SoWhat: more money for planner fantasies (Jack Bog's Blog)

We pity the people who bought into Portland's goofy South Waterfront (SoWhat) District -- among many deficiencies, it's a nasty chore to get in and out of there in a car, which let's face it, is how the vast majority of people get around in this town. There are supposed to be traffic improvements made at the south end of the district to make entry and exit a little easier, but since those projects don't involve bikes, unicycles, streetcars, or skateboards, City Hall could care less about them.

Now comes word that the city is going to take $400,000 from the "south portal" project budget and slide it on over to -- guess what. Yep, bike and pedestrian goodies up at the north end of SoWhat. And some planning hoo-hah concerning the "eco-district" that they're going to try to set up in the neighborhood. They're going to burn your garbage right outside your window, for electricity. It's gonna be great. Really. Think Barcelona or Vancouver, B.C. An epic linchpin.

Some of the neighbors down there are unhappy about the latest diversion of money, but they've been had so many times, they can hardly be surprised. SoWhat doesn't work, and the city and state are going to bankrupt themselves trying to fill it with every goofball toy that the Portland State planning wizards can conjure up. It's a real case study in the convergence of arrogance and poor judgment.

Comments (5)

"the convergence of arrogance and poor judgment"

And debt. Don't forget the debt.

Posted by Snards | January 11, 2012 2:56 PM

It's depressing but it's a genius ruse. The city massively overstates the benefits of its gimmicky crap, the mayor's fawning constituents march together to promote said gimmicky crap, and "Portlandia" celebrates the "fun" "quirkiness" of the gimmicky crap in televised love letters that masquerade as "satire."

When will it all end.

Posted by Iced Borscht | January 11, 2012 3:04 PM

Brilliant summary of what's broke with the city that isn't working anymore.

In my opinion, it will only end when enough people wise up and stop letting themselves be milked like cattle in a barn.

Unfortunately, now a small-time entertainment network is serving as mass media advertising agency.

Posted by Mr. Grumpy | January 11, 2012 3:22 PM

SoWhat has not had one transportation project to fix its "island" isolation from the rest of the city and region as promised in all 9 Agreements in the URA Council approvals.

The city's own PBOT SoWhat traffic studies said there would be over 48,000 trips per day increase into SoWhat. The South Portal had the highest priority to be completed. It is over 8 years behind any schedule you want to pick. But even the $400,000 for studies, engineering for it are being picked apart because PDC and some others have determined it is "dormant", which means PDC/CoP have stolen money, de-emphasized, de-prioritized the South Portal. Of course it is "dormant". So they theorize that we should use taxpayer money for bikes/pedestrians and the bio-mass incinerator for an Eco-District. Crazy.

This all makes sense in Sam's World. Combine this $400,000 with the Sunday Bike program costing over $1Million that includes staff/police/PBOT time and you're on your way in covering Sam's mythical paving and patching our streets budget shortfall.

Posted by lw | January 11, 2012 5:53 PM

It's not just Portland State planning - what do you think takes up most of the space in the old Sears store over on Grand Avenue? ;-)

Posted by Max | January 11, 2012 8:05 PM

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Wednesday, January 11, 2012

SoWhat: more money for planner fantasies

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