Speak up for a new path into Mt. Tabor Park from Division Street

Purple line shows approximate location of proposed path. SE Division Street is at the bottom and Mt. Tabor is in the upper right.

Mt. Tabor Park is finally slated to get a rolling and walking path that would provide a much-needed entrance from Southeast Division street and the City of Portland needs to hear your support to make it happen.

As we reported in January 2014, a citizen committee made up of neighborhood residents has been working for years to make good on old city plans for a public entrance and path through the Portland Parks & Recreation maintenance yard located between the park and Division. Plans for such a path go back as far as 2000 and were included in a PP & R study in 2008.

Now, thanks to the recently passed $68 million Parks Replacement Bond and a rosier funding picture, the Parks Bureau is moving ahead on a project to improve the maintenance yard. The second phase of the project (funded by System Development Charges) includes the public path.

According to the City, the path will be built along the alignment of SE 64th Avenue, just west of the maintenance operations facility.

Open House event flyer.

Dawn Smallman sits on the committee overseeing the project for the Mt. Tabor Neighborhood Association. She says the project will not only establish the first public entrance to the park from the south side, but it will also include safety enhancements to help people cross Division from nearby residential areas, “So there would be the extra bonus of traffic calming there too.”

Construction of the path is slated to be completed by winter 2018.

Because the proposed path would be built alongside an existing apartment building, there is some resistance to the plan from people who live there. They fear it will become “another Springwater Corridor situation.”

Smallman urges anyone who supports the plan or has any input in general about the project to attend an open house for the project this Saturday (October 8th) from 10:00 am to 12 noon at the maintenance yard (6437 SE Division). You can also email project manager Susan Meamber at susan.meamber@portlandoregon.gov. At the open house, city staff and volunteers will give tours of the yard and answer questions. Learn more at the project website.

— Jonathan Maus, (503) 706-8804 – jonathan@bikeportland.org

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