Same!

Definitely

I always wondered about that too. This was a fascinating look at Portland's past. I love history and this just put history of the freeway system in my pea brain.

I've always thought that would be a neat place to park in the evening and just sit

Everyone has. It clearly was an abandoned project or idea to expand in the future that never materialized.

Yes, this is a very well produced video

Been driving by those for 20 years, always wondered but never looked it up

I was born and raised in Portland and always wondered about those. A couple weeks ago my daughter and I were commuting to work together and she asked what they were, I’m glad that I can now give her a accurate answer.

Just an interesting tidbit. The Marquam bridge was Earthquake retro-fitted, (upgraded) around 1980 due to the possibility of the upper level "pancake collapse" similar to what took place in San Francisco during the 1980 Earthquake. The Marquam bridge and a few of downtown Portland bridges sit on soft earth/fill and prone to liquafaction (water creating a quicksand sinking effect) sinking during Earthquakes.

Or the route heading back home to my parents place, they live in Columbia County which is accessible by us highway 30 lol.

lol

you haven to be able and not be a question 😅of how you want the rest ❤😂😢😢😮😅🎉

registering,registering,registering,🎉ZZZ you haven have the best 👌 of 😂❤the good and not be used to make any changes or and

😅😅😅😅😅

Based

I was just talking about this yesterday

Same. I grew up a few blocks south of Powell and went to Kellogg Middle School, and I always wondered why they were there. Later on I learned about the Mt Hood Highway, but never put 2 and 2 together at the time. This explanation makes perfect sense.

thats what i was just sayin!

Crazy - I've been living here for 10 years and always noticed that stuff and was like "Eh - weird but whatever". Now I know why.

That would be a great video!

yes please

Hey would you consider covering the new parkway that opened up south of Pittsburgh?

The remnants of Seattle’s unbuilt Thompson Expressway finally succumbed to expansion of the freeway it was supposed to interchange with.

Oh wow! Thank goodness for concrete barriers blocking them off now!

I'd have launched off that deck least twice by now.

@@peterdibble something must've happened :flushed:

I know, I always thought so. A fence?

@@IsaacPoopsAlot I would put money on it that someone actually did drive off that ramp at some point.

Totally agree. Fantastic job on this.

Glad to hear it was educational, thanks for watching!

I always wondered about that strange bow in the road on 26 before you got to Sandy. Now I know.

@@peterdibble Yours is by far, the best documentary on Portland that I have seen. Thanks for the effort

Yep I was thinking the same, the much needed bridge to Washington state.

Might also help if light rail went across the Columbia River.

I was salivating when I heard about that one, at the very least we need another bridge from marine drive to Hayden island so that going to best buy after 2 pm is a realistic goal

They would probably have to cut deep into the hills of Forest Park (or tunnel beneath, not sure if that would even work) to mitigate the steep twisty slopes there. The way it is now, if you're trying to get from Beaverton to Gresham at 3:30pm (or vice versa) your destination is practically on the other side of the moon in terms of transit time.

I like this. It would also have very minimal impact on what already exists, especially along marine drive.

Any widening would need to happen on the south side of Marine Drive, since there are the boathouse communities and a few individual homes on the north side. Shouldn't be too hard to do aside from the area by Goodwill, most of it is basically buffer land anyway. For that matter, finding a way for Marine Drive to join up with 205 instead of funneling traffic onto Airport Way would ease a lot of the problems there too. So much Troutdale traffic uses Marine Drive to skip past the inevitable backup on 84 and I'm sure the businesses hate it.

@UCalPEhPB0upFK7zm0Lh0xIw What a re-write of history. In 1872, when Ben Holladay built Portland's first streetcar line. The Portland Street Railway’s streetcars went two-miles along 1st Street, from Northwest Glisan Street to Southwest Porter Street. By 1888, four more companies had lines in Portland, and another opened a line in East Portland and Albina. Citizens also had horses, another way to travel. They had bikes and Portland had sidewalks. If you look around town you will see rings on the curbs of sidewalks so people could tie up their horses, BEFORE cars. Here is a link to the sidewalk rings that were in Portland in the 1800s. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_rings_in_Portland,_Oregon Portland was also a big bike town in the 1890s Here is another link showing Portland had bike shops and active cyclists in 1892 BEFORE the car. www.pdxmonthly.com/news-and-city-life/2019/05/think-portland-is-obsessed-with-bikes-today-meet-the-wheelpeople-of-1890s-stumptown So they had mass transit, they had bikes, and they had sidewalks. Nice attempt to revise history to fit your narrative.

