From PortlandAfoot

Walking in Portland is a time-honored local tradition and a major policy goal of the City of Portland and Multnomah County. Their 2009 Climate Action Plan set a target that 8 percent of all Portlanders' work commutes should take place by foot in 2030, up from 4 percent in 2007 and 2008.

[edit] Commuting by foot

Source: 2005-2009 American Community Survey for workplace geography.

The richer you are, the less likely you are to walk to a job in Portland – until you become extremely well-off, that is.

Fifty-nine percent of Portland's 15,000 foot commuters earn less than $15,000 a year, according to 2005-2009 Census estimates, almost twice the rate of the general population.

However, as in pedestrian-friendly cities such as Boston and New York City, walking to work is slightly more popular among those who make more than $75,000 a year than among those who make $50,000 to $75,000.

[edit] Tips for walking in Portland

• Downtown blocks are one minute long. Because most city blocks in the central city are 260 to 280 feet long, it takes about one minute to walk them at a standard urban walking pace of 3 miles per hour. By making all the stoplights, a brisk walker can accelerate to one block every 45 seconds or so.

• Walk against traffic. In downtown Portland, as reported by the Portland Tribune, walking against traffic on a busy one-way street tends to increase the chance that you'll hit green lights.

• Don't plan to wait for the streetcar on trips under 0.8 miles. As calculated on the blog Human Transit, it is possible to "walk faster than the streetcar." As of September 2011, there are 13 minutes between each Portland Streetcar. Given the average streetcar speed of 6.5 miles per hour and a random streetcar arrival time, waiting the average 6.5 minutes for the next streetcar makes sense only on trips of 0.8 miles or more. Waiting the maximum 13 minutes for the next streetcar would make sense only on trips of 1.1 miles or more.
  • Riding streetcar to the South Waterfront makes sense, though, because the streetcar reaches a higher speed south of downtown.

[edit] Laws about walking in Portland

See pedestrian law in Portland.

[edit] Interest groups

The Portland-based Willamette Pedestrian Coalition is one of the nation's only political interest groups dedicated entirely to pedestrian rights. America Walks, whose executive director Scott Bricker lives in Portland, is another.