Getting around Portland

Portland, it seems, is remarkably easy to get around. It's won awards from both bicycling and walking magazines (yeah, we know — walking magazines?) for being so, well, bikable and walkable. And the grid layout of most of downtown is fairly easy to figure out. Nonetheless, here are some helpful tips.

With car

While it's far from a necessity to have a car to get around Portland, it can be a nice thing, especially if you plan on taking some extra time to visit the coast, Mt. Hood, or anything outside of the downtown core.

Parking

Perhaps the most useful thing we can help you with that you can't learn by looking at a good map is the parking situation. Parking in Portland can be relatively tricky for those used to large parking lots. Most of the time, you will have to park on the street, which often means parking within a block or two of your intended destination and walking the rest of the distance. Parallel parking is often a must if you want a good spot.

For wedding events, we have reserved a small parking lot adjacent to and just southeast of The Old Church for the ceremony. For parking near the The Crystal Ballroom, please see the reception page. Call your hotel to ask what the parking situation is there.

In general, downtown streets are metered from some time before Todd gets up until 7 p.m., Monday to Saturday (Sundays are free). But always make sure to check the signs on your stretch of curb — some places are always "no parking" zones, others have restrictions depending on the time.

If there's a coin meter next to your parking spot, you can stay there as long as it indicates for as long as you (or the generous person before you) have paid.

If the signs on the curb say "pay to park", you have to go pay at the green parking station in the middle of the block. This involves a mildly complicated process which is explained reasonably well on the machine if you have the patience to read all the instructions. If you are successful, the machine will spit out a sticker, which you then take back to your car and stick on the inside of the curb window, facing out so Mr. Parking Man can be reassured that you are an upstanding person. It may sound like we're being pedantic, but we've seen too many incorrectly placed stickers in our time. The station also indicates on its side how long you can park in your spot, and it won't let you pay for more time than that.

The nice thing about the stickers is that if you pay for more time than you use (say you have an hour left when you leave your first parking spot), you can use the same sticker to park somewhere else without having to buy more time. Occasionally, people who have no need for their spare time will apply their stickers back on the green parking station, but when you're parking there, all the ones stuck there will be several hours or days expired.

If you want to park for longer stretches of time, can't stand the hassle of parallel parking, or possibly want to park out of the sun/rain, you may want to find a parking lot. Many of them aren't too cheap, and their prices vary depending on place, date, and time. Probably the best deal are the lots run by Smart Park which, libertarians will be dismayed to know, is owned by the City of Portland. Their site has information about rates and locations.

On-street parking on the east side of the river and some parts of northwest Portland is free.

Highways

You're likely better off studying a map than reading through this section, but if you've got the time, I've got the typing skills.

There aren't a lot of highways in Portland, so generally when you want to go a particular direction, you only have one choice. I-5 is the main north-south highway, running north up to Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, and south to San Francisco. Passing through Portland, it runs just east of the Willamette river. Branching off of I-5 in a short, semi-circular fashion is I-405, which runs west of the Willamette and generally forms the western boundary of downtown. I-205 runs east of I-5 and is parallel to it through most of Portland, though it eventually connects to I-5 in both directions. It is the highway that you take to and from the airport.

The only major east-west highway on the east side of the Willamette is I-84 (occasionally labeled as Highway 30, which it also is), which starts at I-5 near the river and runs east, connecting to I-205 (for trips to/from the airport) and eventually on to the Columbia gorge and eastern Oregon. On the west side of town, Highway 26 comes in from the coast and ends right in the middle of the city, where it intersects I-405.

Bridges

As has been pointed out, there's a river running through downtown, so if you plan on going from one side of town to the other, it's good to know what streets cross over on bridges. Again, if you have a good map, it will likely prove more useful.

I-405 crosses over the Willamette in either direction as it hooks up with I-5, but these bridges are only useful if you were planning on heading north or south on I-5, anyway.

Starting from the north, the Broadway Bridge connects NW Lovejoy and NW Broadway on the west side of town with the one-way street pair of NE Weidler and NE Broadway on the east side. Be aware that Broadway runs east-west on the east side of Portland, but north-south on the west side after it crosses the river. Tricky.

