This Way To The Willamette Greenway

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This rather mundane-looking sign shines a light on several things, all of them very Oregonian indeed, some of them revealing our state's character, who we think we are, who we want to be, and how far we have to go to get there.

On the south side of Lloyd Blvd as it curves north to go under I-5 and meet up with Oregon Street by the Steel Bridge is this marker sign:

The things on this sign compel me to issue a prolix explanation, since these are very Oregon, very Portland things. And I like to do this, so here goes, as close to thumbnail as I can get.

The logo at the top says Willamette Greenway. This is a Very Oregon Thing, as it speaks to what's becoming a multi-generational ambition for a real connection to one of Oregon's defining things. 

Due to an evolution begun in 1913 under Governor Oswald West, when Oregon's beaches were declared a public highway assuring access to all, and culminating in the late 1960s with Governor Tom McCall's Beach Bill making in a permanent part of Oregon's political and social culture. Oregon's beaches are free for all, and open to all. Private parties reserving Pacific beaches to themselves are not The Oregon Way.

About the same people in a position to think about things like this wondered the same thing about another great thing that defined Oregon, the Willamette River. Most of the population of Oregon live in its famous valley, and it's vital to Oregon's business, Oregon's agriculture, and Oregon's famed way of life. Was there a sort of Beach Bill approach that could work to protect the Willamette as well as preserve it for all who depend on and enjoy it?

Out of that thinking came the idea for the Willamette Greenway, which, today, is both a goal to work for (Statewide Land Use Planning Goal 15, to be precise) and a way of approaching public policy about it. As understood by myself, the concept is that of a green space with as much public access as possible down both sides of the Willamette from source to mouth while at the same time preserving and protecting the ecological contexts of the river. 

The picture of public and private ownership of the river and its shores, presumably, is quite different from that of the Oregon Coast in 1913, so we don't have one big public access strip down both sides of the Willamette. What we do seem to have, though, is a river with scenic, almost wild shores and construction set back from it in rural areas, fairly generous access points, and, in city-center Portland, Tom McCall Waterfront Park and the Vera Katz Eastbank Esplanade as premiere examples of where it can take us.

The floating walkway and
"Duck's Dock" from near the
Steel Bridge.

The Eastbank Esplanade is Willamette Greenway thinking made real. As pictured in previous episodes, it's a pedestrian access over the riverside railways and accessible ways to get to a wide, paved walkway where joggers and pedestrians can enjoy being up-close and personal with the Willamette; as pictured here, it's a floating walkway (With the boat dock named for late Trail Blazer Kevin Duckworth) in the shadow of the I-5 super-slab connecting that esplanade walkway near the Steel Bridge to the main part of the Esplanade between the Burnside and Hawthorne Bridges. It's open to all, accessible whether or not you're ambulatory, relatively easy to get to, and convivially designed, despite having the West Coast main road at your back. 

It, too, speaks of not what we have but what we hope to have. For a city with a reputation for loving its green spaces to a fault, the presence of this freeway right on the east bank is a heavily dissonant note. Any number of plans over the years have been floated for the removal of what we call the East Bank Freeway and the rerouting of its traffic elsewhere, and here is evident another thing I mentioned: the distance between how we see ourselves and how we want to be here in Oregon. That as well is a thing made real here.

We may yet reach that point where the Oregon we have matches our noblest public aspirations. After all, it took more than fifty years between Governor West and Governor McCall to make untrammeled public access to Oregon's beaches a permanent part of the Oregon edifice. 

Anything's possible if you keep at it long enough.