Morrison Bridge Bike/Ped Path

The bridge is okay. It’s overloaded with homeless drug addicts shooting up and human feces wherever there is a stair case. They sleep all up and down this potentially wonderful place. It’s littered with their trash, graffiti and needles. The city really sucks for the little control it has over the homeless junky population. We need a new mayor!!! This path would be much better.

I wanted at the last minute to get back to my pedestrian roots and decided since I needed to get from SW 4^th and Oak and SE 2^nd and Oak, I’ll just take the Morrison Bridge across. Boy was that the biggest mistake ever.
Maybe I should have planned ahead, figured out where the entrance on the other side was. I walked on the side of traffic that was going downtown, the side with two feet of sidewalk and nothing between me and cars speeding down at 50MPH. It didn’t seem to bother anyone I passed going to opposite direction – but the shaking and clanking of metal as cars whizzed by sure as hell bothered me. I couldn’t even get down without going through some weird half down then half up u shaped staircase and walking down the highway some more before finally getting down at 2^nd and Water where the was a F*ING RAT in broad daylight scurrying across the sidewalk literally two feet from me. Only in the most ghetto subway station would you see a rat during the day.
NEVER AGAIN!!!

This is a nice bridge. Paths on both sides for riders/​walkers. And when that baby goes up for water traffic, it comes up, complete with light poles on either side. Very cool. From stop to start only 7 minutes, which seems fast for all the work it does.

I jumped the gun and rode across the Morrison Bridge last week, on the two-​way path that finally makes this most central Portland bridge accessible and safe for pedestrians & bikes.
It’s totally worth the year we spent as motorists not able to get onto the Morrison Bridge from Naito Pkwy. Now that ramp is opened and so is the long-​awaited Morrison Bridge Bike/​Ped Project, as Multnomah County has titled this path.
I’m hoping somebody comes up with a catchier title but in the meantime you don’t have to speak its name to appreciate that there is a direct connection on foot or two wheels from the heart of downtown to the burgeoning central Eastside district. And unlike some paths, this one is fortified from the intrusion of car traffic by some serious concrete and steel.
Besides reaching from SW 2^nd to SE Water, there is also access to the spiral ramp that drops down to the Eastbank Esplanade. In my mind I’m calling this the Death Spiral because after the dizzying descent the route dumps you out onto the busy Esplanade path at a half-​blind intersection. But like I said, I jumped the gun using the path — there may be more safety features implemented for the grand opening today.
This path could be very expensive for me in the long run, as it gives me direct access to Bunk Sandwiches and River City Bikes from my downtown perch but I don’t mind so much. I’ll pay that price.