You're The Dictator Of Portland And Have $20 Billion...

[JordanL]

Alright, lets pretend for a moment that you have the sole say on what happens in the city. You want something built, it's done.

Let's also say that you have $20 billion that the city found underneath a matress. What projects that you think you could get done within $20 billion would you do within the city?

I'll give you mine (with images, but you certain don't need images for yours).




Portland Stadium: Here is where I would put a brand new NFL/MLB capable stadium (there's actually room at the site to build both). The site will have future access to MAX, as well as major freeways, and provides a great location within the inner city.

Waterfront Park Extension: This is an obvious extension of the the parks that are to be built in both SoWa and Riverplace, and would provide much needed public areas next to the stadium(s).

Promenade Waterfront Shops: Instead of flowing directly into the stadium sites, the park site and stadium sites would be buffered by a permanent storefront which would include both open air and closed locations.



I-5 Tunnel: This is an idea that has been tossed around lightly before. Bury I-5 between I-84 and I-405, including the destruction of the Marquam Bridge. Part of this idea is that the ventilation system for the tunnel would be built to further scrub pollution from emmissions before it exchanged the air.

I-405 Parkway: Similar to the burying of I-5, this would be a much less technical project of simply covering over I-405 (mostly) with park, creating pedestrian bridges that cross over the streets which cross I-405, so that a person could continuously walk the park without navigating traffic, as well as bike paths and rights of way both on the parkway and over the pedestrian bridges.



Columbia River Crossing: This is simply the project as has been discussed. A new bridge for I-5 which would be a landmark for the area. (Which yes, means I'd put Pearson Field out of business.)

MAX Extension: Part of the deal for Vancouver getting their bridge is that they also get our MAX, with the commitment to re-evaluate and expand it within the next 10 years.



Powell Blvd MAX Line: I'd bring the commuter train system to outer Southeast Portland by running the MAX down Powell Blvd.




After all that is done, I think I'd still have perhaps $2 billion left, which I'd invest in needed maintainence of city streets and infrastructure.











This thread is not about whose ideas are right or best. I thought of what I'd do with $20 billion one day, and realized it would be really interesting to hear how different everyone's ideas would be. I live on the east side. I imagine the ideas from those on the west side would center more around there.



Lets hear what you would do.

[bvpcvm]

funny, i was just dreaming the other day of obama getting into office and redirecting all that war money to rebuilding infrastructure at home.

with $20 billion... here's the stuff everybody mentions:

replace the marquam with a tunnel, which of course means a tunnel under the central east side.

cap 405 as much as possible (btw, in your plan it goes up to lovejoy, but by that point it's actually quite high above the ground; glisan is, i think, the last street it passes under, but whatever).

cap i-84 from the river to at least ne 12th, with most of the room used for parks. more bridges across i-84, where possible.

max *and commuter rail, munich u-/s-bahn like* in tunnel thru downtown.

lrt out barbur (assuming transit projects currently in the pipeline are funded some other way).

electrified, or at least dual-mode, commuter rail to salem, scappoose and newberg/mcminnville, all the way thru to downtown.

max down powell, i suppose. oh, and take the parking lots/vacant space on the south side of powell from 50th to 205 and put high-density family housing/mixed use, commieblock style if necessary to keep the prices down (hey, i've lived in them, they have an undeserved bad rep). possibly try to do the same along inner sandy, parts of lower hawthorne that are semi-industrial anyway and probably some other streets, like mcloughlin.

streetcar throughout inner portland, though with more widely-spaced stops, especially along macadam, hawthorne, sandy, broadway, mlk, lombard, burnside (e and w), and of course nw 21st. 39th, too.

another bridge over the willamette, up by the fremont, for local traffic, bikes, transit. the fremont certainly gets you across the river quickly, but if you're not in a car it doesn't do any good at all. and there are times when i'd like to actually go from the pearl to mississippi but left the hummer in the garage.

money to relocate the community colleges to TOD developments - i want a bigger pcc campus at omsi and maybe on the pps property by broadway/weidler, move sylvania to downtown tigard, and rock creek --> quatama or somewhere else along the westside max line. mhcc to downtown gresham. oh, and ccc to near mcloughlin/205 so that lrt will eventually serve it. in fact, while we're at it, money to move all government services so that they're near transit.

initial subsidy, if needed, for a bike sharing program like paris's velib.

political will to make sure lufthansa and klm don't kill those flights to europe.

you said "dictator", right? a fund to assist republicans in relocating to houston, where they'll be happier anyway, with a special extra subsidy, because it would horrify them, for randy o'toole and employees of the cascade policy institute.

money for the eventual legal battle for cascadia's independence from the US.

[Delaney]

400 trams

[tworivers]

Bury I-5, remove Marquam. Make the eastbank a living area, not just a park. Studios, workforce housing, condos, creative industries, public market, a new and architecturally significant Cascadia Center for Contemporary Art. All oriented towards the river. A water-taxi/ferry service up and down our new boulevard (you know, the river). I'd even take a couple or half-dozen of the westside Waterfront Park blocks, chop them in half, and on the Naito-facing half build "incubator" housing: radically-designed, community-engaged, heavily subsidized and CHEAP. For artists, urban planners, working people.. with the express intention of energizing the entire city and creating a perpetual space for conversation and engagement, bringing back the westside waterfront in the process and making the Naito frontage on the park less of a dead zone. Forget this limp "Visionpdx" stuff...

A city-wide streetcar network. Burnside. Naito. 21st. MLK. Alberta/K'worth. St Johns. Belmont/Morrison. Hawthorne-Foster. 82nd. Sandy.

Extending MAX and commuter rail, with particular attention to more outer ring connections to complement the spokes. I'd add Hood River to the above-posted destinations.

