The east side of Portland is characterized by its many historic “streetcar suburbs:” dense, walkable neighborhoods organized around mixed-use corridors and town centers that originally grew up near streetcar stops. As the city emerged from the recession and infill development accelerated, increased pressure on on-street parking led the City of Portland to pursue a parking planning initiative focused on giving neighborhoods a flexible set of tools to manage demand.
Our team led parking data collection and analysis in support of this effort, gathering detailed hourly information on parking supply, occupancy, and turnover in five representative centers and corridors across Portland: St. Johns Town Center, Hollywood Town Center, North Mississippi Avenue, Northeast 28th Avenue, and SE Division Street.
One memorable moment in the analysis sparked a broader policy discussion. While collecting data near Hollywood Town Center, our team observed unusually high parking demand tied to the filming of an episode of Grimm. The question quickly followed: should this be treated as an anomalous event and excluded from the analysis, or understood as a form of “normal” demand generated by local economic activity? In the end, we concluded it was the latter—a reminder that real-world parking conditions are shaped by the full range of activities that make neighborhoods vibrant.
The findings from this work supported the City’s development of a neighborhood parking toolkit, helping inform a menu of parking management strategies that could be tailored to the distinct context of Portland’s individual neighborhoods.
Brian Davis led this work while in a previous position.