Columbia Slough Trail at Big Four Corners 3-21-23

Use this forum to report and discuss trails in need of maintenance. This will help organizations like TKO and agencies like the Forest Service get the most recent on-the-ground trail conditions.
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bobcat
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Location: SW Portland

Columbia Slough Trail at Big Four Corners 3-21-23

Post by bobcat » March 25th, 2023, 8:52 am

Took an delightful stroll along parts of the Columbia Slough Trail in far northeast Portland (Big Four Corners Natural Area).

Imprecation on bridge pier intended to set all us wayward hikers on the straight and narrow, save for spelling savvy:
King David's Covanate, Airport Way, Big Four Corners.jpeg
Some parts of the walk look decently natural:
Canada goose near Airport Way, Big Four Corners.jpeg
Little shelter at the official trailhead (long closed because of overnight and long-term camping):
Gazebo at old trailhead, Columbia Slough, Big Four Corners.jpeg
Interpretive sign near Portland Water Bureau Groundwater Facility:
Ruined interpretive sign, Columbia Slough, Big Four Corners.jpeg
Showing where to go on a bucolic family outing:
Trail sign, Columbia Slough, Big Four Corners.jpeg
Starting to look like the streets of Paris after Macron announced that the retirement age should be raised to 64:
Burned out van, Columbia Slough, Big Four Corners.jpeg
Trail infrastructure (could be in a Monet painting):
Arched bridge, Columbia Slough, Big Four Corners.jpeg
Last colorful stretch of trail heading up to Marine Drive:
Littered path, Columbia Slough, Big Four Corners.jpeg
Maybe some kind of interpretive feature. (The city removed 150 chop-shopped cars from this area last August but left this one.):
Burned out car, Columbia Slough, Big Four Corners.jpeg

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retired jerry
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Re: Columbia Slough Trail at Big Four Corners 3-21-23

Post by retired jerry » March 25th, 2023, 11:13 am

hmmm... I wonder what the meaning of all the misspellings is. It must have been intentional.

So many mysteries in the world to figure out

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Charley
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Re: Columbia Slough Trail at Big Four Corners 3-21-23

Post by Charley » March 25th, 2023, 12:36 pm

Oof. I ride to work along the Springwater Corridor and can report similar conditions (though no busted up vehicles) in the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge and Sellwood Riverfront Park. There are about a dozen camps I can see from the path, alone.

I wish the City would maintain these parks and return them to safe public use. This seems like a low priority, which is unfortunate, considering how important these greenspaces are to urban livability and ecosystem services.

A thought experiment:
If a wealthy Portlander were to erect a small cottage inside the boundaries of Forest Park, the City would undoubtedly send in a crew to demolish the structure and begin legal action against the person who has privatized this public resource. However, contrary to the normal patterns of criminal justice, because the people camping in Oaks Bottom have the least to lose in our community and really do need to sleep somewhere, there is no intervention, save incarceration, that could stop them from building camps. I suppose the City could pay for round-the-clock surveillance of our Parks and harass homeless people until they stopped trying to camp there, but honestly that would probably cost more than just housing people.

Remember when all this started? We've all been experiencing this shift gradually over the years, until the number of camps ramped way up during Covid, when local government was distracted, and after, when local law enforcement was either occupied with protests or. . . whatever.

Here's a Willy Week article from 2015 about the increasing cost of housing:
https://www.wweek.com/portland/article- ... ments.html

And here's an article from the City at about the same time period about the recent increase in homelessness:
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/toolkit/article/562207
From the article:
"Although the overall number of homeless people in Multnomah County between 2013 and 2015 did not change — despite the worsening affordable housing crisis — there are still serious concerns."
These concerns were warranted. While it's taken many years to try to address housing affordability, the City and State are both moving toward building our way out of this mess. Unfortunately, that action is too late to stem the current wave of camping.

So the only solution is to take direct action against the negative effects. Unfortunately, the City is hampered by its form of government, poor relations with Multnomah County, and poor relations with the Police Bureau.

Also infuriating, neighborhood advocates have made it impossible to build any shelters. Everyone says they want homeless people sheltered, instead of camps. However, any time the City tries to make a shelter, local neighborhood advocates find all sorts of reasons that the proposed location would be irresponsible. So. . . too few shelters.
7fuh5j.jpg
I wish we'd all start seeing that homeless camps are a choice we have made, by making alternatives (apartment building, shelter building) impossible!
Believe it or not, I barely ever ride a mountain bike.

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retired jerry
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Re: Columbia Slough Trail at Big Four Corners 3-21-23

Post by retired jerry » March 25th, 2023, 1:20 pm

There's a court decision that forbids the government from kicking people out of homeless camps unless there's some other place for them to go

Like you said, it's proven difficult to create any allowed places to camp

Like you said, a root cause is there isn't enough affordable housing. For builders, they make more profit building more expensive housing. People don't want affordable housing near them because they fear something bad will happen. Which is not a totally unjustified fear.

A couple years ago there was money allocated to build affordable housing. That is now coming on line - affordable apartments. I think there are 1000s of units. There was an apartment with affordable housing that recently ended it's prescribed period, so they were now going to raise rent to market level. There is a plan for the government to buy the unit and keep rents affordable. I don't know why the government doesn't talk about this more as an example of what they're doing.

Complicated problem that will take a while to fix. Many different groups are needed - government, non profits, citizens, businesses, churches,...

Anyone that says the problem can be easily fixed is B.S.ing. Or blaming people. "The government should just lock 'em up!!!"

Hopefully they'll reconsider that apartment building in Clackamas County that was suspended at the last moment.

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