City Walks – Portland’s Infrastructure

Big Stuff

One thing going for Portland is its dramatic landscape. The city rises above the Willamette and Columbia rivers, and you can see in the distance the Cascades Mountains, including Mount Saint Helens and Mount Hood.

Getting Around

All of these rivers and hills create plenty of obstacles for getting around, and there are plenty of roads and bridges, and a pretty good light rail system. Portland has a reputation for being bike-friendly, although I was pleased to see that my city’s recent spate of building bike lanes doesn’t put us too far behind (Portland’s drivers are much better behaved toward bikes, though).

But the coolest bit of transportation was the Portland Aerial Tram, which goes from the Willamette River up to a hospital in a steeper part of the city. It had a big cost overrun when it was first constructed (the curse of US infrastructure) but it seems to be very popular, with about a million rides per year.

These are views from inside the tram.

Not for people with a fear of heights.

Water Projects

I was also pleased to see Portland has old reservoirs to feed my unnatural (but harmless, I swear) interest in old water projects. In the eastern part of the city is Mount Tabor Park, which covers a small extinct volcano. Some of the volcanic rock is exposed in this cliff.

Beginning in the late 1800s, Portland built reservoirs near the top to supply water to the city. And much like the old reservoirs where I live, ornate buildings were constructed to contain equipment such as pumps. These reservoirs, however, have been decommissioned except as scenic locations, while ours are still in use.

You can see in the photo above stains in the stone which indicate how the water level used to be higher. Several years ago it was discovered the reservoirs were leaking and needed repairs. To keep the neighborhoods below safe, they were drained, fixed, and are now only slowly being refilled.

It’s a lovely park and was filled with lots of happy grownups and kids hiking and biking around. Although a century ago, as this notice at the visitor’s center noted, it was a gathering place for the KKK.

The Klan underwent a huge expansion in the 1920s — this was the era when Donald Trump’s father was arrested while “berobed” at a Klan rally in New York. Portland was a hotbed for white supremacists, as some of rural Oregon is today, and like today, they were careful to couch their racism in softer terms like “middle class movement” that was adopted by gullible newsmen, then and now.

It’s a bit disturbing to learn about this history, but it’s great that it’s not being swept under the rug.