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In looking at improvements to make it easier for children to walk to Russell Academy, city and school officials are beginning at home — the school grounds and immediate environs.
At a meeting last month, Russell Principal Debbie Ebert, Lore Wintergreen of the Portland Office of Transportation and concerned parents and neighbors examined and discussed a set of proposals by traffic engineer Scott Battson as part of the city’s Safe Routes to School program. He had compiled a list of possible improvements to deal with identified problems outlined in the September Memo, with a total price tag of just under $1 million. Last month he discussed a subset of this list of improvements that could be done for little or no expense.
Funding for Safe Routes to School strategy implementation, formerly $20,000 to $40,000 per school, was eliminated from this year’s budget, Wintergreen said. However, there are grants available for programs such as these. “We want you to have your priorities set so we’ll have a better chance to fund them,” Wintergreen said.
These projects include making Northeast 127th Avenue, the street in front of the school’s main entrance, one-way northbound with parallel parking on the west side; designating two different pick-up and drop-off points, possibly for children of different ages, to reduce congestion; moving the bus loading and unloading area to the rear of the school and eliminating signs for parking in front of the school that proclaim, “Five minute parking. Driver to remain at wheel.”
Ebert said that with steps to get people to park properly and getting traffic going in one direction, “We’d have fewer people making stupid choices. We have asked people to park down the street and car pool.” They have had limited success with this, she said.
Russell Neighborhood Chair Bonny McKnight liked the one-way street idea. Another Russell board member, Shirley Zurcher said there was likely to be some opposition to this.
The driver at wheel zones were installed five years ago, Battson said, “and they’ve had a universal lack of success. People don’t leave after five minutes and they don’t stay at the wheel.”
“We’ve stopped trying to enforce this,” Ebert said. Possible alternative treatments for this area included a permanent no-parking or bus-only area.
McKnight favored installing speed bumps as an effective deterrent to speeding, which Battson had suggested for several streets. Unfortunately the cost for these is $2,000 apiece. A city program provides subsidies for 60 percent of these costs, with interested community members raising the rest, but McKnight said that the waiting list for the program is two years. In answer to a question, Battson said the city would not install just one bump if they determined that more were needed.
“This is a plan not just for this year, but for the next five or 10 years,” and except for the stipulation above, it can be implemented one piece at a time, Battson said.
Vern Sundin, grandparent of a Russell student and a participant in the Russell Safe Routes process, complained later that by looking at the drop-off situation at the school, those involved seem to be moving away from the intent of the program. “Instead of making it safer for kids to walk to school, we’re making it easier and safer for their parents to drive them,” he said at a recent neighborhood meeting.
Bingo parlor is back
The long-vacant, former bingo parlor site is back on the table as future parkland. Although nothing is definite at this point, the Portland Development Commission is negotiating with the Ukrainian Bible Church, which purchased the parcel on Northeast Halsey Street at 106th Avenue as the site of a new church for possible purchase, according to PDC’s Justin Douglas. The church decided instead to build in Milwaukie. PDC is also negotiating to purchase the former J. J. North’s Restaurant site at 10520 N.E. Halsey. The buffet, long the meeting place for many groups, closed earlier this year when its parent company went out of business, Douglas said.
102nd nears completion, but first more congestion
The 102nd Avenue Improvement Project is nearing its Nov. 30 completion date, but first there will be more congestion. This will come from continued work on the jug handle at Northeast Halsey Street, some planting in the traffic island at Southeast Stark Street and work to install pavers in the parking lanes starting on the east side, according to project construction manager Hollie Berry. The parking lane work “may force us to close a lane now and then,” but only for short stretches at any one time,” she said. The jug handle work will continue “through October, possibly into November,” she said. She is hopeful the job can be done by the projected completion date.
Metro tours Gateway Green
Metro planner Robert Spurlock conducted a tour of Gateway Green for interested parties last month, the last of a series looking at potential new trails and green spaces. The tour occurred at the end of a foot-and-rail examination of the proposed Sullivan’s Gulch Trail, which would extend from Gateway to the East Bank Esplanade in the public right of way adjacent to the Banfield Freeway and MAX Light Rail. Realtor Ted Gilbert and Hazelwood activist Linda Robinson conducted the Gateway Green portion of the tour.
Gateway Green is a 35-acre expanse of green space between the right of ways and access ramps of the Banfield and I-205 freeways and is owned by the Oregon Department of Transportation. Gilbert and Robinson have proposed developing the area with bike trails, wind and solar power generating facilities and pedestrian and bicycle access bridges. The latter would connect the Green to 100 acres of vacant land on the south side of Rocky Butte, the Sullivan’s Gulch Trail and adjacent communities. Currently the only access is a bike trail heading north from the Gateway Transit Center. The total cost of all improvements so far envisioned is $20 million, but Gilbert pointed out that the improvements could be made in phases. The intent is to provide an attractor and identity for Gateway that, Robinson said, many outsiders currently view as “a place you pass through on the way to Mount Hood.”
The pair has been negotiating with ODOT, which must sign off on any use of the property. “There are still a lot of hoops we have to jump through, but they see it as doable,” Robinson said.
Chiro College seeks new building
The Western States Chiropractic College is planning to construct a new building to replace its existing anatomy building on the west end of the campus at 2900 N.E. 132nd Ave., college dean Dr. Joseph Brimhall told the Russell Neighborhood Association last month. The structure would also replace “the white house,” a now decrepit structure that dates to the school’s founding in 1904. The college’s enrollment will not increase, he told those present, and noted that they recently shifted their outpatient care to a new clinic on Northeast 122nd Avenue and Airport Way. Although he said that the school is in the early stages of planning for the building, which is called for in their adopted master plan, he also said he hoped to complete it by fall 2009.
EPAP plan open house
Project manager Barry Manning has set an open house for public review of short-term goals for the East Portland Action Plan from 6 to 8 p.m. Oct. 23 at the East Portland Community Center, 740 S.E. 106th Ave. Manning said he hoped to bring the plan to City Council for review and adoption by the end of the year.
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| Dave Smith, newly elected chair of the Madison South Neighborhood Association. |
| MEMO PHOTO: LEE PERLMAN |
The Madison South Neighborhood Association elected longtime crime prevention volunteer Dave Smith as its new chair last month. He won out over Carter Cummings who had been active in land use, the anti-big-box retail Save Madison South campaign and the Base to Butte fundraiser hike. Smith replaces Ruth Handler who stepped down after three years as leader. The rare contested election was carried out with a courtesy and cordiality that would put any conventional political contest to shame.
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