The city plans to enlarge the traffic island at Northeast Alameda Boulevard and Klickitat Street and install a new rain garden as part of improvements to a 60-block stretch of Klickitat.
The project will prevent local basement flooding during heavy rains and divert stormwater from a collector pipe under the Banfield Freeway, which is nearing capacity and would be expensive to replace, said Rhetta Drennan, a spokeswoman for the city’s Bureau of Environmental Services. The project is also an element of the bikeway improvements along Klickitat.
But some residents in the area worry that the new landscaping won’t be well maintained. That fits with the city’s habit of installing such features and abandoning them, said Cynthia Longley, who lives across Alameda from the island. Within the past 10 years, the city stopped maintaining traffic islands. Three families on Alameda pool their money and effort to keep the island planted, watered and mowed.
Neighbors say the island is used as a park and should be maintained by the city.
“The city just doesn’t seem to be acting very responsibly,” Longley said.
The city will maintain the landscaping it adds to the island, but will continue to leave it to residents to maintain what is already there, Drennan said. The difference is that the existing island is a transportation feature and doesn’t need upkeep to work, she said. A rain garden, however, is like a treatment facility that needs to be maintained to operate effectively. There will be a medallion at the site with a phone number for residents to call if there are problems with the rain garden.
The new plantings will be drought-resistant, so the new landscaping won’t be irrigated. During the first couple of summers, the city might truck in water as the new plants get established.
Longley also questions the cost, which she said was about $100,000, at a time of tight city budgets and higher priorities. Drennan said the stormwater retention will divert the equivalent of two or three private swimming pools of water from the city’s wastewater treatment system each year.
Most neighbors were happy to hear that the city decided not to close that section of Klickitat to auto traffic, Longley said. There was concern that could increase traffic on already-busy Alameda Boulevard. New speed bumps along Alameda have also helped tremendously to cut down on speeding, Longley said.
Instead, the city will not allow parking on Klickitat between Alameda and 38th Avenue to make room for the rain garden, while narrowing the street to make it safer for bicyclists and pedestrians.
In addition to expanding the island north into Klickitat, the project will plant 4 new trees, add a sidewalk to wrap around the north end of the island and install ADA ramps at the two corners of the island, in addition to ramps on the northwest corner of the intersection. The project will widen the island and create less street for pedestrians to have to cross at Klickitat and Alameda.
Two portions left over from the city’s recently-completed Big Pipe project, which diverts sewage from the Willamette River, will be used as bridges over the rain garden to connect the sidewalk to the existing grassy area of the island.
The project will go out to bid soon and the city expects to hire a contractor by late summer or early fall. Work could begin shortly after that, but the order of projects along the 60 blocks will be up to the contractor. The contractor will meet with residents to go over the construction and any other concerns before construction starts.
Construction will not cause street closures, but the city is still trying to decide where to store heavy equipment and other construction gear in the neighborhood, Drennan said.
Although the Klickitat project stretches from North Vancouver to Northeast 67th avenues, the only other project within the Beaumont-Wilshire boundaries is at 41st, where the city will add ADA ramps at the four corners and a curb extension with planter at the northwest corner.
Drennan suggested that anyone who wants updates on the project should send her an email with “Klickitat” in the subject line to rhetta.drennan@portlandoregon.gov.