Portland Transportation Director Orders His Agency to Shift Proposed Hotel Loading Zone Off Flanders Street Greenway

Chris Warner listened to concerns from neighborhood groups and cyclists.

An e-transport rally in 2019. (Wesley Lapointe)

Portland Bureau of Transportation director Chris Warner brought holiday joy to cyclists and concerned neighbors by coming down squarely on their side in a dispute over the design of a new Hyatt hotel at the corner of Northwest 12th Avenue and Flanders Street.

Related: A Proposed Pearl District Tower Could Block a Long-Awaited Bikeway

The plan presented to the city's Design Commission on Nov. 21 called for a passenger loading zone on Northwest Flanders, where the city plans to build a greenway bike path linking Northwest Portland and the downtown waterfront next year.

Neighborhood groups and bike advocates hated that location for the loading zone. Warner listened. "A high-turnover passenger loading and unloading zone is likely to create operational issues along the neighborhood greenway," Warner wrote in a Dec. 18 memo.

He directed staff to put the loading zone on 12th instead.

Reza Michael Farhoodi, co-chair of the Pearl District Neighborhood Association's planning and transportation committee which had expressed opposition to using the hotels Northwest Flanders frontage as a loading zone, called the decision "good news."

"The PDNA Planning and Transportation Committee commends PBOT for listening to our concerns and working to find a solution that allows for curbside loading while maintaining the integrity of the Flanders Greenway," Farhoodi says in an email. "In the future, adopting a consistent right-of-way standard for major city bikeways would provide clarity for new development and help prevent this issue from recurring."

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