Festival Streets


There’s a nice piece in the Daily Journal of Commerce today about the improvements to 3rd and 4th Avenues.

One highlight is the “festival street” design:

But the gems of the project are the Northwest Davis and Flanders “festival streets,” designed and detailed by project urban designer Lloyd Lindley. The streets have no curbs -granite bollards make the distinction between roadway and sidewalk – and can be closed easily to traffic for events.

Although Portland has spaces that function as barricade-ready party streets – such as Northwest 13th Avenue and the block between Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall and the Portland Center for Performing Arts – the Flanders and Davis festival streets are a new concept for the city.

“It will be really interesting for us to see how that operates when it’s fully complete and people have time to get used to the idea of a street that looks like a park but is open to traffic,” said Ellen Vanderslice, Office of Transportation project manager. “… Portland, as a city, has been willing to take some risks with how we use our public right of way. This is just another way of looking at that.”

I need to go down and get some photos!


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