Can Woodfords Corner be a 10 minute neighborhood?
By Kellan Simpson, FWC Volunteer - Active Transportation Committee
Friends of Woodfords Corner conducted a study to see exactly who is 10 minutes walking from a business directly across Forest Ave in Woodfords Corner.
A "10 minute neighborhood" is an urban planning approach that has started to rapidly gain momentum all around the United States. In a 10 minute neighborhood, all (or at least most) of daily trips (school, gym, work, shops, restaurants, transit) can be reached with a 10 minute walk. The 10 minute criteria is a bit of a soft threshold for the journey distance most people would be willing to take on. Exceed 10 minutes walking, and a trip via car becomes more and more likely. A 10 minute neighborhood is designed for the people that live there, rather than cars passing through. The benefits of this approach are simply massive. The people are healthier, the air cleaner, the roads quieter, and carbon emissions are decreased. Medical expenses go down, traffic deaths decrease, maintenance costs decrease. Community and business blossom with better walkability and more pleasant surroundings. Less space is allocated for cars, parking, and traffic. More space is provided for human beings and community.
Nothing kills this concept faster than a wall that divides a neighborhood in half. For Woodfords Corner, Forest ave is that wall. A wide, loud, and even life threatening expanse discourages residents from walking/biking to any businesses on or near the corner. Because of this wall, we have "East Woodfords" and "West Woodfords".
One of the hardest parts of achieving the 10 minute neighborhood in the U.S. is getting housing dense enough to allow economic activity via foot traffic instead of vehicle traffic. Single family zoning, parking minimums, and large lot sizes make the idea of a 10 minute neighborhood almost impossible in most places around the country. Woodfords Corner is in a unique situation where most of the hard work is already done. We already have the housing density, the great local businesses, and the transit. Unfortunately, we have a wall. The map demonstrates just how many residents are excluded from being 10 minutes from Woodfords Corner simply due to the absurd timing of the crosswalks. A quick programming change from the City of Portland, and another 700 residential buildings will fall inside the 10 minute walking radius. Longer term, there are some larger scale traffic calming exercises to Forest ave required to not just reduce walking time, but also make the street pleasant to walk. Woodfords Corner has all the bones to be a shining example of sustainable, happy, and healthy neighborhood design, we just need to start breaking down the wall.
