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North Portland Harbor bridge

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What you see here is one of the most-used and yet most obscure bridges in town. The North Portland Harbor bridge carries I-5 between Hayden Island and the south bank of the Columbia. If you've ever been stuck in traffic on I-5, and you looked down and saw houseboats, this is where you were.



The obscurity is understandable, I guess. It's your basic 50's-60's concrete bridge, and there's nothing very notable, memorable, or decorative about it. It also crosses a side channel of the Columbia (the eponymous "North Portland Harbor", also sometimes called "Oregon Slough") , with the main channel spanned by the much better known Interstate Bridge (about which a post is forthcoming). This bridge is so obscure there isn't even a Structurae page about it, and they've got pages about just about everything. So I have a feeling this post would be the authoritative source of information about it on the interwebs, except that I haven't come across much in the way of useful info to provide about it. At least that makes it easy to post about, I guess.



I'm mentioning it here because you can (and I did) actually walk across it. There's only a walkway on the east (northbound) side, but it's wide and well separated from traffic, and you've got a nice view of the houseboat harbor below. It's a shame the walkway itself is rather bleak looking, but hey, it was built in the late 50's or so, they built everything grey and bleak back then. Beats me why they did, but they did.



I'd originally planned to do this and the Interstate in one go. The plan was to take the train to the Expo Center MAX stop; navigate the Marine Drive cloverleaf intersection to the south end of this bridge; cross it and take photos, while not dying; make my way across Hayden Island to the northbound Interstate Bridge; cross it, again taking lots of photos and not dying; get off and find the southbound Interstate Bridge; cross it, more photos, no dying, etc.; from there, make my way back to the North Portland Harbor bridge; retrace steps back to the MAX station, and declare Mission Accomplished.



As you might recall, I pretty much only have time to do this sort of thing on weekday mornings before work, when I don't have early meetings or a pressing deadline to worry about. So I didn't have a big block of time to do the whole foray at once. So the lite version works like this: Drive to Hayden Island, park in the Safeway parking lot; hop on the sidewalk that curves around back of the store; continue past the Hooters (ex-Waddle's) restaurant; cross the bridge, taking a few photos and not dying; see Marine Drive intersection, turn around and walk back across bridge; walk down under the bridge and take more photos; buy an iced latte and a lemon bar at the Starbucks inside Safeway, just so I'm parked legally; declare Mission Accomplished.







I did the Interstate Bridge on a different day, and the Hayden Island and Marine Drive parts of the route aren't likely to be very interesting. Hayden Island is just big-box suburbia, and it's just not very compelling. I mean, I could do it and explain just how pedestrian-unfriendly it is, but it's not like that would be a big revelation, would it?



Oh, and here's the obligatory not-dying angle: If someone's left a banana peel here, don't slip on it and somehow manage fall off the bridge or tumble into traffic.



You may be familiar with the big multi-billion-dollar project to replace the Interstate Bridge, just north of here. There's been some discussion about replacing this bridge as part of the process. The mayor and various planning types have expressed an interest in an "iconic" bridge with "height and visual interest" in this location, probably due to the FAA height restrictions over the main channel of the Columbia. I've heard elsewhere (and I can't find a link for this now) that the current intent is to leave this bridge as-is for now, since it doesn't actually "need" replacing the way the Interstate allegedly does.

Johnson Creek Park expedition

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Here are a few photos of SE Portland's tiny little Johnson Creek Park, out on the far edge of Sellwood, where it bumps up against Milwaukie.

The somewhat glib, pop-sociological notion at the heart of this post is that this is a spot where the upscale and working class sides of Portland collide. Or at least abut each other. Sellwood is your prototypical gentrified inner SE neighborhood, with twee little boutiques and a Starbucks on every corner. Milwaukie has auto body shops, car dealerships, and the state's vast OLCC distribution warehouse, among other things. That's the usual public perception, anyway. The reality's more complex than that, of course, which is why I said this is a somewhat glib, pop-sociological notion.

Continuing with the notion, this is the spot where Crystal Springs Creek flows into Johnson Creek (see top photo). Just upstream of here on Crystal Springs Creek (i.e. the Sellwood side) are the Rhododendron Garden, Westmoreland Park, and the Eastmoreland golf course. Just upstream on Johnson Creek, meanwhile, is the Acropolis, uh, gentlemen's club.

Furthermore, Johnson Creek bisects the park. The western half is reachable from Sellwood neighborhood streets. It features playground equipment, picnic tables, and guardrails to keep people from messing up the creeks' delicate riparian ecosystem. There's a cute little bridge over Crystal Springs Creek. I think I saw a few interpretive signs, which is always a sure sign you're in a gentrified area.

To get to the eastern side of the park, on the other side of Johnson Creek, you actually have to leave the park, go get on McLoughlin and turn off on SE Clatsop street, a short semi-paved street between two industrial shops. At the end of the street there's a gravel parking area, and no signs indicating this is a park. The park boundary is also Portland city limit, I think, so you actually have to detour through Milwaukie to get there. No playground equipment, no picnic tables or other services, and no guardrails.

The obvious question here is "why isn't there a bridge over the creek?". There's one over Crystal Springs Creek, after all, why not Johnson Creek? Well, it seems there used to be just such a bridge, many moons ago (and I haven't been able to determine exactly how many moons that was). You can still see the foundations of the old bridge, but it seems there hasn't been a functioning bridge here for quite some time, and I haven't come across any indication that there's a new one in the works anytime soon.

This is probably a metaphor for the larger class-divide thing, and it probably says something deep about how the two sides of Portland relate, or fail to relate, to each other. I'm not entirely sure what the message is, but it's bound to mean something...

Even if you don't buy my thesis, and you don't think the park really illustrates much of anything, it's still a pleasant little spot. It's got trees, flowers, burbling creeks, etc., the usual.

Anyway, a quick few links about the place:

• The city's vegetation survey page about the park.
• This post at Urban Adventure League mentions the "lost" east side of the park. Yeah, I know, yet again they were here before me. Oh, well.
• A couple of Sellwood Bee articles about conservation volunteers and a student eco-project.
• A Yelp page with people discussing the place.