I have a shameful confession to make. After attending four years of college in Portland, and then living here for the last 7 1/2 years, I still can’t navigate my way around this town to save my life. But I submit that this isn’t simply due to my own navigational incompetence. No, I think at least some of the credit has to go to the bizarre way streets are laid out in this town.
Now this is ridiculous. Look at all those arrows!I didn’t have a car in college, and on the rare occasions that I ventured off-campus, I used TriMet, which certainly didn’t develop any navigational skills. But the times that I did try to drive around Portland proper, I found myself blocked and diverted by myriad one-way streets. Every time I got near my destination, I would find myself staring at a one-way street that went precisely the wrong way. I would end up getting shunted this way and that, and even found myself reluctantly heading across the river on an unexpected detour.
In fact just a few years later I was a driver at a friend’s wedding, and had the responsibility for transporting some of the wedding party from the Governor Hotel to the church and back, a matter of a few blocks. Well, a few blocks as the crow flies, maybe. In reality the maze of one-way streets made my path so circuitous that the groom had to draw me a detailed map so I wouldn’t accidentally drive my charges off to the suburbs. And then I actually needed a map of a different route to get back to the hotel!
WTF?!?That was then, and this is now. I’m older and wiser, and can find my way around the west side, certainly, and I don’t get lost in downtown anymore. But once I venture east of the river, all bets are off and I typically only find my intended destination through a combination of hapless wandering and blind luck.
I usually start out full of confidence, which usually lasts right up until I take the wrong bridge. Then I might take a couple of turns, go around the block a few times, and eventually get onto the street I wanted in the first place. Unfortunately the resulting relief typically evaporates at the first sign overhead that announces in block letters “THROUGH TRAFFIC RIGHT LANES — LEFT LANES MUST TURN.” Should I turn? Should I get in the right lane? I’m fast approaching some non-Euclidean intersection, and at the last possible moment I swerve into…the wrong lane.
OK, now you’re just being silly.After countless bad navigational experiences, I now have a routine that I follow when I have to travel across the river. First I access Google Maps, and locate my destination. Then I get a set of directions. Then I use the street view feature to familiarize myself with the streets near my destination. Finally, armed with a printout and a GPS-enabled PDA, I set off.
Mind you, I still get lost, but it gives me something to look at as I sit in someone’s driveway trying to figure out where I am.
{ 9 comments }
That is so funny. I try to only stay on the East Side and downtown because that to me seems more easy to navigate. 99% of the east side out to 122nd is mostly grid. Yeah, you do have Laurelhurst and Ladd’s Edition and Sellwood, but that is nothing compared to how twisty and turny it is past the west hills.
On the west side they have multiple names for each road and highway. I guess it depends on where you learned to drive.
For new Portlanders, if you’re in NW downtown, remember, the streets go alphabetically.
I actually think Portland is one of the easiest places to navigate (with the exception of parts of SW where the streets seem to twist and turn and change names randomly)
Everything is laid out in a grid.
Every one-way street has a one-way back the other direction on the next block.
All numbered streets run N-S (unlike places like Seattle, Minneapolis or NYC where you can be on the corner of 5th and 5th…huh?!??!!!)
But even the one year I lived on the west-side and the 3 years I worked out there – I still spent all my time downtown and eastside – so familiarity is a big key.
I think the biggest problem is not so much the way streets are laid out (you can memorize that after a bit) but the fact that the signage is way too small and not very coherent. Plus as far as highways go, you’ve got to learn not just what highway but what LANE to be in at any given time (come to think of it, that also applies to all the one-way streets and the more complicated arterials as well).
Not to mention having to navigate the bizarre lanes that are both entrances and exits at the same time.
The exception to the streets being fairly easy to figure out is the West Hills — particularly if it’s night time when you can’t read any of the non-reflective, usually-hidden-by-foliage signs. I took a Google map route from my inner NW place over to Bridlemile Elementary for a soccer game and got lost three times — on a bright, sunny day. And the traffic on your bumper doesn’t appreciate you slowing down to read the street signs.
Having been here for a while, I now find my normal routes very easy — but when my dad visited a few days ago, I realized explaining them to HIM would be impossible because the signage is so bizarre (in addition to streets having several names, as mentioned above) and hard to decipher at 40-50 miles an hour. His downtown hotel was 5 minutes from my and my brother’s houses via I-405, but we gave him a very basic route based on numbered streets since he was traveling at night. It took longer but was just easier to explain.
After a couple of days driving around, he didn’t find Portland hard to navigate but thought the signage was awful (and since he owns a sign company, he’s somewhat of an expert on the subject).
Portland may not have the worst traffic engineering in the US, but it certainly has some of the most bizarre.
Portland’s roads are filled with user traps. I used to think it was due to the age of the city, but then I started seeing new construction with the same bizarre designs. (At least we’re consistent in our inconsistency.)
It’s great whey you’ve got them all figured out. But it’s sheer hell for anybody visiting from out of town.
I can understand people’s frustrations with one-way streets and 3 lane freeways cutting down to 2 with an exit only lane, but I don’t know what you all mean by user traps? Throw out some examples.
And please don’t use the obvious ones like 5 corners by Ladd’s Edition or the Burnside/Sandy interchange. There are those challenges in every city. Heck, I was in Philly last weekend and they barely have street signs, so we’re ahead of them on that front.
Give examples. I want to know so I can have people avoid the challenges.
When we moved here, the biggest piece of driving advice we got was to never assume that you can just “catch the next exit” if you miss one on the freeway, which we have definitely found to be true.
I also want to know what Steve means by user traps (I think I know, but am not sure.)
However, I have numerous examples of the lane stuff I mentioned before and here’s two:
1. The folks who enter I-5 northbound from I-84 westbound have to trade lanes with those from I-5 northbound who are trying to exit at NE Broadway. At rush hour, you have every other car trading lanes at 50 to 60 miles an hour.
2. Coming off the Fremont Bridge going west and wanting to go north on US 30: you have to trade lanes with those coming off I-405 going toward NW 23rd. Again at 50 to 60 miles an hour.
And there are many more examples…..
One way streets are the greatest thing, here are 2 reasons why I think they make sense:
1) A vehicle can make a left turn on a red,
2) and most importantly, lights are timed so you can actually get to the end of the road without stopping. It’s as if it can (semi) defy gridlock.
One way streets keep people moving, drivers just have to keep an eye out for those signs.
I am the queen of getting lost. I get lost everywhere, including here in Portland. But the grid system has saved my tush. I know if I totally bombed a turn, that I can just make a right somewhere and I’ll be okay. I agree with Talea that the signage is awful. I wear glasses and even with my prescription being perfect, sometimes I’ve run up too quickly on the street I need. I wish they would either put the signs up higher on major intersections, or make them bigger.
But I have to admit, after living here, you just get used to the idiosyncrasies. And although I do still get lost when venturing beyond the comforts of my home in the NE, I just chalk it up to impromptu sightseeing.
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