Urbanism-focused Youtuber Fourth Place delved into Portland’s streetcar extension planned to its Montgomery Park neighborhood, just northwest of its existing streetcar loop. The project stills need to secure funding, but the City of Portland appears bought into the project as a means to jumpstart a large-scale urban redevelopment of an industrial district. Fourth Place offers a tour of the half-mile extension and offers some analysis of what the extension would mean for the broader streetcar system (which would be reconfigured) and the neighborhoods it passes through.
Named for a large office building formerly home to the headquarters of the Montgomery and Ward Co. mail order firm, Montgomery Park also includes a large vacant site that used to be an ESCO steel foundry. The area bordering other similar warehouse districts like Slab Town and the Peal District that transformed from industrial to urban mixed issues. Montgomery Park could also serve as a gateway to Portland’s largest green space, Forest Park, and its many hiking trails. Portland is certainly taking a different approach to transit expansion as Seattle’s more light rail and megaproject-focused approach just to the north.
Doug Trumm is publisher of The Urbanist. An Urbanist writer since 2015, he dreams of pedestrian streets, bus lanes, and a mass-timber building spree to end our housing crisis. He graduated from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington in 2019. He lives in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood and loves to explore the city by foot and by bike.