South of that is the Steel Bridge, which connects NW Glisan on the west side with a generally confusing morass of streets on the east side. There are more convenient bridges for people driving.

The Burnside Bridge connects W Burnside to E Burnside in a refreshingly straightforward way.

The Morrison Bridge connects the one-way street pair of SW Washington and SW Alder on the west side with SE Morrison and SE Belmont on the east side.

The Hawthorne Bridge connects the one-way street pair of SW Main and SW Madison on the west side with SE Hawthorne and SE Madison on the east side. There are other bridges, but they're not likely to prove useful to visitors.

Without car

It's surprising how easy it is to get around Portland without a car. As an example, while Todd moved here a typical Texan driver, in the space of a few years he has managed to curtail his driving so much that he actually got a ticket for failing to move his vehicle, even though it was parked on his street. At any given moment, there's a decent chance that Todd and Julia don't know exactly where their cars are.

Public transportation

In general, your friend in planning all things bus or light rail is the Web site for TriMet, the regional agency in charge of public transportation. In particular, their Trip Planner is a rather helpful gadget that can tell you how to get from point A to point B at C o'clock.

During business hours, you can also call 503-238-RIDE for information from a person, who will likely end up using the same trip planner to help you out. That phone number also has an option that will tell you when the next bus is coming, which is nice, if complicated.

MAX (light rail)

The MAX (Metropolitan Area eXpress, not that anybody calls it that) consists of three light rail lines — red, blue, and yellow, all of which run on the same tracks in downtown Portland. The red ("airport") line runs from the airport west to downtown to Beaverton. The blue line runs east-west from Gresham to downtown to Hillsboro. The yellow ("Interstate") line runs north-south from downtown to North Portland.

Streetcar

The Streetcar is practically just another MAX line, but is somehow technically different enough to warrant the claim by TriMet that the "Portland Streetcar is the first modern streetcar in the United States." Whatever. It runs from the southeast corner of downtown, north and south along 10th and 11th, and then east and west over to NW 23rd. Guests may find it useful since it runs close to the wedding and ceremony sites, as well as the Inn @ Northrup Station. However, the Streetcar isn't always as frequent as you want it to be, and if you're only going a few blocks, you may find it's quicker just to walk.

Buses

Buses (omnibuses for long) run all over the place, but one thing you should know is that a great many of the bus lines converge downtown on 5th and 6th Avenues, known as the bus mall. The Trip Planner will tell you the best place to pick up a bus, of course, but if you really just like to watch buses, the bus mall is the place for you.

Bus and train fares

The first thing you should know about buses and light rail is that it's all free in the downtown core. Zounds! Yup, if you hop on a bus or train within the area known as Fareless Square and stay within that area, you pay nothing. The TriMet Web site gives a better explanation of Fareless Square's boundaries, but in general, it's everything north and east of I-405, south of NW Irving, and west of the Willamette. This area includes the ceremony and reception sites and the Day's Inn. The Mallory is only two blocks away from Fareless Square's edge. You can't beat free (unless things come to the creation of Get-Paid-To-Ride Square, but Portland isn't that progressive).

Other than that, it costs $1.40 for a 2-zone trip. The TriMet site's Trip Planner does a good job of explaining when you'll be travelling through more than two zones, but for most things in town, a 2-zone ticket is all you'll need (the major exception is the trip from downtown to the airport, which requires an all-zone ticket). Your validated ticket (or transfer slip, if you pay on the bus) is good for two hours of travel, until the time indicated on the ticket. If all this talk of transfers and zones is a bit confusing for you, you might consider the all-day ticket, which for $3.50 will take you anywhere until midnight. The mathematically clever will note that you'd have to take three bus or train trips to justify the cost. Others may simply relish the possibility of staying on an air-conditioned bus all day and never get off.

Please note that while you pay for your fare on board buses and the Streetcar, you have to buy a ticket before you get on the MAX (unless you're traveling within Fareless Square) from a machine on the platform. All tickets and transfers for buses, MAX, and Streetcar are interchangeable.

Walking

Portland is well-suited for those wishing to eschew the whole wheeled-transportation thing and hoof it. Powell's Books (at NW 10th and Burnside) has a nice free walking map, or you can print it out yourself (PDF format).