take it with you).

Street parking spots are marked with lines--it's not willy-nilly, where ever you fit.

Atop the pay-station is a large number that says how long parking is allowed on that block (should you choose to purchase that much time):  30, 90, 3 (hr), etc.  You can see this number from your vehicle as you approach the block and decide if it's long enough or if you need to go to the next block.

And they ALL TAKE CREDIT CARDS!

 


Portland Street Car:







Suburban development is very dense, even, with street-level shops.



Obligatory picture of Powell's, the country's largest independent bookstore (aka, Heaven):



PGE Park, where vendors sell organic coffee in the stands:



As for the region's environmental way of thinking...  Recycle bins are everywhere.  Coffee shops recycle used plastic cups.  Curbside recycling is available nearly everywhere (even in the far west suburbs like Hillsboro) and in large condo buildings.

Organic food is everywhere--my brother and his wife get home delivery of locally-grown produce once a week.  Environmental reminders are posted everywhere downtown and the Waterfront has a lot of interpretive displays about water quality.


Diversity abounds in people and in development.  Coffee shops with WiFi, convenience and drug stores, independent restaurants and speciality shops...all over the city center from 23rd street to the East side of town.

It's also home to a lot of smart people.  Intel has several (3?) large campuses and manufacturing facilities, nVIDIA has offices there, and Nike is HQ'd there.


Someone mentioned photos of homes in the neighborhoods.  My brother and sister-in-law are house shopping in the Hollywood area.  Homes are West-Coast priced; a modest bungalow from the 40's at 1700 sq ft can cost from 300-400k.  From a few blocks in the area:
 

 


I've also got more pictures of the above and some of a 10 mile hike I did in the Columbia River Gorge on my blog:  http://www.GreasedMelon.com/photos



In short, Portland is an amazing city.  I'm concerned it will be a victim of its own success--it's a little difficult to find work (too many smart people/tech jobs) and a lot of folks are over qualified (your barista at Starbucks might have a Masters degree).  Homes are expensive and some folks are being priced out.

But!  It's a wonderful place to visit and ranks up there in my mind with the likes of San Francisco, Seattle, and Chicago.  It's on a more manageable scale yet has the vibrancy and features of the larger towns.  Portland rocks.


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Now, those of you in Portland, feel free to say how much work all this took.  Was it worth it?

i swear, half of the environmentally aware people my age in kc/region want to/are moving to portland, plus 3 friends i had at CMSU. i finally talked myself out of it a good while back partially due to the fact (1) that its not somewhere someone who doesnt really care much about money should probably go, (2) its being overrun by deep pocketed californians, reinforcing point (1).

thanks for the pictures, i rarely take pictures when im roaming around, enjoying myself.

all decision making kansas city city employees and elected officials should be required to take a field trip to portland.

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are there wilderness/camping areas easily accessible from the urban core? last year when i was in boulder there was a campsite in the foothills where you could walk downtown from, and im curious if there is anything like that in PDX...

if more places were like portland it wouldn't have some of those problems anymore! we were also very impressed with the town on our visit a few years ago.

warwickland wrote: are there wilderness/camping areas easily accessible from the urban core? last year when i was in boulder there was a campsite in the foothills where you could walk downtown from, and im curious if there is anything like that in PDX...

I don't know.  The prime spots in the Gorge are miles from town.  I asked my brother on a hike if there was a shuttle but he didn't know.  We both agreed that an operator could make a killing with such a business.

Thanks for sharing, Kard!  Portland is next on my list.  I fear the repurcussions, however.  Did you do any riding there?  In NYC, I was forced to rent a pretty crappy bike for a crappy price and I'm hoping I can find one to rent or borrow while there that will be more fun.

Portland, I have found, is largely devoid of the "charge whatever you like" mentality that seems rampant on the west coast. Beers are cheaper than in KC, rent is much cheaper than anything in LA, SF, SD, or Seattle, and sales tax doesn't exist. You can exist very comfortably without a car in Portland, which can't be said of LA or SD.

There may be an influx of money, but it's still a very cheap place to live, relative to the rest of the West Coast.

staubio wrote: Thanks for sharing, Kard!  Portland is next on my list.  I fear the repurcussions, however.  Did you do any riding there?  In NYC, I was forced to rent a pretty crappy bike for a crappy price and I'm hoping I can find one to rent or borrow while there that will be more fun.

Yeah, I borrowed my brother's bike on Monday (the 3rd).  They currently live in (and despise) Hillsboro (it was within walking distance his univ.) so I rode down to the MAX stop and took the train in to the city.  I rode over the Steele Bridge and then rode the waterfront trail about 5 miles down and back, then took the Hawthorne Bridge back over.  I rode on 10th for awhile, which is the same street the Streetcar runs on.  The bike lane is between the tracks there...gotta watch it.  My brother said he saw some dude fly over the bars when he got his wheel stuck once.  So, careful.

You'll have no problem finding a rental at a decent price.

Not hard to ride downtown there at all--everyone from cars to pedestrians to Streetcar drivers to unicyclists (no kidding...) know to watch out for bikes.

warwickland wrote: i swear, half of the environmentally aware people my age in kc/region want to/are moving to portland, plus 3 friends i had at CMSU. i finally talked myself out of it a good while back partially

the way i figure it is if you care about creating a more sustainable world your efforts and skills are least needed in places like Portland where they are already taking care of their business.  You are most needed in places like KC, St. Louis, Cleveland, etc etc where people of ideals and smarts can make a difference and start instituting the policies and initiatives that will spread these better sustainability practices to the entire nation.

ComandanteCero wrote: the way i figure it is if you care about creating a more sustainable world your efforts and skills are least needed in places like Portland where they are already taking care of their business.  You are most needed in places like KC, St. Louis, Cleveland, etc etc where people of ideals and smarts can make a difference and start instituting the policies and initiatives that will spread these better sustainability practices to the entire nation.

that would be another reason why i changed my mind (i didnt mean i partially changed my mind, though that might be what it sounded like), although i dont see anything wrong with moving to a place like PDX for a while...though it probably would be a paradox...