Meeting #1 Minutes: December 4, 2008
by FRA
- Introduction of Committee members, staff, and members of the public. Committee and Staff list included in study binder.
- Project Scope and Schedule
- Study charge is to present 3 alternative concept designs for Franklin study area.
- Study area includes Franklin and adjacent blocks from Waterfront to Back Cove.
- Study is informed by Community Vision Statement produced at Franklin Reclamation Authority, found in Study Binder.
- Study will include significant meaningful engagement of broader community, to include, but not limited to, neighboring residents, property owners, businesses, employeers, and other users of Franklin. Study Team is anticipated to meet twice a month; study period is expected to be six months.
- Brief History of Franklin slide show presented by Portland Historic Compliance Officer Scott Hanson.
- Presentation highlighted the homes, buildings, neighborhoods, and communities removed or displaced in Urban Renewal projects leading up to, and including the building of the Franklin Arterial.
- Presentation emphasized architecturaly significant structures, original character of roadway and neighborhood, and urban network lost due to arterial.
- Review of Comprehensive Plan. Focus on Transportation Plan of 1993, Traffic Plan, and Transit Study with orientation towards policies that encourage alternatives to road widening and dependance on single occupancy vehicles. Points of interest include:
- assumptions made in future traffic projections, which today may merit revisiting:
- Will a future train cross Franklin at Marginal Way?
- How accurate was the projection for housing/office development mix in Eastern Waterfront?
- What projections can be made for affects of TDM and Modal split?
- How accurate was projection of future growth in background traffic?
- Introduction to Context Sensitive Solutions:
- study model places traffic planning in a holistic framework that includes land use patterns, neighborhood compatibility, community vision, environmental affects.
- emphasizes understanding of all trade offs, and finding solutions in consensus based process that includes participation of all stakeholders.
- Homework: Materials found in Study Binder. Please review Introduction to CSS , Description of Context Zones and CSS Case Study, as well as descriptions of multi-lane boulevards. Also included are links to online Case Studies, links, and relevant parts of Portland’s Comprehensive Plan.
- want to better understand traffic projections of Traffic Study
- how will development in outlying communities affect future traffic volumes
- Is there a vision for the future of the City?
- What are we expecting/hoping for regarding growth in development and population?
- want information on high crash areas and other locations where traffic problems occur
- what is population of area served?
- how will transportation work in future/what is best way to move people around
- Change Committee name to Franklin Street Arterial Study Group
- understanding of plans for exit 7 and Franklin interface with I 295
- Who owns land involved in study area?
- address the issue of social justice- Franklin’s impacts on Kennedy Park community and other neighboring low-income/minority populations
- Franklin is largely a road for people not living in Portland. We need to understand what is happening upstream in order to plan for Franklin
- Want to see the Architalx models
- Bayside Trail crossing Franklin
- East Bayside neighborhood planning
- Consider some way of reparations for previous residents that were forcefully removed (even if symbolic)
- understand what is involved in selling land claimed by imminent domain
- want data on how many people walk to work in area
- Need to identify significant structures/assetts on Franklin
- Identify what is right with the road: role in economy, traffic not on local streets
- want data on peak hour traffic and ‘dead times’
- how long is ‘peak hour’
- development parking/traffic demand-what is the Portland Experience?
- identify/confirm who the stakeholder groups actually are
- want information on Housing Plan goals, progress
- info on open space plan
- recommend a more appropriate name for the road
- Input from public
- want to see a Franklin that brings two halves of city together- buildings facing the street
- what is future of Franklin Tower
- keep design people friendly/human scale
- consider potential civic value of Franklin area
- respect for cultural diversity of current communities and past communities (Armenian. Jewish, and Italin neighborhoods destroyed)
- what are travel times at peak hours and off peak hours?
- don’t assume Franklin needs to carry lots of traffic
- how much congestion is City willing to accept
2 comments
If, as this site states in “What’s Wrong with Franklin?”, the arterial is unsafe for pedestrians and bicyclists then why has this committee made no recommendations for immediate action to reduce the unsafe and illegal crossings of Franklin Arterial? Even a temporary fix by repairing fences and closing gate openings would be better than no action until (or unless) someone is injured. Five of the photos accompanying “What’s Wrong….” show unsafe and illegal crossings of Franklin so this committee must be aware of them. The majority of people using these crossings are school age children, many immigrants. Is their safety of less importance than your study.
I have lived on Oxford Street for 22 of the 32 years I’ve been in Portland. I currently live and work right across the street from the terminus of the path that follows the old Oxford Street. I see on a daily basis who and how many people use that path. Usually between 6 and 15 young people use the path at 7-8AM and then again at 2:30-3:30PM Monday-Friday. The morning crossings happen at the heaviest traffic time on Franklin. The majority of students coming from the same neighborhood use the legal (and safe) crossing at Cumberland and Franklin Arterial. The use of the path at other times is sparse. Considerably less in winter. The last time the city “repaired” the fences blocking the path on both sides of Franklin was more then ten years ago after I brought it to their attention. They did a job a child could take apart and I’m sure that’s what happened. Portland Housing Authority owns the property on the west of the path and for many years had struggled with car vandalization in the Franklin Towers parking lot. They finally erected a fence that runs between the path and the parking lot from the Arterial to Oxford Street. This now makes the path running behind their garage an isolated and dangerous area. I have witnessed screaming young girls running from that area after being approached by men. My inventory of the debris discarded there over the last year includes a mattress, clothing, underwear, condoms, needles, beer bottles, knives, pocketbooks, human feces, and even a cash box. The back of the garage is now covered with graffiti.
I find it very unsettling that you believe the act of destroying city fences signifies the need to install an expensive crossing less than 300′ from an existing crossing. Who are the people you’re talking to from East Bayside? If it’s not high school age immigrants and their parents then you need to involve them. Is Peter Noyes on your committee? What about some of the businesses that employ the people who use Franklin Arterial to go to work. Maybe if you asked the right people the right questions you might learn a lot more.
Jay York
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