There are four places that nearly EVERY Portland tourist visits, unless I get to them first and have them *avoid all of them* except Powell’s. They are:

Voodoo Doughnut:
(the source of those ubiquitous pink boxes)

The Saturday Market (also running on Sundays), the largest continually operating professionally juried arts & crafts market in the U.S.:

Waterfront Park, which is boring to me unless you’re biking—or, of course, the cherry trees are blossoming (pink, coincidentally):

And…Powell’s, the world’s largest bookstore. Powell’s is at 10th & Burnside. Everything from *10th west* (such as the streetcar line) is magical, on both sides of Burnside.

The HUGE mistake that EVERY tourist in Portland makes, of course, is walking EAST of 10th along Burnside or Ankeny toward the water. It’s unquestionably the most uninviting corridor in the downtown area, if not the entire Pacific Northwest.

To head from Powell’s to Voodoo Doughnut and the waterfront, most people end up walking either along Burnside:

Or they walk along Ankeny—*if* they can find it, which they usually can’t. Ankeny and Burnside are the ONLY two ways to go from Powell’s to all the overhyped attractions in Old Town, and they’re both super ugly stretches of road that both lead to Portland’s ugliest area:

But as long as tourists insist on stumbling along this corridor between the waterfront and Powell’s, they might as well follow a fun collection of hundreds of pink stencils that are inspired by both Voodoo Doughnut and Big Pink!! 🙂

The building every Portlander calls “Big Pink” is not only along the Ankeny Alley corridor, but SW Ankeny is actually a *public* corridor that passes right *through* Big Pink’s lobby!

Thus, let’s have people follow the “big pink” signs to and through Big Pink! And this corridor must be made CAR-FREE.

Boston’s most popular path is the Freedom Trail. People literally follow a red path; it’s super simple and enjoyable. For years, I’ve been wanting to create a similar path from boats to books, i.e., parks to Powell’s:

EVERY single tourist I asked about this idea LOVED it, including these nice women visiting from Minnesota. Like most tourists in this area, they were walking with their pink box from Voodoo:

Again, it’s incredibly unfortunate (at least until this car-free “pink pathway” becomes a reality!) that tourists always go EAST from Powell’s rather than WEST. If you’re on 10th or higher, there’s no way to go wrong on either side of Burnside. The building below is at 13th & Burnside, which is worlds apart from 3rd & Burnside:

All of Burnside EAST of 10th (going toward the waterfront) looks like this and much worse. It’s mostly blank walls, tons of space for cars, and very little for pedestrians:

So, as long as tourist insist on walking between Portland Saturday Market to Powell’s, we might as well give them a NICE corridor: SW Ankeny Street! Technically, it’s Ankeny to Broadway to Stark to Union Way to Powell’s. Just follow the pink path!! 🙂

My new corridor has the final block leading to Powell’s passing right through Union Way, a *gorgeous* European-style car-free arcade that few people even know about! Talk about an incredible alternative to the current nightmare!

But FIRST, we need to make extend the current one-block-long car-free stretch of Ankeny by making the ENTIRE 8-block Ankeny alley car-free:

While doing research for this post, I often stood for five minutes or more without seeing any cars pass through blocks like this. So, let’s put some pink signs in the street and make it a fun corridor for PEOPLE rather than CARS!

Let’s stop relegating pedestrians to narrow sidewalks along Ankeny. The entire corridor is the most inefficient land use imaginable in a major downtown corridor. The cars all need to be banned immediately from SW Ankeny and opened up for PEOPLE to enjoy!

All these people are on Ankeny St. This was taken in March; the crowds multiply in summer. Nearly all eventually head toward Big Pink in the background and beyond it to Powell’s. And they ALL end up walking either on depressing Burnside or along the confusing and nearly as depressing Ankeny corridor west of 3rd:

Let’s give all these people (including *locals*, who are equally unaware of a better alternative) wayfinding signs to help them follow a beautiful new trail to the world’s largest bookstore!

People line around the block at seemingly all hours of all days to get their pink boxes from Voodoo Doughnut. The car-free block of Ankeny between 2nd and 3rd is right behind the people in line:

The view above shows Ankeny St between 2nd and 3rd Avenue. Every block of Ankeny WEST of 3rd (until it ends when Ankeny folds into Burnside just before 10th, coincidentally right at Powell’s Books) looks like this:

And EVERY block of Burnside from the waterfront to 10th looks like this or much worse:

Eventually, nearly all tourists end up at Powell’s Books, which is at the exact spot (10th Avenue) where the Burnside/Ankeny stretch instantly gets MUCH more pleasant than it is between 3rd and 10th. The picture below is right by Powell’s, on 11th:

So, let’s create a beautiful car-free corridor on Ankeny stretching from the waterfront all the way to Powell’s!

There’s more than enough room on Ankeny to accommodate every pedestrian and cyclist between the waterfront and Powell’s. Yet Ankeny continues to be a car-oriented total waste of space. Imagine if the center of the image below were a beautiful car-free plaza instead of empty asphalt:

Here’s a winter view of the vast “intersection” of Ankeny and Broadway. It shows a classic “sneckdown.” This term has suddenly gotten extremely popular among folks who like to show right after snowfalls exactly how much space we over-allocate to cars. Jonathan Maus, the world’s greatest and most prolific bicycle blogger, took the picture below. Let’s turn the entire snow-covered triangle into a beautiful plaza at one of Portland’s most prominent intersections: Ankeny/Burnside & Broadway!!