An arterial bridge with LR over the Columbia between N Portland and Vancouver, leaving the current bridges in place but heavily tolled.

Love the Fremont local bridge idea. Alternatively, a new tram from Centennial Mills to the Mississippi bluff, using the Fremont bridge as a middle tower. (For that matter, why aren't we talking about wind turbines all across that bridge, at least on the bottomside?)

Implement the Lloyd Crossing Plan!!!

Build the new campus between Riverplace and Sowa as a collaborative and highly ambitious "sustainability" institute, the kind of institution capable of shaking imaginations worldwide.

Small projects like bike/ped bridges wherever needed: NE 7th over 84, Flanders over 405, a wide easily-accessible one over 84 at the Hollywood transit center.

And, if we're going to build a stadium and bring MLB to town (thought personally I prefer NFL), I'd site it at the PPS site north of Broadway. Make it the most ecologically forward-thinking stadium ever built.

And on and on...

Oh yeah, and yes to an independent bioregionally organized entity called Cascadia.

[Dougall5505]

fix the schools

[tworivers]

Oh, thanks Dougall, make me look like a total dick...

OK, so I forgot about the potholes and the schools. But the city will be such an amazing laboratory and classroom, we'll barely even need "schools", right?

[PDX City-State]

Buy a chunk of Google and move a division to Portland. Bring to Portland a real economy.

[RED_PDXer]

I'd pay for 20,000 small improvements to the region.. at about 1 million dollars each. Examples include:

- street connectivity improvements throughout the region, primarily in the suburbs.
- bus rapid transit lines improving transit connectivity and access throughout the region
- subsidize community gardens in high-density areas as part of roof gardens program
- since i'm dictator, I'd reduce auto capacity by 50% throughout the region on all arterial roadways and highway, while dedicating the reclaimed right-of-way for bike highways and pedestrian public space.
- plant a million more trees in the urbanized portion of the region
- acquire land and build new urban parks in designated high density centers
- reclaim the eastside I-5 and Marquam bridge as a public space, devoid of cars..

[MarkDaMan]

Hmmmm, just throwing away $20B? Like Brewster's Millions kinda thing?

Lincoln High would be in the pedestal of several incredible towers. I-5 would be underground, along with MAX downtown. MLB and NFL would be in Portland. We'd have a few more trams. The Willamette would no longer be a Superfund and riverbanks would be restored. Forest Park would extend to Astoria and become Forest National Park. Maybe also an empty tower in the CBD offered for free to any company that will promise x amount of local jobs. And, that damned headquarters hotels at the OCC...

I guess that's a start.

[philopdx]

Right next to Pearson airfield.

[MarkDaMan]

^where is that? that is awful!

[NJD]

Strange how $20 billion seams like nothing these days... my two cents:

$2bil All schools modernization upgrade to highest sustainability levels
$500mil Numerous park upgrades including artwork, waterfronts and new pocket parks around town
$2bil actual separated bike lanes on all major streets, bike trails and other bike infrastructure
$500mil pave all unfinished streets and sidewalks throughout city
$2bil towards streetcar network
$1.5bil Barbur to Sherwood MAX
$500mil Forest Grove and MHCC MAX blue line extensions
$1bil Milwaukie to Oregon City MAX yellow line extension
$1.5bil commuter rail from McMinnville, Salem, Hood River, St. Helens, and a new line to Sandy through Damascus to Portland
$6bil new high speed rail lines from Portland to Salem, McMinnville, Astoria, Corvallis, Eugene, The Dalles, and a possible connection to Cali's HSR network through Klamath falls to Sacramento
$1bil cap I-405 with a series of new parks and remove planted shoulders and replace with 2 through lanes
$1.5bil remove I-5 eastbank freeway and replace with parkland and amphitheater, and replace Marquam Bridge with a locally connecting lift-span bridge for peds, bikes, autos and transit

...ahhh, pipe dreams...

[pdxman]

Originally Posted by MarkDaMan

^where is that? that is awful!

Its the Ryugyong Hotel in North Korea. It was never completed.

[smendesPDX]

Originally Posted by philopdx

Right next to Pearson airfield.

I love it!

[Dougall5505]

Originally Posted by tworivers

Oh, thanks Dougall, make me look like a total dick...

OK, so I forgot about the potholes and the schools. But the city will be such an amazing laboratory and classroom, we'll barely even need "schools", right?

haha you set yourself up for it tworivers. here's my real answer:
-buy bside6 and turn it into my own private residence
-buy the trailblazers
-then i would fix the schools and I-5 etc.

[Sioux612]

Re-clad the Wells Fargo Tower for one.

[rsbear]

I'd use my $20B to reclad it back to original. After that, it would be all about education, job training, transitional housing for the homeless, seed money for new businesses, strategic investments into existing small businesses, youth programs, first-time home buyers assistance, community improvement programs (tree planting, blight elimination, graffiti abatement, etc).

Improve the software (people) and we'll improve the hardware (built environment).

[bugsy]

Quick question, Whats wrong with the Marquam bridge? I never understood why people hate on it so much...

[jlousa]

Come on people think bigger, $20Billion won't get you too much thanks to having to acquire a lot of property to make upgrades. Not to mention upgrades are expensive. Although it wasn't the question imagine...

Buying a small island of about 25sq miles and starting from nothing. The small size would limit sprawl and you could do a lot with that $20Billion, LEED Gold/Platinum for every building (6 story street walls everywhere), separated bike lanes, electric streetcars, no personal autos at all on the island. Solar/geo-thermal/wind/tidal power to meet requirements. Fresh water might be tricky on an island that small though, but it's possible with rain retention and filtering. Recoup the investment by charging a reasonable amount for all those that chose to live in your utopia.

[rsbear]

Talk about missing the point. The premise of this thread is how would you spend the money to make Portland better.