Skip to main content
CARLESS SQUARE WOULD NOT BE SAFE
Thank you for ideas on improving Portland [”How to Save Portland,” WW, Jan. 4].
“Create a six-block Carless Square in the heart of Portland”? Not a good idea.
Try making driving and parking in downtown area safer and more accessible. Look at a map. A lot of the population with some expendable income live outside the city (I-205) perimeter. Even those, for instance, in the Gresham vicinity (or Troutdale, Damascus, Pleasant Valley, Happy Valley, Oregon City, Sherwood, etc.) are not going to take public transportation to downtown even if we could get to it.
I don’t know where you live, but I am 75, ambulatory, financially secure, live in a relatively “safe” neighborhood (no shootings that have hit anybody in several months), love symphony, jazz and opera, but none of our large “extended” family (kids, cousins, grandkids) or friends have any desire to drive downtown for anything. Hell, driving Division or Glisan has become an obstacle course. Powell or Stark are war zones. Foster looks like the Russian army just left. Sunnyside is beautiful, but “you can’t get there from here.” (There is no north-south route east of I-205 to Happy Valley.) Would you stand on a Gresham MAX station at 7 pm or later and feel safe?
Consider making driving and parking around downtown easier, safer, convenient. Not a popular green idea? Too bad.
W.B. Swarner, M.D.
Southeast Portland
WATERFRONT DID THE ‘COUV PROUD
Just wanted to say that I really appreciated your article about some big ideas to save our city. I would have added the removal of I-5 from the Central Eastside, but I like your take of big ideas at little cost. I think that is much more realistic for our current situation.
While I’m not sure I would go so far as to say that Portland needs saving—I do still love this city and feel lucky to live in a place where I can stroll or bike comfortably with my two year old to so many fun parks, coffee shops, and food cart pods—I 100% and agree that we, as a civic community, need something big and bold to get us united and excited. I think your reference to Vancouver is good, but I think that is exactly what their Waterfront project did; it made people proud of being a Vancouverite.
I’m already inspired from reading your article and hope some of our city leadership take notice and take up the torch!
Josh Mahar
Northeast Portland
COMPARE METRO AREAS, NOT CITIES
With respect to the article comparing Portland to cities of comparable size [”How We Rate,” WW, Dec. 21, 2022], in my opinion, the vast majority of the comparisons should use metro area as opposed to city boundaries. The city boundaries are arbitrarily drawn and do not necessarily reflect the number of people living in the area. Oakland is not really similar in any respect to Portland and is part of the fifth-largest metro in the country (using combined statistical area). Portland metro has a larger population than Austin for example, but the city proper doesn’t. Some of these comparisons make sense, but using the arbitrarily drawn city boundaries clouds the results. Portland’s closest metros are Denver, San Diego, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Charlotte (and other metros of that caliber). If we start thinking about our metro area, we can see we actually are a pretty decent size city and can maybe start acting like one instead of a small town.
Evan H. Lenneberg
Southwest Portland
CLARIFICATION In last week’s cover story that proposed, among other things, creating a carless square downtown (“How to Save Portland,” WW, Jan. 4), we quoted urban designer and artist Tad Savinar about the need to reimagine public spaces. Readers may have inferred that Savinar supports the idea of a carless square. He does not.
LETTERS to the editor must include the author’s street address and phone number for verification. Letters must be 250 or fewer words. Submit to: PO Box 10770, Portland OR, 97296 Email: mzusman@wweek.com