Oregon Public Broadcasting

The Portland area already has a pretty good park system. Places like Forest Park, and Mount Tabor are frequent tourist destinations. But it’s not exactly easy to ride your bike from one to the other.

The question of how to connect those places is what Metro Councilors will take a look at Thursday.

They'll  hear from a panel that’s been studying a plan to connect  the region’s trails and natural areas.

That would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. But As Rob Manning reports, supporters believe Oregonians would go for it.

At a conference a year and a half ago, Metro president David Bragdon accused local leaders of dropping the ball, parks-wise.

David Bragdon: “With the natural resources that we inherited, and the human resources that we could marshal, our region possesses the ingredients for something quite astonishing: the best urban parks and natural areas’ network in the world.”

So  a panel of business leaders, environmentalists, and health advocates looked at Bragdon’s idea of a green network throughout the three-county area, and possibly beyond. But panel chair, David Yaden says talk moved quickly past just parks and tree-lined paths.

David Yaden: “We really came more and more to appreciate that there was a transportation potential for at least for a large segment of this trail network, that we hadn’t really understood going in.”

Eileen Brady: “We’re connecting greenspaces, we’re connecting residents with businesses, we’re connecting people with parks, we’re in the business of connecting the dots.”

That’s Eileen Brady, co-owner of New Seasons’ Market, and a member of Metro’s Blue Ribbon Committee on Trails. The trail system now suffers from the opposite of connections: gaps.

We’re at a gap in the Springwater Trail in Southeast Portland, where a protected path gives way to busy intersections.

Advocates say filling in the gaps could get more people to bike-commute, and improve the region’s air and health.  Brady says people will commute by bike if it’s safer and easier.

Eileen Brady: “There’s a huge pent-up demand out there from people who are living in the West Hills, on the west side of Portland, in Beaverton, to actually begin to imagine, that they could have a bike trails system, for instance,  that could take them into work in downtown Portland. That’s exciting."

But before Brady got too excited, she wanted to connect a few of those dots she talks about, for herself. Like the costs and benefits.

Eileen Brady: “My understanding is that one highway interchange can buy you 125 miles of bike trails. So the cost of road construction, and bike trail construction, the differential is significant.”

Panel chair, David Yaden, says the Springwater Trail was put together piecemeal - and was more expensive to do that way. Part of the problem, he says, is that trails tend to fall low on the list of priorities, and get built slowly.

David Yaden: “They’re still seen as a frill, or something like that. And that’s why, rather than try to fund everything at once, we want to build out some demonstration projects, where people really see these things.”

The  three test projects the panel is recommending will cost at least $50 million. Completing the network will run hundreds of millions of dollars in federal, state and regional money.

But that’s not a huge cost in light of the multi-billion-dollar cost of the growth that Portland expects.

Eileen Brady says that growth could mean a potential Amsterdam-in-Oregon. She says in 20 years, up to four in ten commuters could travel by bike. And the network could potentially connect the Cascades and the Coast.

Eileen Brady: “I can see a bike trail through the wine country, from Portland through the wine country. I can see a bike trail from Portland to the Coast. And I can see a bike trail from Portland to Mount Hood. Instead of the Mount Hood Freeway, we’ll have the Mount Hood bikeway.”

Advocates are hoping the time is right to start on their bike adventure. With leaders in D.C. and in Salem talking about investments in green infrastructure, trail projects just may get the financial kickstart they’ve been waiting for.