PORTLAND, Ore. — The Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) has ordered the removal of several outdoor restaurant seating structures along Northwest 13th Avenue in the Pearl District, largely pulling the plug on the “Public Street Plaza” that sprang up along a section of the corridor during the COVID-19 pandemic. Three of the plaza’s four blocks will be switched back to two-way traffic.
The reversal was prompted by a lack of cooperation from three businesses in the plaza, according to a news release from PBOT, as well as “ongoing problems and community complaints with operations, over privatization of the right-of-way, and low public satisfaction.” One block between Northwest Everett and Flanders streets will be kept as a “fully pedestrianized space.”
The stretch of Northwest 13th Avenue between Davis and Johnson streets has an unusual streetscape design stemming in part from the area’s industrial past, with a series of historic buildings with street-facing loading docks that have been expanded into elevated storefront pedestrian walkways along the sides of some of the blocks…