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

I live in Portland on mid Stark St. and this was an interesting and very informative watch.

watch "The Forgotten story of Harbor Drive". That was really nuts.

@Kyle Korona fair enough

Strange thought: more highways being the cure to problems caused by highways and car dependence. It might save you some time at the cost of some of everyone else's time and quality of life.

​@SL420- true never really thought of it that way. I guess the thought being that if one time saver saves more people time than costs them time then it's worth it I suppose. Generally there are negatives to everything, surprised this slipped my mind honestly I had mostly only considered the eye sores and lack of connecting roads when interstates cut through things.

Why would you lie?

​​@@SL420- The concept of a hwy is not the real problem it is a hwy which does not meet the needs of the comuninity. The failed logic of car haters use regarding the build it & they will come ligic highlights their anti car authoritarianism. Some think people really think the majority would prefer to walk bike or bus everywhere & the only reason they don't is infrastructure which is silly others know the truth & they want to force people to use car alternatives because they know they won't get their way by providing choices & "education".

oh wow I didnt know they had an I-84 in the west, Only ever knew of the one that went through Connecticut.

@@filanfyretrackerSouthside of Columbia River east of Portland Ore, covers the Columbia River Gorge, heads east toward Ontario, Ore into Idaho. From there I do not know.

@@filanfyretracker It used to be called I-80N(north), that branched off from the I-80 at Salt Lake City, I-80 still takes a southerly route through Nevada, on to San Francisco. I-80N(north) was changed to I-84 in 1980, and goes north out of Utah, through Idaho, and on in to Portland along the Columbia River on Oregon's northern border. The change had something to do with new Federal guidelines on the highway numbering system.

We have some pretty cool folks here.

It probably wouldn't have been so badly congested if they made the freeways that did get built wider than just 3 lanes in each direction. Seattle's are mostly at least three lanes wide in each direction, with many sections being 4-5 lanes in each direction. Heck, even the Rose Quarter widening project where they're widening that stupidly narrow 2-lane section of I-5 has faced a lot of opposition but at least that's getting built in the near future.

You’re half right.

@@compdude100 Induced demand dude lol

@@peskypigeonx Yeah I know that now but not when that comment was posted a year ago lol

@@compdude100character growth, nice

Check the video in this channel that discussed the freeway that was removed from the waterfront on the west side of the river and you'll understand why the easier placement is better. I agree, not perfect, but better.

Lived in Hillsboro until 2019. I used that Kirby ramp many times to go to the American Red Cross Blood Center(the biggest in the Nation) both to donate platelets and volunteer to deliver critical blood products to the hospitals throughout Oregon.

Originally the Kirby exit was supposed to be restricted for Emanuel's use only but a pesky citizen successfully sued to open it up to all traffic. I've used it dozens of times over the year both for access to the Red Cross blood donation center and to North Portland. It's also the best connection to Northeast Portland and eastbound along Fremont street.

Interesting! I wasn't aware of all that.

Omg literally same!!! I've seen them all around, on the Freemont bridge, the I84/I5 interchange

This idea was actually considered! If you do a Google image search for "1969 Portland transportation plan" there's a fascinating map of what was planned to be built by 1990. Essentially I-205 would have continued in a big loop around the west side from Tualatin to Vancouver.

The "older generations" caused the disaster that is still called Portland.

Well said. NIMBYism is a pretty interesting aspect of this sort of city planning, and without fail it always comes up in the history of these freeway projects.

that is just it, people want more of them if they drive that route. But I doubt any of them would willfully give up their land for one to be built.

The majority of people in Portland don’t want freeways in the city, be they NIMBY, environmentalist, urbanist or someone else. Portlanders generally want transit, biking, and walkability. Many are actively trying to get 405 and 5 downtown torn out (routing down 205). I like that about living here. It’s just a different constituency of people that self selected to live in a city that values biking instead of freeways. Houston or LA or Tucson are the opposite. I understand why it would be annoying as a truck driver who moves freight to form the backbone of our country (maybe ban/toll cars on urban interstates?) but as someone from freeway heavy St. Louis, I can say with confidence that communities here are healthier and more vibrant precisely because people stay, shop, and play local. It’s not like you can’t go anywhere because you don’t have a freeway, it takes a little longer and you think twice about whether you really need to make that trip to Fred Meyer or wherever. With walking and biking to work and my local store, I never have to worry about congestion. It’s just not a thing for those modes of transportation, and as an added bonus, I’m much healthier and happier because of how I get around (lost 60 lbs since moving here). I was also annoyed with Portland when Insisted on using my car to go everywhere, but then I tried something new and never went back. Just keep an open mind :)

@@nathanholland3235 I totally get that, but as another truck driver, if I have to make a delivery and it takes me an hour just to go 5 miles, I'm not going to want to deliver to that city ever again.

