City Council Approves Street by Street Initiative

November 29, 2012 City Council voted unanimously to approve the Street by Street initiative through an Ordinance whick includes a Report and residential street options:  Shared Residential Street and Separated Residential Street.  A Pathway Only is also available where conditions warrant.  These supplement the Traditional Residential Street standard.

Use the Street by Street Eligibility & Application Form to submit a request.

See City Council Documents for the Street by Street ("Up out of the Mud") Report and One Page Overview

Three Residential Street Standards

Typical Cross Sections

Maps

Residential Streets are those classified in the Transportation System Plan (TSP) as Local Service Streets with adjacent single family residential zoning, outside of Pedestrian Districts.  Map books of Residential Street data may be used to inform and guide decisions.  The following maps are available (Street by Street Maps on left sidebar):

• Residential Street SURFACE (paved / unpaved) and MAINTENANCE RESPONSIBILITY (City / private property owner)

• Local Streets and the STORMWATER Areas they are located

• SIDEWALK SEGMENTS

• Local PLACES and DESTINATIONS

• STREET LENGTHS and SEGMENTS (coming soon!)

• Use Portland Maps for (search by property address) :

•       Transportation System Plan (TSP) street classification [Transportation - Transportation System Plan]

•       Zoning maps [Maps - Zoning]

•       Stormwater Management - Infiltration and Soils maps [Environmental - Stormwater Management]

Street by Street: Why Performance Based Streets

No two streets are alike. The streets in Portland fall within a wide range of quality, size and utility, from puddle-filled gravel alleys to boulevards with flawless asphalt, sidewalks and natural stormwater filtration.

The City of Portland, as with all major cities, has a set of rules – called standards – that dictate the dimensions, materials and quality a street must be to pass as acceptable. Standards ensure that a city doesn’t have a haphazard system of street types that don’t line up with one another or achieve the same goals. Railroads, for example, use a standard width between the two rails to make sure that most trains can use the rail system seamlessly. Portland uses the same approach in moving pedestrians, bikes and vehicles. We also consider stormwater and the needs of people with mobility issues.

Unfortunately, the space within Portland city limits has not always been a part of Portland, and the standards the City uses to guide street-building have changed over the years. This means that despite the City’s best efforts, there is not a perfect street system in Portland where every mile of every street is made of similar materials and is of the same quality – even the width of streets differs. In fact, many miles of Portland streets are unpaved and many more miles of street lack sidewalks or a place to walk. This is especially true of parts of Portland that used to be outside city limits, where rules requiring street and sidewalk building weren’t as comprehensive as they are today.

To bring streets into an acceptable state, where there is adequate safety and mobility for people driving, walking, bicycling and using a wheelchair, residents and developers must spend tens of thousands of dollars. And although many of your neighbors have chosen to make this investment, it’s out of reach for others.

There are also those who do not want to bring a section of street with a sidewalk into a better condition in front of their house of business, only to see the rest of their street stay the same. These Portlanders ask the City why it makes sense for them to place one piece in what is a large puzzle of streets and sidewalks.

So this leads to a problem: The City of Portland and its leaders want as many Portlanders as possible to have high-quality, safe streets and walkways, but the City can’t afford to build all these streets and residents and business owners say it doesn’t always make sense for them to install a few dozen feet of quality pavement and sidewalk on a miles-long street.

To consider solving this problem, Mayor Sam Adams approached the Portland Bureau of Transportation and asked for help. Is there another way we can get the safety and mobility were looking for from streets without forcing Portlanders to build to the Portland standards? Is it possible to collect a fee from property developers so the City can build connections that make clearer connections instead of an unconnected piece of sidewalk on a street that will remain below standards?

To work through these questions, the Transportation Bureau looked at a way to give Portlanders lower-cost options that improve safety and mobility. It’s called Street by Street.