Starting in early April, Portland Parks & Recreation (PP&R) will begin restoration and enhancement work at the Gateway Green Park. Construction crews working on the MAX Red Line expansion closed a southern portion of the off-road cycling and outdoor recreation area in September 2021. The now completed TriMet transit bridge and track placement required significant earth-moving work, creating the opportunity to completely rebuild this section of the park and create an accessible entrance that should attract new park users.

Crews will work through autumn 2024, creating park amenities and reconnecting existing trails. Improved access starts with a pedestrian and bike access bridge from the Gateway Transit Center, leading to a new entry plaza with benches and way-finding signage. The new bridge, shared with southbound trains, allows parkgoers direct access from transit and parking. However, the path’s width also allows emergency vehicles to drive into the remote park. The plaza will connect to an existing path through the park with no more than 5% grade, allowing young riders and other people easy access through the otherwise steep terrain. Mountain bikers will also receive an additional 1,000 linear feet of new bike trails that utilize the condors of the hill.

The Gateway Green project began in 2016 with a vision of dedicated hiking and off-road cycling pathways. It now features a diversity of trails and pump tracks. This current work improves access and amenities while restoring the natural oak tree habitat. After years of rail construction on this site, landscapers and arborists will have to creatively reintegrate this land back into the park.

Gateway Green Park is isolated from the neighborhoods by the Interstate-84 and Interstate-205 interchange. Before these updates, people could only access the park from the I-205 Multi-Use Path. This isolation made it hard to discover, leading to limited usage. With the southern entrance at Gateway Transit Center, a new group of park users can walk into this large wooded area and use it for a range of unexplored activities.

PP&R plans to host a grand opening celebration on October 5, 2024, coinciding with the annual Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day. Funds collected from developers to expand park capacity provided $308,000 towards this project. Commissioner Dan Ryan directed PP&R to use the restricted Park System Development Charges for this project, avoiding using General Fund tax dollars. This funding method ensures that Portlanders continue to have convenient access to green space as the city grows without burdening the already stretched Parks budget. The northern sections of Gateway Green Park remain open during construction.

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