A bikey wander along the south waterfront today made me remember how much I like a lot of the stuff going on down there. It’s been “developing” for as long as I can remember, at least 10 years since I lived in Lake Oswego and biked that way to get into Portland, but it just keeps looking more and more like the future:
How awesome is that? Fancypants glass buildings are one thing, but check out that road structure. Pedestrian paths on both sides, a separated bike path on the left, streetcar tracks on both sides, and also two lanes for cars, squished in there in the middle like they’re only a small part of the landscape rather than the whole purpose for which the road exists. I fricken love this kind of thing, where many modes of transportation all get their safe share of the space.
This view of the south waterfront, by the way, is from standing on the sidewalk of the Ross Island Bridge. Though I would never actually advocate taking the Ross Island Bridge to get anywhere (except maybe if you’re driving), looking down from it onto the waterfront is pretty rad — every once in a while, worth the brush with death it takes to get up there;)
And then if you look east, there’s the excellent Tilikum Crossing bridge, all for pedestrians, cyclists, and people taking the streetcar, Trimet buses or the new orange MAX line.
I really think that this kind of spacial structuring is the future of transportation. Awesome.