Portland State Magazine Fall 2013

FALL 2013 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE 19 recommendation list was street crossing improvements for walkers and bicycles. They suggested adding flashing beacons, curb extensions, seven new crosswalks, and making substantial changes to the I-5 crossing. Students also urged completing the gaps in the bicycle network surrounding Lombard, adding more bike racks, and improving TriMet bus stops and shelters. Many of the recommendations from the team centered on “place making”—showcasing the history, character, and identity of the area by adding greenery, benches, murals, decorative lighting, and gateway signs to the neighborhoods. Every recommendation in the students’ final report, which is linked to their lombardreimagined.com website, includes programs and agencies that can help. However, the team’s ultimate suggestion—reconfiguring North Lombard from four lanes to three, including a middle turning lane—will require coordination with the Federal Highway Administration. For the Swifts, the Lombard Re-Imagined project underscored what attracted them to planning in the first place: the desire to create actual change within real communities. To ensure that their vision has an afterlife, the team set up a Friends of Lombard organization, and community members were eager to participate. The new grassroots group will be responsible for seeing that the project’s recommendations make it to the street.  Heather Quinn-Bork is a PSU creative writing student and a graduate assistant in the Office of University Communications. Two decades of urban improvements Graduate students in the Master of Urban and Regional Planning program have taken on assignments such as Lombard Re-Imagined as final projects for 20 years. In that time, the team projects have earned seven national awards. In 2012, Portland Mercado—a Latino community market planned for the Mt. Scott-Arleta Neighborhood— won student awards from the American Institute of Certified Planners and the American Planning Association Oregon Chapter. But more impressively, the Portland Mercado project recently received an $800,000 grant from the federal Office of Community Services to actually build the market, which is now slated to open in summer 2014. Jake Warr and Kathryn Doherty-Chapman were part of a team of graduate students asked by the Kenton Neighborhood Association to create a new vision for the four-lane North Lombard Street.