It isn't too often that you find a government-run public works project with a forthright logo like this one:

But that's just what the City of Portland is using to introduce the East Side Big Pipe project, part of the billion-dollar sewer update it's undertaking to try to keep human bodily waste out of the Willamette River.

The west bank of the Willamette has been ripped up pretty hard, and for a mighty long time, laying the west side components of the new sewer. Motorists trying to get up and down Macadam Avenue, and through the awful intersection of Naito and Market, already know how the pipe can slow you down. (By the way, wasn't that a Neil Young song in the early '70s?)

So next it's the east side's turn, where an even bigger pipe has to go in. They say they're going to decide on the exact route next month. Given how disruptive the project's going to be for people and businesses trying to get around on the close-in east side, you would think you would have heard more opinions by now about the best and worst possible routes.

If you're interested in this question, you might do what the city web page suggests: "Call Jim Gladson at 503-823-4759 or email jamesg@bes.ci.portland.or.us."

Speak now or forever hold your peace on the pipe.