Portland Streetcar To Add 3.3 Miles to 8-Mile Line
Published Mar 21, 2008
The city-owned Portland Streetcar now runs for seven miles and soon will go farther.
The Portland Streetcar has paved downtown streets with gold.
Even before its 2001 debut, the city-owned streetcar cultivated private investment on its seven-mile route.
“We’re at about $2.3 billion of redevelopment in the local improvement districts of the streetcar since 1997 (when plans began),” says Kay Dannen, communications director for Portland Streetcar. “The majority of development downtown has been along the streetcar line. From the outset, that was part of the plan.”
West-side success is pushing the streetcar eastward, with a 3.3-mile extension across the Willamette River slated to open in 2011 and eventually tying into an 8-mile east loop.
New development will follow, as it did in the Pearl District.
“They got higher density (development) because of the streetcar when they built that (Pearl) community,” says Mary Fetsch, a spokeswoman for TriMet, which operates regional buses and light rail. “They called (the streetcar) a development tool first and a transportation tool second.”
More than 30 restaurants lie along the streetcar path, a more intimate neighborhood experience than the regional MAX light-rail carrier. Portland Streetcar intersects the MAX system within a fare-free transit zone downtown.
The streetcar pivots in the South Waterfront District, where a 3,000-foot-long aerial tram conveys residents and visitors to and from Marquam Hill. Oregon Health & Science University has facilities on both ends of the tram line.
Story by Gary Perilloux
Photo by Jeff Adkins
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