@@NB1980 I respect that, which is why more people need to get out of their cars. Less cars=less traffic, meaning our roads can work and truck drivers can do their jobs better

It would be cool to get a west side bypass, but I don't think it will ever happen. If my opinion counted for anything, I'd say make the route a limited access route so that it does nothing but go from 26 across to I5, probably south of Ridgefield, but north of the 205/5 merge. 217 isn't far enough west, so extending it north wouldn't make sense. You'd run right into St. Johns, even if you could find an acceptable way through Forest Park. (Tunnel maybe?) So that means Cornelius Pass is the most likely candidate. Cut across Sauvie Island, across the river, and around Felida. The only interchange would be at Hwy 30. Other than that, the only way on or off is at 26 or I5. But, like I said, it won't happen, even if Hillsboro and Ridgefield continue to grow like they are now.

That`s happened to us too!

@@frederickbooth7970 LOL Nice to hear I wasn't the only one.

Yes. People tend to think it’s a matter of just building public transit and people will abandon cars. No: they totally fail to understand why people like cars. No matter the weather you are virtually door to door, can carry whatever you want, cocooned even if there’s traffic jams and make 10 different stops.

Lipman's, and Meier & Frank were still downtown. Of course, Newberry's and Woolworth's don't actually count as department stores. There was a Magnin, but that was a specialty store like Nordstrom, and Mario's is also in the same category. Target on 10th is pretty much the only department store in downtown, and the others were bought out and closed by poor operations. So building the bus mall made no difference in closing department stores, they just kind of outlived their format and are now dying in malls too. There was a great renewal of smaller stores downtown and most seem to be surviving the pandemic that chased the office dwellers out, but time will tell.

That’s true of pretty much any US city in the post-war era. Downtowns were gutted by white flight and the promise of the suburban dream, and were filled in with just office buildings. I don’t think the bus mall had much to do with it at all

@@birdrocket I worked Downtown Portland during construction of the "bus mall. Several main streets were closed, some store-fronts blocked at times, no parking, no traffic on those streets. I Magnin, Meier and Frank, Mercantile, Fredrick and Nelson, Marios, Denny's, several restaurants, bars, J.K.Gill stationary store, and Chinese Import store, 6th Avenue record and music company. Although Newberry's and Woolworth's was not a department store it was an option to shop and have lunch. I lived in Southwest Portland worked downtown and eventually in Northeast Portland. I did NOT want to take light rail due to the crime, drugs, and scheduling. When I took light rail it took over 2 hours to get home in the winter with bus transfers. Of late Target has closed in downtown Portland due to high crime and shoplifting. Once again, I truly believe the construction of the "bus mall" and pressure to leave the car at home and take mass transit (light rail, city bus, cab) was the demise of downtown Portland. Too few parking spaces and stores spread blocks apart. Today, Portland hardly has any department stores as they have moved to suburban malls where there is plenty of parking, stores located in one spot.

@@larrybruce4856 the problem there lies in trying to court people that do not live there. A dense downtown will never have enough parking for those that live outside of the city, cities must be built for those that inhabit them. And again, hardly any cities have department stores anymore, this is because department stores just don’t exist to the extent they used to.

And this only scratches the surface of the social and political journeys to cancel these sort of projects! Glad you found it informative, thanks for watching.

Driving through Pukeland is a nightmare. Lately the “Progressives” in charge have been destroying the capacity of surface streets through East side neighborhoods. Four lane roads have become two lanes for cars and two lanes for bicycles. STUPID. Hardly any bikes using these routes. Congestion and pollution have increased. Way to go Utopian idiots.

All that traffic is the result of having essentially one east-west freeway (that was insufficient for the amount of traffic when it was completed) and difficult interchanges on its two north-south freeways surrounding the downtown area.

Must be our unique type of drug addict / mental case / derelict and their subsidized squalor all over the city!