What if the SW Ankeny alley corridor could be a place for PEOPLE rather than empty asphalt?!? Travel to ANY city on Earth, and you’ll find that the ONLY thing that attracts people to a space is…seeing other PEOPLE!

SW Ankeny is BEGGING for a sequence of pink stencils that will help lead people from the waterfront to Powell’s! It’s currently by *far*  the most dismal corridor of downtown, but once Ankeny is made car-free and people happily follow the “pink path” through Big Pink to Powell’s, it will instantly transform into a super fun, people friendly corridor!

Here’s what it could look like, from east to west. Enjoy! 🙂

The fun starts on the water, naturally:

The Saturday Market and waterfront will always attract crowds. Notice that Big Pink is in the background. We’ll follow SW Ankeny directly to and *through* Big Pink, ending at Powell’s Books:

OK, enough of the waterfront. 🙂 We’ll now begin our westward journey along Ankeny, starting with the Saturday Market knock-off area:

There’s a TON of public transit near Ankeny between the waterfront and Powell’s. It’s all the more reason to remove all cars from Ankeny:

Again, everyone facing me is heading west toward Powell’s along Ankeny, and a car-free Ankeny alley would suit them PERFECTLY. There are two MAX light rail lines right behind them and two more MAX lines on the other side of Big Pink (just before Powell’s), plus dozens of bus lines and two streetcar lines by Powell’s.

Streets are so much more interesting when they’re filled with PEOPLE instead of CARS:

Continuing west on Ankeny, this is the beautiful car-free block between 2nd and 3rd. Ankeny is an *awful* alley west of 3rd; it’s what I’m trying to transform into a continuation of something like this:

Make the rest of Ankeny car-free, and let the pink boxes guide the crowds to Big Pink and Powell’s! 🙂

These kids would LOVE to follow the pink boxes! I know, because I asked them! 🙂

It’s the perfect way to continue to Keep Portland Weird! And yes, I’m looking at this sign while standing on the Ankeny alley corridor, which is too perfect:

The corridor continues right into and through the Big Pink office tower. Again, there’s a TON of transit, which is all the more reason that SW Ankeny is BEGGING to be freed from its paltry car usage and opened up to happy people:

These women LOVED the idea of the Pink Pathway! They had bought their donuts and were, predictably, headed to Powell’s. Let’s give them a beautiful car-free way to instantly convert what is currently a super frustrating, nasty journey!

And I’m serious about putting the pink stencils directly into the floor of Big Pink itself. After all, it’s a *public* corridor (sort of, but I don’t have time to explain all the negotiations with Unico):

The pink pathway now continues on the other (west) side of Big Pink. We’re getting close to Powell’s at this point!

These guys (apparently dressed as Oregon lumberjacks) totally loved the pink pathway idea. EVERYONE I asked loved it! SW Ankeny continues in the background between the buildings:

Imagine how much more amazing this stretch of Ankeny both along and west of Broadway would be if no cars were allowed on Ankeny. It’s only an 8-block stretch, or two fifths of a mile, in total:

Give pedestrians and cyclists access to this street! It’s hardly EVER used by cars, anyway:

Biketown bikes are just waiting for people to enjoy along the Ankeny corridor. This Biketown station is at the west end of Ankeny, where it folds into Burnside close to Powell’s Books:

But my proposed pink pathway now cuts *south* on Broadway from the “sneckdown” winter scene shown  earlier. This is looking south on Broadway, Portland’s main north-south street. I also have an idea to create a “Portland Eiffel Tower” where that TV tower is in the background:

From this point, wayfinding signs would direct both tourists and locals either west along Stark (to keep following the pink signs) or south along Broadway to America’s only true European-style piazza, the one and only Pioneer Courthouse Square:

So, following Stark west from Broadway, you reach 10th Avenue in just 200 meters (656 feet). The Portland Streetcar (America’s first modern streetcar) stops right at SW 10th & Stark; it couldn’t have been planned more perfectly for this pink pathway. 10th Avenue also provides a MUCH better crossing of nearby Burnside than ANY crossing of Burnside east of 10th (which are the ones that unfortunately 99% of tourists and even locals end up making):

We’re now in Portland’s magical West End (10th to 13th, south of Burnside). Merely leading people to this area is *alone* worth the effort of creating this new pathway to follow! Below is a typical view on a nice day in the beautiful West End, which has a very specific and very special feature that’s totally unique in the U.S. that to which I might have to devote a separate blog post:

Just a few steps west on Stark takes us to the Ace Hotel, whose Portland flagship was called by the New York Times “America’s coolest hotel.” Across from the Ace is Union Way, which leads directly to Powell’s Books!

We’ve now made it to Powell’s via an incredibly fun new pathway! Ankeny to Broadway to Stark to Union Way to Powell’s—a gorgeous, vibrant, safe path to follow!

Now that you’ve safely made it to Powell’s, you might as well continue west and north and explore the Pearl District. Literally every block from 10th west, on both sides of Burnside is wonderful to explore. The Pearl is north of Burnside, and the West End is south of Burnside (again, from 10th west to 14th).

Below are a few shots of the Pearl District:

Let’s MAKE THIS PINK PATH HAPPEN!! 🙂