Portland's Franklin Street redesign

DanielPWM19 said:
Haha ... NO ... that is a hot mess. Is that a prior iteration of that location?
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LOL... only a year later. Yup! The two roads exiting at the top are St. John and Valley, the one to the left is the old Veterans' Bridge (which was directly next and parallel to the existing railroad bridge), lower left is the Cassidy Point road connector with the hated RR overpass, going towards bottom right is the squiggly connector to Commercial St., straight off to the right is Danforth (with a flyover directly to and from the bridge; it was actually signed as the route to downtown for many years), and the building with a curbcut directly on the circle is what is, the last I heard, the Sweetser building (known back then as One Gateway Circle). Note that traffic coming off the bridge couldn't access St. John St.; Route 1 Northbound followed Valley St. to Park Avenue.

As far as the Franklin St. project goes, I personally wish it would be abandoned. I have no desire to see it de-expressway-ified.
 
I'm fine with overall layout of Franklin Street but would like to see sidewalks added, Federal Street reconnected, modern lighting, improved landscaping and an illuminated PORTLAND sculpture in the center median as you head up the hill from Marginal Way.
 
Portlander said:
I'm fine with overall layout of Franklin Street but would like to see sidewalks added, Federal Street reconnected, modern lighting, improved landscaping and an illuminated PORTLAND sculpture in the center median as you head up the hill from Marginal Way.
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I like your idea. Here is some inspiration.... (And maybe add the "Cross Insurance" logo at the bottom so that they will pay for it.)

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I like this one TC and maybe elevated a little higher so it can be seen by vehicles on Interstate 295!
 
As a proud Portland native, I feel compelled to observe that Lewiston and Bangor have such nice signs as a service to those who arrive there and say, "Are you sure this is it?"

Franklin would indeed be a great place for a cool sign (assuming we can't have the tunnel to Middle St.). The few nice welcome signs the city has (I think there are three, and Franklin does have one) aren't bad, but they don't stand out.
 
Their main complaint was that it is not grandiose enough, could not be seen from a plane and were hoping for something similar to the HOLLYWOOD sign. I liked the verse "it looks like they got these letters from Toys R Us!
 
If you had a tunnel it would free up so much space for development, still give easy access to Cumberland, Congress, etc, allow connectivity with streets that are currently cut off, allow for awesome signage at the entries of the tunnel, bring more public green space and walkability to the neighborhoods and so many other benefits. Did this quickly to visualize what the overhead layout of the tunneled Franklin would look like!!
 

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Was the original design supposed to have a tunnel feature, aka where the green space is? An expressway from commercial to 295. local traffic would utilize the current roads.
 
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