The Portland Streetcar and Cincinnati (Part 1)

Portland, OR


We just got back from a whirlwind tour of the Portland, OR. All-in-all it was an awesome trip despite being a little on the rainy side. We were really impressed with the city and all it had to offer. What was truly spectacular though (and was the reason for the trip) was the hands on tour of their streetcar system that included checking out the entire route and rail facilities. Several speakers including developers in Portland, employees from Portland Streetcar, Inc, architects, and designers of streetcar systems were also on hand to answer all our questions. Since we experienced so much over this long weekend we thought it would be best to break down our takeaways into a few areas.

Portland and Cincinnati

First, we should say that we really only got to spend time in downtown Portland, so any comparisons we make are based on the downtown areas. Many people wonder why Portland is mentioned when talking about building streetcars in Cincinnati. After taking this trip, it's easier to see why.

Portland's downtown is surrounded by urban neighborhoods and bordered by a river and mountains (in our case hills). Their downtown footprint size is similar and density generally comparable to Cincinnati. There were, however, some key differences in building and block sizes. Cincinnati tends to have more large buildings including sky scrapers with way too many surface lots taking up the spaces between them. Portland, on the other hand, has fewer skyscrapers, but far fewer surface parking lots. Instead of empty lots they have a great deal more retail/dining/bars. Also, Portland's blocks are actually smaller (almost half the size of ours). With all the storefronts and fewer surface parking lots we found the whole area extremely walkable.

When we weren't riding the rails we spent quite a bit of time checking out the area by foot. It's a big city that still seems intimate. With such a great deal of similarity, it seems a lot more fair to compare Cincinnati to a city such as Portland instead of the those the size of Chicago.


More to come tomorrow....